Michigan football captain embracing a unique mindset

Over the past two seasons, Blake Corum has stood out among his peers, establishing himself as one of the top offensive Wolverines to land in Ann Arbor in quite some time. With the 2023 college football season a mere nine days away in Ann Arbor, this newly appointed Michigan football captain is embracing a unique mindset — he strives to be a “savage.”

Michigan football captain embracing unique mindset

Blake Corum had a dog back home that was named Savage, which sparked an intense mindset that has continued to spread throughout the Michigan football locker room. Earlier today, Corum explained to us what this “Savage” mindset means and how it is being implemented in Ann Arbor ahead of the 2023 college football season.

“For me, I definitely lead by example,” newly appointed Michigan football captain Blake Corum explained. “I only talk when talk is needed. We got in from the teams, and we were telling each other, ‘What do we want? What are your goals?’ For me, I was basically saying that everyone says they’re a dog. That’s cool, everyone’s a dog; everyone says it nowadays. But there’s a difference between a dog and a savage. Back home, I had a South African Boerboel, his name was Savage. And I live on a couple of acres. Every time we let him out, he’d sniff the whole property, the perimeter, making sure nothing was there. 

“That’s what being a savage is. It didn’t matter if it was a black bear — I’ve seen him chase deer, raccoons — I’ve seen it all. He wasn’t a dog, he was a savage. So I was basically saying, when we go into the big house, we need to be savages; we don’t need to be dogs. When we go in there, we circle the perimeter of our stadium — whatever’s not supposed to be there gets handled.”

Blake Corum emphasizes said mindset in the locker room

When did Blake Corum introduce his “Savage” story to the rest of the Wolverines? Fairly recently, actually.

“That was maybe two weeks ago. If you look at my Twitter, my thing (handle) is “Be Savage.” I’ve always considered myself a savage. I used to be a dog, but once I got to high school, I became a savage.”

Earlier in the offseason, Jim Harbaugh added a new sticker to the Michigan football helmet, given to the player that best represents his motto, “Enthusiasm Unknown to Mankind.” Could this “Savage” motto of Blake Corum’s become a new sticker as well?

“You get an award within yourself knowing you’re a savage,” he said. “We might have to put a sticker on the back of the helmet — ‘Savage Award’ — might be a picture of my dog.”

This approach could do well for the Wolverines throughout the 2023 college football season

There is a lot of talk in many locker rooms about players being a “dawg.” How does one go from a dog to a savage?

“You’ve got to want to,” Corum said. “It’s all about wanting to. A lot of people think you just have it in you. Nah. you have it in you, but it takes someone to pull it out of you, and that’s what I was kind of telling the guys. You all can be dogs if you want, but I’m gonna try to pull that savage out of you. It’s that mindset of ‘I can’t be stopped.’ That mindset of like, ‘I want to kill everything on the field.’ That’s what savages are about. They’re fierce.”

With the 2023 season on the horizon, Blake Corum and the University of Michigan football program are looking to embrace this unique mindset in hopes of claiming a Big Ten Championship, a College Football Playoff berth, and a National Championship this fall.

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