Michigan Monday: Game 5 at Iowa

Game Notes Nuggets

• Michigan will take its top-ranked scoring offense on the road to face the top-ranked scoring defense in the country in Iowa. 

• The Wolverines are scoring at a clip of 50 points per game and claim the No. 7 scoring defense (11 points allowed per game) through the first quarter of the regular season. Alabama (No. 5 offense, No. 3 defense) is the only other team in the country ranked in the top 10 on both sides of the ball.

• The Wolverines are scoring 5.2 touchdowns for every one that they allow (26 to five) in the early going, and have made twice as many field goals (six) as opponents have attempted (three).

• At 200 points through four games, the squad is among the highest-scoring Michigan teams in recent history. Since 1905, the only team with more points through the season’s first four games is the 2016 squad (208 points).

• Iowa has the nation’s No. 1 scoring defense (5.8 points per game), having allowed only two touchdowns and 23 total points this season. No team has scored a rushing touchdown against them through four games.

• Dating to last season, U-M has totaled 30 rushing touchdowns across its last eight games (17 in first four games of 2022, 13 in final four games of 2021).

• Blake Corum‘s explosive start to the season continues. Corum’s career-best 243 yards last weekend were the most by a U-M back since Tshimanga Biakabutuka in 1995 (313 yards vs Ohio State). Denard Robinson’s 2010 performance against Notre Dame (258 rushing yards) was the last time any Wolverine had a game on the ground like Corum did against Maryland.

• Corum, who was named the Co-Big Ten Player of the Week on Monday (Sept. 26) ranks seventh in the country in rushing yards (478), fifth in yards per carry (7.47), and first in rushing touchdowns (nine).

• In Michigan’s modern era, no player has rushed for as many touchdowns through the first four games of the season than Corum has this year. Tyrone Wheatley’s 1993 season is the closest (eight). The last Wolverine at any position responsible for nine touchdowns in the first four games of the year was Shea Patterson in 2019 (six passing, three rushing). 

• Among backs with at least 30 carries, Corum’s 7.5 yards per attempt ranks eighth in the country. As a freshman, Corum averaged 3.0 yards per carry on 26 rush attempts. In the ensuing 207 carries across 16 games, he has averaged better than 6.9 yards per carry, including 6.35 yards per carry in Big Ten play.

• Corum has produced…