Tarik Black has had a rough go of it early on in his Michigan football career with injuries to each foot in back-to-back years, which kept him from making an impact at the wide receiver position.
Black, by all accounts, is healthy now and has been one of Michigan’s top two receivers in the first set of games of the season and he spoke to the media on the effect that his foot surgeries had on him.
“That’s never happened to me before,” Black said on Tuesday. “I’ve never been hurt playing football in my life. So, it was kind of something new for me. I kind of got a little PTSD from it coming back.
“But now I think I’m out of that phase and ready to move forward.”
Black, who has screws in each foot that are holding bones together, admitted that even when he returned to the field after seven games last year, he still was not 100 percent ready to roll, but was good enough to play.
“I wouldn’t say I was fully 100 percent, no,” Black said. “But you gotta play through some things.”
Black, a former four-star recruit in the class of 2017, has seven catches for 104 yards and one touchdown through two games this season.
Josh Metellus singled out for Army performance
Defensive back Josh Metellus has quietly become one of the best and most important players on the Michigan defense and his versatility was on display in the win over Army in Week 2.
Metellus’ performance was singled out by Pro Football Focus:
Josh Metellus did a little bit of everything vs Army in Week 2. pic.twitter.com/Pz9NFGzt5A
— PFF College (@PFF_College) September 10, 2019
Metellus was one of the bigger hits on the recruiting trail from Jim Harbaugh’s satellite camp tour a few years ago. Metellus was part of a crop of players from Flanagan HS in Pembroke Pines, Florida that included linebackers Devin Bush and Devin Gil, so it looks like we can say the camps worked in retrospect for the most part.
Aidan Hutchinson profiled by MGoBlue
Defensive end Aidan Hutchinson is growing into his role as one of the key members of the Michigan defense, but as a sophomore fans do not really know him just yet. Steve Kornacki of MGoBlue.com wrote a feature story this week on the son of former Wolverine, Chris Hutchinson.
One day about a half-dozen years ago, his father came into that bedroom to discover a prediction, written in cursive on a blank sheet of paper by his son: “I will play football at the University of Michigan.”
Chris, now an emergency room physician just north of Detroit at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, chuckled about that prophecy.
”One day I was up in his room,” said Chris, “and he hadn’t told me about it, and I saw that taped to his wall there and I thought that was interesting. I walked over to my wife and said, ‘Hey, honey, did you see what Aidan taped to his wall?’ We looked at it, taped just to the left of his desk, and we thought, ‘OK, well, if that’s what you want, we’ll help you try and achieve that.’”
Aidan smiled while reliving his creation of that goal: “It was always a dream of mine to play football here, and so one day I grabbed a white, blank sheet of computer paper and wrote, ‘I will play football at the University of Michigan.’
”I put it on my wall with a couple pieces of tape and it was there for years. I always envisioned myself earning the scholarship and putting on the hat for signing day. That day really came true. It’s weird that what you put out to the universe, how those things come true.”
The rest of the story is a good read if you get around to it. This guy has future captain and All-Big Ten performer written all over him.
National Brews
- Penn State defensive tackle Antonio Shelton has a message that not only his fanbase needs to hear, but something that should be directed at Michigan fans, as well.
Appreciate everybody that came out to support tonight. But some people are becoming too comfortable. Ain’t nothing wrong with a little criticism,that’s not what I’m saying. But when you become overtly disrespectful, there’s a problem.
— Antonio (@_groovy55) September 8, 2019
- The feud between LSU and Texas is going beyond the Tigers’ win in Austin on Saturday night. After a back-and-forth regarding the AC in the visitors locker room, now it seems the bands are going at it.
- Bless those gosh darn BYU football fans for how delightful they were in Knoxville after their football team took down Tennessee. Raise your carbonated, non-alcoholic beverages in respect.