After last season, Michigan coach Sherrone Moore wanted to see more touchdowns. It’s why he replaced his offensive coordinator and brought in an arsenal of guys, including junior running back Justice Haynes, that can find the endzone.
And according to sophomore running back Jordan Marshall, that’s worked out well for the Michigan football team in fall camp so far — maybe even too well for Moore’s liking.
“That’s my favorite part about this team, is it’s an unselfish offense,” Marshall said Thursday. “No matter what’s going on, we score. Everybody’s off the sideline running to celebrate, and coach Moore gets mad because we’re all on the field and we’re running down there like we just scored our first touchdown.”
More than any other position group, the Wolverines’ offense is counting on the running backs to be unselfish. Michigan needs someone to emerge from the quarterback room, it needs receivers to prove they can create separation and there even exists a few holes to fill on the offensive line. But in Marshall and Haynes, the Wolverines seem confident in their ball carriers.
Reciprocating the sentiment, Marshall and Haynes seem confident they’ll both get their touches and their touchdowns.
“Desmond Howard said it best to us yesterday in a TTG meeting that we had. He said, ‘You know, I’ve never seen a great player get caught up to greatness’,” Haynes said Wednesday. “And that’s just a testament to our room. If you want to be the best running back in the country, it comes out of the best running back room. And we say it all the time, we want to be the best unit in the country, not just the best running back unit, but the best overall unit.”
While Haynes and Marshall aren’t the most veteran backs in college football, they’ve each shown enough to be confident in themselves. Haynes averaged 5.7 yards per carry as the second option for Alabama last season and Marshall earned MVP honors in the Wolverines’ win over the Crimson Tide in the ReliaQuest bowl.
And as they’ve gotten to know one another better since Marshall hosted Haynes on his visit many months ago, each has grown confident enough in the other to set lofty goals for the unit and further appreciate the necessity of unselfishness for this season.
Marshall even noted how Michigan has used two backs for the entirety of his time with the program. In 2023, both Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards carried the ball over 100 times. In 2024, the same thing occurred with Kalel Mullings and Edwards.
However, comparing Haynes and Marshall to the duos of years past gets tougher when analyzing the skillsets of each. Haynes, Marshall and the coaching staff both think of the two as every-down, complete backs. The situational usage of each isn’t as clear as last season when Mullings was the power back and Edwards was the receiving and explosive-plays back. But then again, this year’s offense is supposed to be different and it needs to be.
“I think they complement each other because they push each other,” Michigan offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey said Monday. “… They’re both every-down backs, in my opinion, that can be in there first, second and third down. Protections are good. And they’re smart and competitive, and they understand they need each other.”
Obviously Lindsey was hired to pull the Wolverines’ offense back into the twenty-first century with the forward pass, but his running backs are arguably the best mix of proven production and raw talent of any position group Lindsey has to work with. Regardless of how revamped the passing attack is with whoever wins the quarterback battle under center, Haynes and Marshall are more likely than not to be Michigan’s top two touchdown scorers this year.
Because they both seem to understand the importance of splitting carries, they will likely not care who tallies more trips to the endzone. Haynes and Marshall just want the new offense to keep scoring, and Moore just wants it to translate from fall camp to live games — so he can join in on the celebration too.
