The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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SHOULDERS Seasons, Fitzgerald Toussaint Has Taken Over As U-M's Starting Running Back After Two Injury-Plagued PUTTING IT ON HIS jured his shoulder three days into fall camp. "I know that, in high school, I wasn't really taking the weight room seriously," Toussaint said. "That showed when I got here." Toussaint was upset to miss an entire year of football, but he made the most of his situ- ation. He sat and watched upperclassmen Brandon Minor and Carlos Brown, who com- bined for 982 rushing yards and 12 touch- downs in 2009. He rehabbed as best he could, and started counting down the days until the 2010 sea- son's fall camp, because, with the gradua- tion of Minor and Brown, he knew he had a chance to crack the starting lineup. Toussaint suffered another fall camp injury, this time spraining his MCL. When he finally got healthy enough to see playing time — in the Wolverines' fourth game of the season, a 65-21 romp over Bowl- ing Green — he took advantage of the op- portunity. On his first career carry, he exploded through the middle of the line for a 61-yard gain. But he was dragged down awkwardly five yards from the end zone by Falcons de- fensive back Cameron Truss, whom Tous- saint had played against several times in high school. "I've known him for a while. I've been try- ing to get in touch with him on Facebook. I think he's ignoring me," Toussaint joked. The tackle reinjured Toussaint's shoul- der, ending his redshirt freshman season ex- tremely prematurely. "I never wanted to give up, because I knew Toussaint rushed for 678 yards and fi ve touchdowns while averaging 6.1 yards per carry over U-M's fi nal fi ve regular-season contests in 2011, and he fi nished the season with 1,041 yards and nine scores on the ground. on offense, even more than on defense. I can score touchdowns, and punish people? I im- mediately knew that's what I wanted to do. "It's always a good feeling, knowing you did something to hurt the defense. When you feel that, when you bypass the defense and you're doing your thing, that's motivation." Toussaint pulverized defenses all the way through his three starting seasons with Lib- erty, to the tune of 4,690 yards and 65 touch- downs on 10.3 yards per carry, which earned him a scholarship to Michigan. Even as Toussaint celebrated his induction to the Wolverine family, he knew something was wrong. Toussaint ran track in the spring, and he PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL consistently pulled hamstrings during the sea- son. His lower back was a constant bother — but Toussaint ignored the problem. When he arrived in Ann Arbor the sum- mer before his freshman year, team doctors informed him that he had two hernias that re- quired treatment, the interruption of his work- out regimen and, most likely, a redshirt year. "It was definitely frustrating," he said. "I like to work so hard, as an individual and with my teammates. When you're going out there and something isn't clicking, you get to think- ing, 'What am I not doing right?'" Fighting Through The Pain On top of his hernia issues, Toussaint in- if I gave up, I was giving up on my teammates and my people back at home," Toussaint said. "I know my people back home would never give up on me, so why would I start? "It still set me back, because I had another injury throughout the whole season, and I'm still thinking, 'What is not clicking for me?' It was the weight room. Just gotta go a little harder in the weight room." After the season, Michigan terminated its relationship with head coach Rich Rodriguez and brought in Brady Hoke, who — along with strength and conditioning coach Aaron Wellman — retooled the Wolverines' workout program. "That really helped me out, with weight, strength and everything," Toussaint said. "I took [Wellman's] program into consideration and really went harder last summer. "Every time we start something, every day, we're working on injury prevention stuff. Do- ing things like shoulder stuff, taking time out to do the small stuff before we go in to hit the weights. It has helped so much." Michigan's running back situation was very much in flux heading into fall camp a year ago — but Toussaint was encouraged. For the first time in a long time, his body felt com- THE WOLVERINE 2012 FOOTBALL PREVIEW s 97