The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/144506
where are they now? where are they Now? Running Back Ed Davis Was Part Of U-M's Early '90s Four-Headed Monster H By Chris Balas ad former Michigan running back Ed Davis (1992-95) chosen a different school after graduating from Detroit Martin Luther King High in 1991, he might have been a star. At only 5-9 but with great feet, speed and 190 pounds on his stocky frame, Davis had his choice of colleges after rewriting the King record books in the late 1980s and early 1990s. If it had been all about playing time, Davis admitted recently, he would have gone somewhere else. He was set to attend Notre Dame, in fact, and nearly passed on his trip to U-M a week before National Signing Day. Michigan defensive coordinator Lloyd Carr, though, wasn't willing to let him get away without a fight. Davis thoroughly enjoyed his U-M official visit, and when he told Carr following his Notre Dame trip a week later he might still be leaning toward the Irish, Carr and head coach Gary Moeller started their bid to convince him otherwise. "Lloyd always told me I owed it to my family, my dad, to consider the in-state school so they could see all my games," Davis recalled. "I had taken my visit there and absolutely loved it and been there for camps, so I always had a place in my heart for Michigan. I just had a lot of people tell me guys from Detroit didn't do well there." Notre Dame didn't blow him away, though — nor did Wisconsin or Alabama, two of the others high on his list. Davis was still on the fence when Moeller and Carr showed up at his house — on Super Bowl Sunday, no less. There was plenty working against them. Not only was prep All-American Ricky Powers set to take the reins in 1991, the Wolverines had just received a commitment from Tyrone Wheatley, one of the nation's top backs. "I remember talking to Lloyd right after that," Davis recalled. "He asked me if that bothered me that they took his commitment. I said, 'I can't let Tyrone Wheatley decide where I'm going to school. I want to go somewhere where if I don't play a down, I'm still happy.'" So he chose Michigan, even though fellow Detroiter Jerome Bettis did a great sales job for Lou Holtz and the Irish. Wisconsin's Barry Alvarez, in the early stages of his coaching career, told Davis he was their choice to run behind a behemoth line they were going to assemble from kids in the Midwest. "But Coach Carr and Coach Moeller came to my house right after I got back from Notre Dame," Davis said. "I thought, 'These guys must really want me,' and my mom and dad