Taylor Tatum is off Michigan’s football roster, but this isn’t a breakup story. It’s a pivot.
The former Oklahoma running back has stepped away from football to put his full attention on baseball, where he’ll stay as an outfielder, according to On3’s The Wolverine. Tatum transferred to Michigan as a two-sport athlete and had already been working on both football and baseball there after doing the same at Oklahoma.
That decision explains why the news landed the way it did Tuesday evening. At first glance, it looked like Tatum had suddenly been pushed out of Kyle Whittingham's program just before fall camp. Instead, he appears to have chosen a different path for himself.
The football side of his career had already started to flatten out. Tatum arrived in Ann Arbor after a freshman season at Oklahoma that showed real promise. He was the top running back in the 2024 recruiting class, a consensus four-star prospect from Longview, Texas, and he wasted no time seeing the field for the Sooners.
In 11 games and three starts, Tatum ran for 278 yards and three touchdowns in 2024, added a receiving score, and averaged 5.0 yards per carry. But the backfield quickly shifted around him. Xavier Robinson took over late in the season, and last year Tatum was reduced to one carry in one game while Robinson and Tory Blaylock handled the work and are back again this season.
Michigan brought another wrinkle when Tatum changed positions to safety, which only underscored that the football path was becoming narrower. He never seemed positioned to break through in a major way on the Wolverines’ roster.
Baseball, meanwhile, has been waiting in the wings. Tatum did not appear in a game for Oklahoma baseball in 2025 as a freshman, and after transferring in January, he was ineligible to compete in this past baseball season. Two years out of high school, he still hasn’t played a college baseball game.
Still, this move gives him something football could no longer offer: a clean runway. Michigan’s baseball team went 34-24 and missed the NCAA Tournament last season, so there may be room for Tatum to make his mark if he pours everything into that sport for the first time. The risk is real, but so is the opportunity.
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