Michigan running back Jordan Marshall has one clear target for 2026: get to Ohio State healthy.
That was the message Marshall delivered Monday on The Rich Eisen Show, where he appeared during the Champions Circle Golf Classic broadcast. After being held to seven carries for 61 yards against the Buckeyes last season because of an upper-body injury, the rising junior said the priority this fall is simple.
"My goal is to be healthy," he said on The Rich Eisen Show, which broadcast Monday from the Champions Circle Golf Classic. "Just be healthy for my team and make it to Ohio State."
Marshall’s 2025 season ended up becoming a heavy lift for Michigan’s ground game. He led the Wolverines with 932 rushing yards and averaged 6.2 yards per carry, taking on most of the workload after Justice Haynes suffered a midseason foot injury. Marshall then dealt with his own injury in mid-November, missed two games and was limited against the Buckeyes.
Even with that setback, Marshall’s focus has already shifted to the bigger picture. He told Eisen that Michigan basketball’s April 2026 national championship had an impact on him, and he framed that success as the kind of standard he wants to chase.
"Honestly, I just want to win. I want to put Michigan back on top," Marshall said.
"I want to lead this team - whether that's with the ball in my hand, without, if I'm on the sideline - to win a national championship. I mean, that's what you come here for, and that's the standard we've set here at Michigan.
"[Michigan basketball] puts good pressure on you. When you see somebody else and you're happy for them, but also, it stings too, because you want that.
And even celebrating and seeing all the basketball guys out there happy is you go back home and you're like, 'I got to get one of those.' And that's my mindset.
I think we've done a good job as everybody's on the same page on our team. Everybody's connected on reaching that one goal of Big Ten champs, winning the conference and beating our rivals, and then winning a national championship."
Michigan’s backfield is set up to keep rolling even after Haynes entered the Transfer Portal. The Wolverines kept Bryson Kuzdzal and added Savion Hiter, the nation’s top running back prospect, giving the program a trio the staff believes can be special.
"I think the combination of those two and three guys will be better than what we've seen around here in a very, very long time because of those difference of abilities within those three," assistant running backs coach Fred Jackson said earlier this summer.
Marshall, Hiter and Kuzdzal will operate behind an experienced offensive line in an offense that has already shown it can punish defenses on the ground. Last season, Jason Beck coordinated Utah to FBS's best yards per carry (6.02), second-best rushing offense (266.3 yards per game), fourth-best total offense (482.9) and fifth-best scoring offense (41.2 points per game).
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