Five Michigan football players walked to the center of the field at NRG Stadium to meet Washington’s captains in the National Championship game. Four Wolverine captains led the way, and one more player lagged slightly behind.
Then-junior defensive tackle Rayshaun Benny was on crutches, hobbling along with a dark blue cast wrapped from his foot to his upper calf. A week prior, Benny broke his fibula playing in one of the biggest games of his life against Alabama in the Rose Bowl.
The injury took him out of the game in the first quarter when he was just getting his feet wet. It sidelined him for what should’ve been the biggest game of his life.
“That was probably the biggest thing, the hardest part,” Benny said Tuesday about missing the championship. “But the guys, we won, so that made it a lot better.”
Reveling in the glory of a national championship and celebrating with his teammates temporarily assuaged the mental battle of dealing with the injury, but soon everyone moved forward. For Benny, that meant embarking on the lengthy road to recovery.
He leaned on his teammates, who frequently checked in on him. Their support helped keep Benny’s spirits up, but ultimately he had to work through his injury on his own.
“I felt alone,” Benny admitted. “Not that I was alone, I just felt alone.”
While his former teammates prepared for the NFL Draft, Benny was rehabbing. While his current teammates enjoyed the offseason, Benny was rehabbing. When spring practices began, Benny was still rehabbing — but he found a way to be less alone by helping his healthy teammates do what he couldn’t.
“He’s done an unbelievable job this spring of coaching guys,” defensive line coach Lou Esposito said April 16. “You watch him every practice, he’s grabbing guys. … He meets with me twice a week. We watch his plays from last year. And then when we’re out on the field, he becomes a coach for some of those guys that we’re trying to build depth with.”
Michigan’s defensive line is one of its strongest position groups. With stars on the interior and impact players coming off the edge, Benny is surrounded by talent. Last year he was one of the top reserves, and he’s worked back to his role as first player off the bench this season.
He plays with an aggressive streak, pushing through blocks to make tackles. He forced a fumble against Penn State last season by reaching to knock the ball out of quarterback Drew Allar’s hands, pushing the lineman who was blocking him to the ground in the process.
“He’s relentless,” Greg Carter, Benny’s coach at Oak Park High School, told The Michigan Daily. “He never stayed blocked. He never gave up. He always wanted to win.”
Carter saw Benny’s upside from his very first practice, that he was strong and particularly agile for his size. Other football coaches at Oak Park saw Benny’s skills as well and tried to nab him, but Carter wasn’t giving Benny away that easily.
“I actually sent Rayshaun down to (our junior varsity coach) to see whether or not he could catch,” Carter said. “He didn’t know that I was watching, but I was watching every time they threw him a ball, and he did very well. At that time we were thinking about playing him at tight end. And so the JV coach brings him back down about 15 minutes later and told me how horrible he was, he couldn’t catch, he couldn’t do anything, because he wanted him on junior varsity.”
Benny was a standout, so there was no way Carter was letting the JV coach have him. Carter initially played Benny on the offensive line, wanting to put his strength and persistence toward protecting the quarterback. Later, Benny became a two-way player, lining up on both sides of the trenches. Wherever his team needed him, Benny was there, putting the same effort into each job.
Then, in his senior year, Benny couldn’t be there.
The summer before his senior season, he was riding in a Lyft that was hit from behind. He hurt his knee in the accident and decided to get surgery on it right away to preserve his collegiate future. Relegated to the sidelines, he missed the majority of the regular season and watched as his team struggled to a dismal 0-6 record.
“(The injury) was really hard, not only on him, but the team, because he was definitely our best player at that point,” Carter said. “After Rayshaun joined our team, we wound up being a semifinalist. … He really gave us the spark that we needed, the confidence that we needed to play better football.”
Benny returned to the field with renewed vigor, dominating the first round of the state playoffs to lead his team to an upset win. Although Oak Park eventually lost in overtime in the semifinals, Benny’s shortened senior season was by many markers a success. He pushed through the adversity of his injury and got to share the field with his teammates again as a result.
Almost four years later, he completed another comeback. His injury in the Rose Bowl prevented him from playing in the national championship and derailed his offseason, but he came back with more energy than ever. When he was finally cleared to practice again in fall camp, he hated going slow because he wanted to do it all.
“I would get mad at Coach (Sherrone) Moore and Coach Espo when they wouldn’t play me enough when I felt like I wanted to keep going, I felt great,” Benny said. “But it was all just to protect me.”
The gradual ramp up was part of the recovery process, and Benny knew that. But it didn’t stop his relentless mindset from manifesting as he tried to convince his coaches to let him go full throttle.
Finally, on Saturday, Benny made it back to game action. No one told him to slow down, and he took full advantage, tying for the team lead with five total tackles and recording his second career sack against Fresno State.
Watching Benny persevere through his latest injury setback reminded Carter of how Benny handled his similar situation in high school.
“I knew he was gonna handle that situation just as good as he handled the high school situation,” Carter said. “He never got down. He kept talking to his teammates, trying to encourage them through the bad times. … I think he was just more determined to be a really good football player when he returned from his injury. And I think that’s what occurred this year.”
Now, Benny has a full season ahead of him to prove he’s a really good football player. In high school, his senior season was cut short before it even began. Less than a year ago, his season was cut short during one of the most exciting, pivotal moments.
Regardless of the setbacks, Benny pushed through, displaying the same relentlessness that drives him on the field every day.
The post Rayshaun Benny’s ‘relentless’ attitude driving injury comeback appeared first on The Michigan Daily.
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