The last thing that Michigan needed was an injury to the offensive depth chart with star running back Justice Haynes already out for the rest of the year following his foot surgery.
However, as the Wolverines duked it out with the Northwestern Wildcats, that's exactly what happened.
RB2 Jordan Marshall, who was thrust into the starting role with Haynes sidelined, went down hard during the fourth quarter and was extremely slow to get up.
Northwestern linebacker Mac Uihlein had an extremely powerful hit on Marshall's left shoulder, and then the RB landed even harder on his right side. It didn't look good, and the training staff flew onto the field to tend to and evaluate Marshall's condition.
Jordan Marshall joins Justice Hanes on the sideline
Just like that, true freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood was without his best two players in the backfield, making him the leading rusher when it came to Michigan's depth chart.
While Haynes had 857 yards before getting hurt and Marshall had 729 yards before the game against the Wildcats, Underwood had nearly 300 yards on the ground, placing him in third on the Wolverines' stat sheet.
Jordan Marshall was slow to get up after landing hard on his shoulder pic.twitter.com/K6G674awDn
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 15, 2025
With The Game versus Ohio State in just two weeks' time, the Wolverines desperately needed to remain healthy, and certainly couldn't afford to lose yet another offensive star like Marshall. Now, as Michigan's rivalry game against the Buckeyes was an even farther shot for the Wolverines to pull off the upset over the No. 1 team in the nation.
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Not to mention, Michigan was trailing the Wildcats by one point when Marshall went down, shrinking its chances of pulling off the win over Northwestern, much less its other two games of the regular season.
Michigan, which was ranked No. 18 heading into the Big Ten matchup against Northwestern, had a game against unranked Maryland and a few extra days to get everyone as healthy as possible before taking on Ohio State.