“Teach Them The Game” | U-M 8, Notre Dame 0 | November 24, 1887
Michigan’s football team, Team 9 specifically, on their way to face In 1887, the men from Michigan were traveling to play a game against Northwestern. When they found out, en route, that Northwestern had canceled, they got off in South Bend to teach a group of students at the University of Notre Dame the game. In what will be the first game of the rivalry and Notre Dame’s first game ever, Michigan tops Notre Dame 8-0. The men who will come to be known as the Fighting Irish will lose seven straight to the Maize and Blue before besting them in a 1909 contest in Ann Arbor, causing a long term hiatus in the rivalry.
