This week we go back to Thanksgiving Day, 1898 as Michigan head coach Gustave Ferbert and his undefeated Wolverines traveled to Chicago to face Amos Alonzo Stagg and his powerful University of Chicago Maroons. While rarely discussed these days, the game is without a doubt one of the most notable match-ups in Wolverine lore.
While today’s our undisputed rival is clearly The Buckeyes, back in 1898, the coach and the team that really got maize and blue blood boiling was Stagg and his Chicago teams. Have a listen:
This Week we take a peek at Team 15 back in 1894 at the pair of battles against Cornell- one played in New York and the other back in Detroit at the DAC field. It’s a pre-Yost, pre-Jug, pre-The Victors and heck, even pre-Big Ten look at Michigan Football history:
Saturday’s edition of This Week in Michigan Football History drops back to 2001 to look at the battle between Lloyd Carr’s 12th ranked Wolverines and Joe Tiller and his 17th ranked Purdue Boilermakers.
But before stepping into that, we look at Michigan’s Homecoming tradition, dating back to 1897 and of course one of the greatest traditions on the U-M campus: The SAE Mud Bowl.
Michigan, a supposed national title contender is spinning out of control at 0-2. Enter Charlie Weis and his 0-2 Fighting Irish and we had a media circus to witness the cripple fight.
Save us Russell Crowe! Help me Mike Hart! Our departed leader Bo – any words for the Irish? TWIMFbH:
Feels so good to be back home again. This Week in Michigan Football History returns to Ann Arbor and the Bud Light Victors Lounge at 1050AM WTKA on Saturday and here’s your bonus sneak listen.
This time we take a trip back at the 1984 opener played on September 8 of that season, as Team 105 took on the #1 ranked and defending national champion Miami Hurricanes. Jimmy Johnson’s ‘Canes actually had already played two games that season which must have drove Bo nuts. When he found out I’m guessing some furniture was moved around.
How about some double bonus #TWIMFbH content? A player who prefers to remain anonymous shared this about that game and in particular, the scene doing pregame warm-ups. Awesome:
“I can tell you one thing that I do recall from that game that really stuck out for me was the pre-game. As you may imagine the pre-game ritual for Bo was rather intense. We would come out in full gear and begin our warm ups with our individual position coaches. You know the usual running, stretching, form up hitting. Then we would move to the full team warm up where Bo would have us line up and hit, at full speed, against the first and second team defense. It was like full line at practice. I am surprised no one got severely injured.”
“Everyone was all hyped up for the game and we would just crush each other. It was brutal but that is all we knew. It was almost like Bo wanted to simulate the game condition just before the actual game began. And I can tell you going up against Michigan first team defense in that warm up was as tough or tougher than any game we played.”
“I looked over to the other side of the field, this was early in the warm ups, and the Miami guys were in t-shirts listening to their Walkmans (remember those?). Some of the offensive linemen were tossing passes to their teammates down field. Some of the Miami players were laying down on the brick wall that circles the field listening to their music through their head phones. If you recall that wall was about waist high back then. It was the most casual thing I had ever seen. Now as the warm up continued they got into their gear but it was never an intense warm up it was just running plays at ¾ speed. A world of difference.”
Stub via ticketmuseum.com and Ken Magee of Ann Arbor Sports Memorabilia
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