[Ed. 9/6/19 – I’ll be on tonight at the Bo Store with mgoblog‘s brilliant Seth Fisher talking Crisler, WWII football, the 1945 Army game, and more…]
Here’s this week’s edition of #TWIMFbH, first off getting into the 1945 Army-Michigan game held at Yankee Stadium, and finish with the opener of Desmond Howard’s 1991 Heisman season:
You can hear this during the WTKA 1050AM Keybank Countdown to Kickoff, starting four hours before every game. And this Saturday, make sure you catch Sam Webb, Ira Weintraub and Steve Clarke live inside the Go Labatt Blue MVictors Lounge. Go Blue!
/script
Today we welcome the men from West Point, the Army Black Knights. Michigan has a long history of facing the service academies, including a team that represented the Marine Core in 1923, and a series of four games with the Navy later in the 1920s. We even traveled to Yankee Stadium in New York to take on Army in 1945 AND 1950.
In the 1945 battle against Army, the Fritz Crisler’s men faced one of the most powerful teams in college football history. The Cadets featured perhaps the fiercest duo EVER to lace them up in Heisman winners Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard.
To support football teams during world war II, the rules were bent to permit freshman to play. Naturally the service academies had little trouble fielding a team, but Michigan needed every young man they could find. Coach Crisler described the dilemma, asking: “How were our poor, spindly-legged freshmen going to stand up against these West Pointers all afternoon???”
In those days teams weren’t permitted to use units or even substitutions like we do today. As a leader on the college rules committee knew of a subtle 1941 rule that provided more freedom to substitute players. But no coach truly took advantage of it – until now. To contain Blanchard and Davis, Crisler freely substituted “or platooned” players — and college football history was made.
While Army won that 1945 game – Michigan kept it close. As Crisler later put it, “It should have been much, much worse”
On this day in 1991, Michigan faced another important road game up the road in Boston, as Gary Moeller’s #2 ranked Wolverines opened the season against Boston College.
The clash in Bean Town would kickoff a truly legendary year for Moeller’s talented wide receiver, Desmond Howard. On this day exactly 28 years ago Howard’s performance instantly grabbed the attention of the national media. Howard took the 2nd half kickoff back 93 yards to the house to put the Wolverines up 14-10. The game remained tight into the fourth quarter unti Moeller’s men stepped on the gas.
Two Elvis Grbac to Desmond TD passes and a Lance Dottin interception return in the final seconds capped the 35-13 victory. A few months later Desmond capped a remarkable year joined Tom Harmon as Michigan’s 2nd winner of the Heisman Trophy.
