Fielding H. Yost, 1907 team postcards From a post composed by John Fineran of gatorcountry.com: Even Michigan’s legendary coach Fielding Yost might rise from his grave and pay Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops and his Sooners their due. Yost, you’ll remember, was the architect of Michigan’s “point-a-minute” team of 1901 that scored 550 points in 660 minutes of football in winning the national championship and the first Rose Bowl. Actually, that’s 0.83 points every 60 seconds, making the offense of Michigan’s Yost toast when compared to Oklahoma, where the points come whistling down the plains. These 2008 Sooners, led by Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Sam Bradford, have scored 702 points in 780 minutes of play this year – 12 regular-season games and the Big 12 Championship – in running up a 12-1 record that has them in the BCS National Championship Game Thursday night at Dolphin Stadium against the potent Florida Gators. Not quite a point-a-minute, mind you. But again, fathom the numbers – 702 points in 780 minutes of play. That’s 0.9 points every 60 seconds. Clearly this isn’t meant to be a deep dive comparison on Yost vs. Stoops– the purpose is to highlight the prolific offense possessed by the Gators’ barrier to another BCS championship. That said, there’s an inaccuracy in those numbers. The Wolverines played 11 games in…
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Benny Friedman juggled Chairs
Check out David Davis’ interview on Nextbook.org with author Murray Greenberg on his new book, Passing Game: Benny Friedman and the Transformation of Football. An excerpt: How exactly did Benny Friedman transform college football? In the mid-1920s, at the University of Michigan, along comes Benny Friedman. He had a unique ability to grip the football and throw it down the field with accuracy. As a kid, he had ambitions to become a strongman, so he’d done a series of exercises designed to stretch and strengthen his wrists and arms: lifting heavy chairs and tossing them from hand to hand, things like that. Combined with his physical strength, he had nerve. He was completely unintimidated and uninhibited. He’d throw the ball on any down, from anywhere on the field, when that was practically a mortal sin. later: In the book, you point out that Friedman played at the University of Michigan while Henry Ford was promoting anti-Semitism in nearby Dearborn. How did the anti-Semitism of the day affect colleges and college football? The Jewish college football players of Friedman’s time walked an interesting tightrope. On the one hand, if they were good enough, they were welcomed onto the teams. On the other hand, they knew that schools had Jewish quotas and that, if they weren’t football players, they wouldn’t be welcome.…
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Blue beat Buckeyes inside Spooky Yost
mgoblue.com Halloween night at Yost was a big one for Red Berenson’s boys as they took down a gutty Buckeye team 4-3. I know there’s many of you around town that have been to a couple games, maybe none, yet you enjoy the Red Wings and perhaps even watch the Wolverines on occasion. You’ve got to get down to Yost–it’s such a great product. Louie Caporusso and Aaron Palushaj are fantastic. There are tickets available to some of the home games this year, get down there. The students are off the hook dominating the east of the arena, the band keeps the place hyped up, the hockey is phenomenal, and if you get down there early enough you can win the 50-50 raffle (Ticket number 1 was the big winner last night). mgoblue.com I’ve ripped on Michigan fans at the Big House lately, time to rip on an opponent. So there’s a Buckeye fan behind me in his late 50s or so, moustache of course. He’s yelling the whole game at a couple of Michigan players, e.g., after a Michigan player shoves a guy, “WHY DON’T YOU TAKE UP BOXING???” and bitching about referee calls the whole game. He’s loud but there’s some kind strange pitch in his voice that gets in your head. I’m actually ok with the guy…
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Yost Busts the Galloping Ghost
In 1924, Red Grange had one of the most famous games in college football history against Michigan. Did you know that U-M actually got its revenge on the Ghost the following season? With the Illini coming into town we’ll take a look back to October 24, 1925, the year after Red Grange put a whooping on Michigan at the dedication of Illinois’ Memorial Stadium. Grange tallied 6 touchdowns in that game, five rushing and one passing, including four in the first 12 minutes on runs of 95, 67, 56, and 44 yards. For obvious reasons that game is still talked about today. What isn’t talked about so much is what happened the next year. Someone up in the stands didn’t take kindly to the humiliation of 1924 and was set on doing something about it. From Bruce Madej’s Champions of the West: Just one year before, Coach George Little’s Wolverines had been humiliated by the Illini and their junior halfback, Harold “Red” Grange. So embarrassed was U-M athletic director Fielding Yost by Michigan’s performance that day, he decided to abandon his seat in the stands and return as head coach. For 12 months, Yost schemed how to bridle Illinois’ Galloping Ghost. He replaced Michigan’s unsuccessful six-man line of 1924 with a seven-man front and a diamond-shaped secondary. Legendary Illini coach…
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Blue Books: Historic Michigan Football Photos
I just received a fresh copy of ‘Historic Photos of University of Michigan Football’ from Turner Publishing. Michelle O’Brien authored the collection, which pulls together fascinating photos from the vaults over at the U-M Bentley Historical Library over the past 100+ years. It isn’t confined to games and practices; it also includes a few unique looks at the band, the fans and in some cases, the excitement on campus and outside the stadium. Each photo contains a detailed caption describing the photo often along with a relevant background from the period. O’Brien did a very nice job-it’s a fine collection and would make an excellent gift. While I’ve seen a few of the photos before but most were new to me. Here’s a few of my favorites, click to enlarge: Louis Elbel, the man that composed The Victors after the 1898 Michigan game at Chicago, conducts the Michigan Marching Band in 1952 The original Little Brown (White?) Jug. I love the “Not to be taken from the Gymnasium” instruction painted on the top. Can you imagine? A photo as they break ground on Michigan stadium, with a clear shot back to Yost Field House in the background. Gorgeous.
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Blue Books: The Yost-Rockne Feud
A new feature on MVictors, periodically I’ll take a look at a passage from one of the great books written on Michigan athletics. This week we’ll go to the absolute definitive tome on the Michigan-Notre Dame Rivarly, John Kryk’s Natural Enemies. There are several anecdotes of interest in the book, some I’ve mentioned on these pages before, and I’ll revisit some of these in the future. But for today, here’s are a few selections from Chapter 4 ‘Yost vs. Rockne: 1918:31’. [Note: These are selections from through the chapter, just trying to highlight the feud:] In a nutshell, here’s what each came to think of each other from 1923 to 1931. Rockne, then in his late 30s to early 40s, saw in Yost a “hill-billy” who was forever grinding the religious ax against Notre Dame, who was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg, who was selfish and vain beyond comprehension, who was blindly jealous of Rockne’s own success and ascension to national stardom, and who coached boring, neanderthal football. Yost, then in his mid to late 50s, saw in Rockne a coach who feared the regulatory confinement of a conference, who ran a renegade football factory at Notre Dame, who sought unfair advantages over his opponents, and who continually and deliberately broke football rules with his controversial offense. Kryk…
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Norm Daniels’ 1931 Michigan Football Jersey!
This week on the uber-premium Mastro auctions site some incredible items surfaced including another jersey from one of Harry Kipke's great Depression Era teams. This time it's a 1931 uniform purported to have belonged to end Norm Daniels. Check it out,
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West Virginia Paper: Put Yost in WVU Hall of Fame
Caught this column from Mickey Furfari writing for The Times West Virginian. In it, Furfari recaps Yost’s ties to the school including a mention of the football letter he earned as tackle for the Mountaineers in 1895-96: Edited, see the full article. Sticking out like a sore thumb to West Virginians was a 130-0 mauling of the Mountaineers by U-M on Oct. 22, 1904. It remains the worst beating by far in WVU history….Despite that dreadful drubbing, I think Fielding Yost ought to be in the WVU Sports Hall of Fame. He’d get my vote.
