For Saturday’s Rutgers game we head waaay back to 1901 as it was on that day that Fielding H. Yost coached his first game in Ann Arbor. The 50-0 drubbing of Albion got ‘Hurry Up’ off on the right foot, and set the pace for the Point-A-Minute era where his Meechigan wouldn’t lose a game until 1905. Here’s the clip:
script:
This week hang onto your maize and blue fedoras because we’re going back, I mean waaay back, I’m talking 118 years ago to the opening game of the 1901 season. The game against Albion also marked the debut of Michigan’s new coach Fielding H. Yost.
Yost studied law and played football at West Virginia before taking up coaching in 1897. Over the next 4 years he won championships during 1 year stops at Ohio Weslayan, Nebraska, Kansas and finally Standard before looking for a gig closer to home.
Through his network of friends Yost heard Illinois was looking for a new coach in 1901, so he slung 50 pounds of press clippings to Champaign as evidence of his coaching prowess. It turned out that he was too late for the Illini job, but their athletic director tipped off Michigan AD Charles Baird who was also looking for a new coach.
Baird studied Yost’s clippings, asked around and finally offered Yost the job. Notably, Yost would be a purely professional coach – paid in total as much as a full-time professor -but only during the football season. In the offseason he was free to head home to Nashville and pursue his business interests.
What happened next changed Michigan, and really, the football world in general. Yost arrived, lined up 11 men and unleashed the Point-A-Minute era on the world – and it all started on this day in 1901.
Yost had the rare advantage of being both an innovator and an outsider – today we’d call him a disruptor. Back then football was dominated by men with Ivy-league roots who employed common strategy and tactics. Yost knew the Ivy League blueprint and used it against them. He dramatically dialed up the pace of play and thanks to the Michigan Daily writers who, at an early 1901 practice, watched him barking out ‘HURRY UP!’ – tagged him with that nickname.
After downing Albion 50 to nothing on this day in 1901, what proceeded was perhaps that greatest stretch ever in college football. From 1901-1905, he posted a record of 55-1-1, outscored opponents 2,821 to 42, and scooped up the first four of Michigan’s national titles.
