A decade after being a founding member of the Western Conference, Michigan up and left to go independent. Now it had to find someone to play. On this Saturday 112 years ago, that someone was the Vanderbilt Commodores, coached by Yost’s former player, assistant, brother-in-law, neighbor and all-around BFF – a gent named Dan McGugin.
In 2010 guest writer Jonathan Gluck wrote an awesome piece on Yost and McGugin’s history and relationship here – definitely check it out.
To the clip:
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Here’s the script:
Good morning! Today we roll back to 1907 which was the beginning of an odd decade in Michigan football history, and it was on this day of that year that Michigan travelled to Nashville Tennesse to take on the Commodores of Vanderbilt.
After being one of the founding members of the Big Ten, back then called the Western Conference, in 1896, the decade that followed saw a rapid rise in popularity of the football. This craze was led by the frenzied fans at the major conference schools like Chicago, Wisconsin, Minnesota and of course Meechigan.
While this was fun for many, it also exposed a problem. The game started to take attention away from the primary purpose of these colleges – namely, to educate! And as the Saturdays rolled on, and the money rolled in, the faculty of the Western conference schools said ‘ENOUGH‘.
The adminstrators proposed rules to restrict the sport: namely:
- reduce the season to a mere five (5!) games
- limit eligibility
- take control of the ticket revenue, and perhaps most eye-popping for Wolverine fans
- outlaw professional coaches, like Meechigan’s own Fielding H. Yost who had already claimed 4 national titles.
They added, either comply with these rules or leave!
Well, eventhough Michigan’s academic elite supported the measures, the U-M athletic department took its ball and went back to State Street. That’s right, the Wolverines LEFT the Conference behind and became an INDEPENDENT. Without the reliable conference opponents, Yost and the football squad needed to find other teams to play, and that often required travel. And thus Michigan travelled to Vanderbilt on this day 112 years ago.
But there was another reason Yost scheduled Vandy – it turns out his former player and brother-in-law Dan McGugin was head coach of the Commodores. McGugin and Yost actually married sisters and in the off-season lived next door to each other in Nashville..
In the game Yost got the family bragging rights, downing Vandy 8-0 in the friendly match-up.
As far as its life as an independant, Michigan said “enough” in 1917, and was welcomed with open arms to rejoin the conference. By doing so, we officially made it an even TEN teams giving the conference the new nickname — ‘The Big Ten’ It DID NOT take Yost long to get back to his winning ways as in 1918, Michigan ran the table and claimed Yost’s FIFTH NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.
Go Blue, Beat the Terps, and for more checkout MVictors.com and WTKA.com – for the KeyBank Countdown to Kickoff this is Greg Dooley
