The History of Michigan Wolverines football in the Yost era covers the period from the hiring of Fielding H. Yost as head coach in 1901 through Yost's firing of Tad Wieman as head coach after the 1928 season. The era includes the brief head coaching tenures of George Little (head coach in 1924 during Yost's first retirement) and Tad Wieman (head coach after Yost's second retirement). Wieman was head coach during the 1927 and 1928 seasons but contended that he had never truly been allowed to take control of the team with Yost remaining as an assistant coach and athletic director.
During the 28 years of the Yost era, Michigan claims six national championship (1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1918, and 1923), had two additional undefeated seasons (1910 and 1922), and compiled an overall record of 180–37–11 (). In Yost's first five years as Michigan's head coach, the team compiled a record of 55–1–1 and outscored its opponents by a margin of 2,821 to 42. The teams from these years became known as Yost's "Point-a-Minute" teams, because their offensive production resulted in an average of at least one point being scored for every minute of play.
Five of Michigan's coaches and nine of its players from the Yost era have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. The five coaches are Yost, Little, Wieman, Bennie Owen (assistant coach in 1901 who later won acclaim at Oklahoma), and Dan McGugin (assistant coach in 1903 who later won acclaim at Vanderbilt). The players are Neil Snow (end, 1898–1901), Willie Heston (halfback, 1901–1904), Germany Schulz (center, 1904–1905, 1907–1908), Albert Benbrook (guard, 1908–1910), John Maulbetsch (halfback, 1914–1916), Harry Kipke (halfback, 1920–1923), Ernie Vick (center, 1918–1921), Benny Friedman (quarterback, 1924–1926), and Bennie Oosterbaan (end, 1925–1927).
Overview of the Yost era Hiring of Yost
In January 1901, Langdon Lea resigned after one year as Michigan's head football coach. At the end of the 1900 football season, Stanford University passed a rule requiring all coaches to be alumni. The decision left Stanford's football coach, Fielding H. Yost, who was not an alumnus, without a job. Yost wrote to the University of Illinois in December 1900 seeking a job. Illinois did not have an opening, but the school's athletic director passed along Yost's letter to Michigan athletic director Charles A. Baird. Baird invited Yost to Ann Arbor to interview for the job, and Yost sent a box of clippings to Baird reporting on his accomplishments and championships as a coach at Ohio Wesleyan (1897), Nebraska (1898), Kansas (1899), Stanford (1900), and San Jose State Normal School (1900). When Yost arrived in Ann Arbor, Baird met him at the train station and hired him on the spot after a brief exchange.
Yost's first recruit after agreeing to coach the Wolverines was Willie Heston. Heston had played for San Jose State Normal School from 1898 to 1900, and Yost coached him briefly in 1900. In the summer of 1901, Yost wrote to Heston inviting Heston to continue his education at Michigan. Heston initially declined, but subsequently agreed and joined Yost at Michigan in late summer. Heston enrolled in the law school in the fall of 1901 and became a key player on the "Point-a-Minute" teams. At five feet eight inches and 185 pounds, Heston was described as being "compact and muscularly built."("Heston, his chrysanthemum haircut curling crisply about his leonine brow, raged through all opposition to score more than 100 touchdowns.") He was known for his quick starting ability. Archie Hahn, the 1904 Olympic gold medalist in the 100-meter run, was a classmate of Heston at Michigan. Although Heston could not outrun Hahn at the 100-yard distance, he was regularly able to beat Hahn in impromptu 40-yard races.
"Point-a-Minute" teams
In Yost's first five years as Michigan's head coach, the team compiled a record of 55–1–1 and outscored its opponents by a margin of 2,821 to 42. The teams from these years became known as Yost's "Point-a-Minute" teams, as their offensive production resulted in an average of at least one point being scored for every minute of play.
In 1901, Michigan compiled an 11–0 record while outscoring its opponents 550 to 0. The 1901 team scored the highest number of points ever scored in a single season by a recognized team. The team became known for the speed of play, running 219 plays in a single game. The fast pace earned the coach the nickname "Hurry Up" Yost. Michigan defeated the University of Buffalo by a score of 128–0 -- a victory so dominant that Buffalo quit 15 minutes before the game should have ended.
At the end of the 1901 season, Michigan traveled to Pasadena, California, to play against Stanford (the team that had fired Yost one year earlier) in the 1902 Rose Bowl. The game was the first post-season bowl game in college football history. Neil Snow scored five touchdowns, and with Michigan ahead 49-0 and eight minutes remaining, Stanford captain Ralph Fisher asked that the game be stopped, and Michigan agreed.
The 1902 team compiled the school's second consecutive undefeated season and national championship and outscored opponents 644 to 12. The margins of victory run up by the 1902 team included scores of 119–0 against Michigan Agricultural (now known as Michigan State), 107–0 against Iowa, and 86–0 against Ohio State. Michigan's undefeated streak continued through the 1903 and 1904 seasons (with one tie against Minnesota in 1903). The 1904 team ran up the biggest winning margin in school history with a 130–0 victory over West Virginia. Left tackle Joe Curtis scored 49 points against West Virginia on six touchdowns (then valued at five points) and 19 extra points.
The 1905 Michigan team won its first 12 games by a combined score of 495 to 0, continuing its high-scoring tradition. However, in the final game of the season, the Wolverines lost by a score of 2–0 against Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago Maroons. The loss to Chicago broke Michigan's 56-game unbeaten streak and marked the end of the "Point-a-Minute" years. The game was lost in the final ten minutes of play when Denny Clark was tackled for a safety as he attempted to return a punt from behind the goal line. Newspapers described Clark's play as "the wretched blunder" and a "lapse of brain work." Clark transferred to M.I.T. the following year and was haunted by the play for the rest of his life. In 1932, he shot himself, leaving a suicide note that reportedly expressed hope that his "final play" would atone for his error at Marshall Field in 1905.
Withdrawal from the Conference
The Michigan football program became mired in scandal in late 1905 and 1906. In November 1905, Stanford president David Starr Jordan wrote a feature article in Collier's magazine making allegations of "professionalism" at Michigan. Jordan accused Yost of traveling across the country "soliciting expert players" who were not true student athletes. Michigan athletic director Baird called Jordan's allegations "the merest bosh" and denied any inducements or special favors for athletes.
Lingering concerns about professionalism and the integrity of amateur athletics led Michigan's president, James Burrill Angell, to call for a conference of Western Conference faculty in January 1906. The gatherings, which became known as the Angell Conferences, condemned the "money end" of football and resolved that university faculty should have charge of gate receipts. The group voted in March 1906 to prohibit summer training, to eliminate professional coaches and the "training table", and to limit the admission price to college athletic events to a maximum of fifty cents.
The reforms also limited member schools to five football games per year. Accordingly, and despite playing 13 regular season games in 1905, Michigan was permitted to play only five games in 1906. Michigan finished 4–1 in 1906, losing the final game of the season to Penn. The Penn game was played in Philadelphia before 26,000 spectators — setting a new record for the highest attendance at a Michigan football game.
A further reform measure that went into effect in 1907 was a provision limiting players' eligibility to three years. The rule was applied retroactively so that many players, including Michigan's captain Germany Schulz, would be ineligible to play as seniors even though they had played as freshman when such play was within the rules. In April 1907, the Western Conference schools voted to oust Michigan from the league if they didn't follow the new rules implemented in 1905.Michigan announced that it would not comply with the new restrictions, and all athletic competition between Michigan and other Western Conference schools was severed.
During the winter and spring of 1908, the controversy over withdrawal from the Western Conference continued. In April 1908, the school's Board in Control of College Athletics voted in favor of withdrawal. Michigan ceased being a member of the conference for the next nine years.
The independent years
Michigan played as an independent from 1907 to 1917. The independent years were not as kind to Yost as his years in the Western Conference. Michigan began the 1907 season with five victories, outscoring opponents 107 to 0, but lost to Penn by a 6–0 score in the final game of the season. In 1908, Michigan lost the final two games of the season to Penn and Syracuse. In 1909, Michigan suffered its first loss to Notre Dame. In 1910, Michigan was led by All-Americans Albert Benbrook and Stanfield Wells and played its only undefeated season of the independent years, compiling a 3–0–3 record.
The 1913 team, led by consensus All-American Jimmy Craig, compiled a record of 6–1, outscored opponents 175 to 21, and shut out four opponents while giving up an average of only three points per game. During its decade-long absence from the Western Conference, Michigan played inter-sectional rivalry games against Penn (12 games in 12 years from 1906 to 1917), Syracuse (10 games from 1908 to 1918), Cornell (7 games from 1911 to 1917), and Vanderbilt (7 games from 1905 to 1914). In the final month of the 1913 season, Michigan defeated its four inter-sectional rivals by a combined score of 106 to 9.
Return to the Conference In June 1917, the Western Conference faculty representatives voted unanimously to invite Michigan to resume athletic relations with the conference. Michigan rejoined the conference (which became known as the Big Ten) that fall. As the 1917 schedule had already been established, Michigan played only one conference game in 1917.
World War I and the 1918 season By 1918, the United States was embroiled in World War I. Many University of Michigan students, including athletes, were serving in the military. Team captain Tad Wieman did not play during the 1918 season as he had enlisted in the Aviation Corps. Halfback Eddie Usher was also taken into active military service after the first game of the season.
Three former Michigan football players were killed in the war. One of the casualties was Curtis Redden, star end of Fielding Yost's "Point-a-Minute" teams. In April 1918, newspapers published a letter from Redden to a friend back home describing his unit's "baptism of fire":"And so it went from day to day, but oftimes the nights were very bad. At night, when the infantry launched its raids, or the enemy his, or the infantry became nervous and called for help, the guns stamped like stallions and snorted their breaths of fire. The blackness of the night became a series of dots and dashes, until the world resembled a vast radio station, spelling hell, hell, and hell again. To this must be added the shriek of shells, the whistle of fragments, the automatic hammer effect of the machine gun, the rattle of the rifle fire, the rockets and star shells out over No Man's land—all combined to make the night weird, hideous, fascinating, sublime."