1883 Michigan-Stevens Institute Game

Michigan's 1883 team was the only non-Eastern team playing football at their level. This series uses period publications to cover Michigan's trip east to play Wesleyan, Yale, Harvard, and the Stevens Institute in nine days.

Previous posts in the series: Intro | Wesleyan ($) | Yale ($) | Harvard ($)

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Everyone agrees that after Michigan lost to Wesleyan, Yale, and Harvard during their 1883 trip east, they faced Stevens Institute on a Tuesday afternoon at the hallowed St. George's Cricket Grounds in Hoboken, New Jersey. Other than the fact that the game occurred, there is little agreement about what happened during the game, at least those of the closing minutes.

Although Stevens Institute is seldom mentioned as a college football power, it was once one of college football's top five teams, largely because it was the fifth school to play the game, following Princeton, Rutgers, Harvard, and Yale. Of course, the version it originally played was the hacky-sack version.

Like other schools, they switched to rugby football after 1876 and were reasonably competitive, struggling with the likes of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, while their 1883 team beat Columbia and Lafayette before tying Penn.

Their home field was the St. George's Cricket Grounds in Hoboken, the scene of many top matches, so Michigan was thrilled to play there and compete in a game they might win.

St. George's Cricket Grounds in Hoboken (Anitpodean)