The 1883 Michigan-Wesleyan 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, Harvard, Yale, and the Stevens Institute in nine days.
Previous posts in the series: Intro
Michigan had unspecified travel problems on the way from Ann Arbor to Hartford, where it was to play Wesleyan in the first game of the trip. They arrived at 2:20 in the afternoon on November 19, just in time for the game that started at 3:35. Despite being tired from the trip, the Wolverines were committed to playing their best, as they had when they traveled East for games with Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (HYP) in 1881.
Wesleyan was one of the top football teams in the East in 1883 but was not an IFA member like HYP and Columbia—or, at least, Columbia had been a member. Their scheduled game with Princeton on Saturday, November 10, was postponed due to cold weather. Columbia did not appear at the rescheduled game two days later, leading to their automatic dismissal from the IFA.
The newspapers mentioned Penn and Michigan as likely replacements over the few days following Columbia’s disappearing act. However, the IFA did not make a replacement for 1884, waiting until the Harvard faculty banned football in 1885. Penn and Wesleyan joined the IFA in 1885, while Harvard took a one-year sabbatical before rejoining in 1886.
Michigan's mention as a possible IFA member offers an early football "What If?" The football world was small in 1883, and Michigan had come east for the second time in two years, seven years before West Point even started varsity football. Michigan joining the IFA might have altered football's path; even the slightest impact from a Michigan membership could have changed the game's projection. Even more, what if the marriage had lasted? How would football have changed if Michigan joined the IFA in 1884 and stayed, providing a midwestern voice on the rule-making body twenty years before Amos Alonzo Stagg joined the committee in 1904? Had Michigan joined and stayed in the IFA, perhaps the Big Ten would have taken a different shape, and Michigan-Ohio State might not have become such a big deal.
Of course, none of that happened, so let’s turn to the game. Wesleyan won the toss and chose to kick. At the time, the kicking team "babied" or dribbled the ball by giving it a slight kick, picking it up, and passing it to a teammate. Wesleyan did so, and one of their players quickly punted the ball downfield, close to the Michigan goal line, and scored within the game's first ten minutes. When Michigan got the ball, they drove for a touchdown and scored near a sideline. They successfully punted out and then converted the kick. However, the referee ruled the goal was no good due to Michigan's holder being off-side. The Wolverines were told there had been a rule change that summer, which they did not know about.
The image above shows a copy of the 1883 Rule Book from the Library of Congress. It tells us the 1883 rules were adopted in November 1882, while the stamp indicates the Library of Congress received its copy in May 1883. Both dates fall well before Michigan's arrival in Hartford, so these were the rules Michigan thought they were to play under.
Parke H. Davis documents an October 13, 1883, IFA meeting that changed a few rules but did not affect the off-side rule, so the Wesleyan boys may have pulled a fast one on Michigan. Either way, Michigan faced a 6-2 deficit. (The 1883 scoring awarded two points for a touchdown, four for the goal after touchdown, five for a field goal, and one for a safety.)
Wesleyan got another touchdown and goal in the first half and took a late safety, leaving the score at 12-3 for intermission.
Michigan took the first half to find its legs but played more competitively in the second half, scoring a second touchdown and again missing the kick. Wesleyan also had a second-half touchdown and another safety. Based on those scores, Wesleyan should have had a 16-6 victory, but history records it as a 14-6 final score. Either way, Michigan lost. Worse, they did not leave much of an impression on a reporter from New Haven, who noted:
The inferiority of the western wonders was so marked that any contention with Yale, Harvard, Princeton, or Columbia in the future will not be looked upon with so much interest. Students in great number witnessed the game. Wesleyan alone sending a delegation of two hundred. Yale was well represented.
'The Football Game In Harftord,' Morning Journal-Courier (New Haven), November 20, 1883.
The Chronicle’s game summary included a notable comment about Wesleyan and the "off-side playing of her rushers."
The rushers were the linemen of the day who spent most of their time in the scrimmage. One of rugby's fundamental rules kept players from running ahead of a teammate with the ball; those who did so were to remain inactive until the runner passed in front of them.
However, the "off-side playing of her rushers" comment denotes a critical step in football's transition to a game separate from rugby. Though not yet reflected in the rules, football teams of the era began allowing the rushers or forwards to run alongside the man with the ball warding or interfering with the opposing team's tackers. Soon thereafter, they allowed teammates to run ahead of the ball carrier, a practice we call blocking today. Being in the East, Wesleyan played the latest style of football, while Michigan, facing an Eastern football team for the first time in two years, did not realize the informal game had changed while they were gone.
The change in interference and the overruling of Michigan's first-half goal after touchdown led the author to make the following comment:
The 1883 game was the only contest played between Michigan and Wesleyan, so Wesleyan remains undefeated in its matches with the Wolverines.
Michigan had played a disappointing game. Notwithstanding their travel and rule challenges, the Wolverines needed to change their game to have hopes of competing with Yale two days later in New Haven.
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