Today's Tidbit... Underestimating the 1901 Michigan Football Team

It was impossible in 1901 for the average fan or sportswriter to accurately compare teams from different sections of the country, but that did not stop them from doing so. The country's Eastern side saw limited intersectional play, and games between Eastern teams and those on the West Coast were virtually nonexistent. Chicago visited West Coast teams over the holidays in 1894, and Carlisle did the same in 1899, but otherwise, the teams on either side of the mountains operated in separate worlds.

The Left Coasters hired Easterners to coach their teams, so they employed the latest equipment, training tools, and tactics. Still, the quality of Eastern versus West Coast teams could only be assessed by the practiced eyes of those who understood football and had been on the ground in both locations. Field Yost was one of those folks.

Yost played at West Virginia and then spent one year each coaching Ohio Wesleyan, Nebraska, and Kansas before taking the Stanford job for the 1900 season. In Yost's only year at Stanford, he helped them improve from 2-5-2 in 1899 to 7-2-1 in 1900, suffering losses to the Stanford Alumni and Nevada.

Yost took over at Michigan in 1901, instituted his hurry-up offense, and blew away the competition, outscoring their ten regular-season opponents 501-0. Along the way, Michigan accepted an invitation to play in Pasadena on New Year's Day as part of their Tournament of Roses celebration. Getting to Los Angeles meant a week-long train ride to San Francisco before heading south to Los Angeles. To work out the kinks and perhaps to avenge his loss in 1900, Yost challenged Nevada to a game in San Francisco on Christmas Day. The Nevadans were happy to be considered worthy of playing the Wolverines, but the game did not work out, so the Californian press remained blissfully unaware of what would hit Stanford on New Year's Day.

Even today, stories of bicycling ancestors are told around many Nevada campfires. ('A Challenge From Michigan,' Reno Gazette-Journal, December 14, 1901.)