1907 ANN ARBOR HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL MICHIGAN WOLVERINES PLAYERS SCARCE PHOTO For Sale

AN EXTREMELY SCARCE 16 1/4 x 14 3/8 INCH FRAMED PHOTO OF THE 1907 ANN ARBOR HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL PHOTO WITH MANY UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN WOLVERINES FOOTBALL PLAYERS
ANN ARBOR HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM
1st Row - "Hal" Richards; "Corney" Tuomy; Berry Peterson; Edgar Roper. 2nd Row - "Trautie"
Trautwein; "Conk" Conklin; "Capt." Broogody Spaeth; "Fiddle" Eldert; "Walt" Laubengayer.
3rd Row - Professor Jocelyn; Ben Hazleton; "Harv." Cornwell; "Walt" Daly, Manager; "Aqua"
Allmendinger; "Boxy" Bogle; "Eftie" James; "Ruby" Peterson; Coach Newton.
Ernest John "Aqua" Allmendinger (August 25, 1890 – May 7, 1973) was an American football player and coach. He played college football as a guard for the University of Michigan Wolverines from 1911 to 1913. He was also selected to Walter Camp's All-Service team while serving in the military during World War I. Frederick L. Conklin (first name also spelled Fredric; April 12, 1888[1] – December 25, 1974)[2] was an American football player and coach, medical doctor and naval officer. He played football for Fielding H. Yost's University of Michigan teams from 1909 to 1911 and was selected as an All-Western player in 1911. He spent 32 years as an officer in the U.S. Navy, reaching the rank of rear admiral after serving in World War I and World War II. He received the Legion of Honor for establishing a mobile hospital in New Caledonia in 1942 and later presented John F. Kennedy with a Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism in rescuing members of the crew of the PT 109. Thomas Ashford Bogle Jr. (March 7, 1890[1] – September 21, 1955) was an American football player and coach. He played as a lineman for the University of Michigan from 1910 to 1911 and served as the head football coach at DePauw University from 1913 to 1914.
No. Name Pos. Year Letter Hgt. Wgt. Class Hometown State High School
Peterson, Reuben LT 1911 r Ann Arbor M
Peterson, Reuben 1912 r Ann Arbor MI Ann Arbor


Frederick L. Conklin (first name also spelled Fredric; April 12, 1888[1] – December 25, 1974)[2] was an American football player and coach, medical doctor and naval officer. He played football for Fielding H. Yost's University of Michigan teams from 1909 to 1911 and was selected as an All-Western player in 1911. He spent 32 years as an officer in the U.S. Navy, reaching the rank of rear admiral after serving in World War I and World War II. He received the Legion of Honor for establishing a mobile hospital in New Caledonia in 1942 and later presented John F. Kennedy with a Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism in rescuing members of the crew of the PT 109. Thomas Ashford Bogle Jr. (March 7, 1890[1] – September 21, 1955) was an American football player and coach. He played as a lineman for the University of Michigan from 1910 to 1911 and served as the head football coach at DePauw University from 1913 to 1914.No. Name Pos. Year Letter Hgt. Wgt. Class Hometown State High School
Peterson, Reuben LT 1911 r Ann Arbor M
Peterson, Reuben 1912 r Ann Arbor MI Ann ArborErnest John "Aqua" Allmendinger (August 25, 1890 – May 7, 1973) was an American football player and coach. He played college football as a guard for the University of Michigan Wolverines from 1911 to 1913. He was also selected to Walter Camp's All-Service team while serving in the military during World War I.
Early yearsAllmendinger was born Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1890. He was the son of Henry and Wilhelmina "Minnie" Kraus Allmendinger.[2] He grew up in the days of Fielding H. Yost's "Point-a-Minute" teams and played football with John Maulbetsch at Ann Arbor's West Park. He then played right guard and right tackle at Ann Arbor High School from 1907 to 1909 for teams that lost one game in three seasons.[2] He acquired the nickname "Aqua" after working as a waterboy when the Ann Arbor Railroad was raising tracks in 1903 on the streets of Ann Arbor.[2]
University of MichiganAllmendinger played the guard position at the University of Michigan from 1911 to 1913. In November 1913, Allmendinger helped Michigan to a 17–0 win over Cornell, leading The Washington Post to report: "Allmendinger played a brilliant game on the defense. Three hundred Michigan rooters, headed by their brass band, paraded and snake-danced after the game."[3] At the end of the 1913 season, Allmendinger was picked as an All-Western guard on nearly all of the All-Western teams,[4] including the team selected by Walter Eckersall.[5] A newspaper account in the summer of 1917 described Allmendinger's progression as follows: "Allmendinger, a young giant in perfect physical condition tried unsuccessfully for two years to make the varsity eleven. His quiet temperament was the handicap and during these years Coach Yost declared that if Allmendinger 'could get good and mad once, he would be one of the greatest linemen in the game.' The third season Yost became desperate. He used third degree methods, and finally the giant awoke, Allmendinger became a demon on the gridiron, nearly every western critic put him on their all-star elevens and some experts thought he should have made the All-American."[6]Allmendinger received a bachelor of science degree in forestry from Michigan.[7]
Coaching careerFollowing his playing career, he was the head coach at the South Dakota School of Mines in 1914. He compiled a 4–1 record during his sole season at South Dakota Mines. In 1915, he returned to Michigan as an assistant coach.[8][9] He was also an assistant at the Colorado School of Mines.[7]
World War I and Walter Camp's All-Service teamIn July 1917, as the United States entered World War I, Allmendinger enrolled in the U.S. Army, I Company, 31st Michigan Infantry, becoming "another University of Michigan athlete to answer his country's call."[6] Allmendinger was one of several prominent football players commissioned at Fort Sheridan in the fall of 1917; others included former Michigan All-Americans Albert Benbrook and James B. Craig.[10] On Thanksgiving Day 1917, with the country's top players in the military, an All-Star game between the country's top Army and Navy players was held at Stagg Field in Chicago. Almmendinger was the starting right tackle on the Army team.[11] Because of the war, Walter Camp did not select an All-America team in 1917. Instead, Camp named an All-America service team in 1917, recognizing the country's top football players serving in the military.[12] Allmendinger was named to Camp's 1917 All-Service team.[12][13] Allmendinger rose to the rank of captain before being discharged in 1919.[1] He also worked as an assistant football coach at Michigan during the 1919 season.[14]
Family and later yearsAllmendinger worked as an engineer for the Washtenaw County Road Commission from approximately 1921 to 1954. He then worked for five years for the Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Authority.[1][7] He also served as an Ann Arbor city councilman in 1927 and 1929 and as a member of the Washtenaw County Board of Supervisors after retiring.[7]Allmendinger married Marie V. Donohue (1892-1987) in March 1921.[7][15] They had two daughters, Marian and Doris. Allmendinger and his family lived in Ann Arbor.[7]In 1969, Allmendinger was chosen in fan balloting as one of five lineman (along with Germany Schulz, Chuck Bernard, Whitey Wistert, and Julius Franks) on the all-time Michigan football team.[16]He died in 1973 at age 82.[7]
See also List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americanshe University of Michigan (U-M, UMich, or simply Michigan) is a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Michigan is one of the earliest American research universities and is a founding member of the Association of American Universities. Since the fall of 2021, the university has enrolled over 52,000 students.The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity" according to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. It consists of nineteen colleges and offers 250 degree programs at the undergraduate and graduate level across various liberal arts and STEM disciplines.[9] The university is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. In 2021, it ranked third among American universities in research expenditures according to the National Science Foundation.The University of Michigan's athletic teams are collectively known as the Wolverines. They compete in NCAA Division I FBS as members of the Big Ten Conference. The university currently fields varsity teams across 29 NCAA-sanctioned sports. As of 2022, athletes from the university have won 188 medals at the Olympic Games.Notable alumni from the university include eight domestic and foreign heads of state or heads of government; 47 U.S. senators; 218 members of the U.S. House of Representatives; 42 U.S. Cabinet secretaries; and 41 U.S. governors.
History
Main article: History of the University of Michigan
1817–1837The University of Michigan was established on August 26, 1817,[1] as Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania, under an act of the Michigan Territory. The corporate existence of the university had its rise in the Act of 1817, and has been continuous throughout all subsequent changes of its organic law.[10]: 11 Catholepistemiad, a neologism, translates roughly as "School of Universal Knowledge."[11]Catholepistemiad was not a university in the contemporary sense but rather a centralized system of schools, libraries, and other cultural and scientific institutions borrowing its model from the Imperial University of France founded by Napoleon I a decade earlier.[12][10]: 10  Besides carrying on the central institution, the president and didactorium of Catholepistemiad were also authorized to establish private colleges, academies, and libraries in the Michigan Territory.[10]: 10  It was only after the State of Michigan entered the Union in 1837 that a new plan was adopted to focus the corporation on higher education.[12]
First Annual Report of the university, authored by John Monteith, November 16, 1818Shortly after the passage of the Act of 1817, John Monteith became the first president of Catholepistemiad, and Gabriel Richard, a Catholic priest, was vice president. Monteith and Richard enacted that private schools should be established in Detroit, Monroe and Mackinaw, and before the end of September 1817, the three private schools were in operation.[10]: 11  The cornerstone of the first school house, near the corner of Bates Street and Congress Street in Detroit, was laid on September 24, 1817. Subscriptions amounting to $5,000 payable in instalments running over several years were obtained to carry on the work.[10]: 12  Of the total amount subscribed to start the work, two-thirds came from Zion Masonic Lodge and its members.[13] In August 1818, a private Lancasterian school taught by Lemuel Shattuck was opened in the of Michigan (1855) Jasper Francis Cropsey
Colored elevation of Mason Hall (built in 1841; demolished in 1950), the first building devoted to instruction on the Ann Arbor campus. The design was used as a reference by John F. Rague to build the North Hall (built in 1851) in Madison, Wisconsin, which is a National Historic Landmark.[14]After the state of Michigan entered the Union in 1837, its constitution granted the university an unusual degree of autonomy as a “coordinate branch of state government.” It delegated full powers over all university matters granted to its governing Board of Regents.[12] On June 3–5, the Board of Regents held its first meeting in Ann Arbor and formally accepted the proposal by the town to locate the university there.[1] The town of Ann Arbor had existed for only 13 years and had a population of about 2,000.[15] A grant of 40 acres (16 ha), obtained through the Treaty of Fort Meigs,[16] formed the basis of the present Central Campus.[17]Since the founding period, the private sector has remained the primary provider of university financing to supplement tuition collected from students. Early benefactors of the university included businessman Dexter M. Ferry (donor of Ferry Field), Arthur Hill (regent, donor of Hill Auditorium), the Nichols family (regents, donors of the Nichols Arboretum), William E. Upjohn (donor of the Peony Garden), William P. Trowbridge, John S. Newberry, who funded the construction of Helen H. Newberry Residence, and Henry N. Walker, a politician who rallied Detroit businessmen to fund the Detroit Observatory. Clara Harrison Stranahan, a close friend of Scottish-American industrialist Andrew Carnegie, donated $25,000 to the university in 1895. The Waterman Gymnasium was financed by donations from citizens and matched Joshua W. Waterman's pledge of $20,000.[10]: 67 
Alexander J. Davis's original University of Michigan designs featured the Gothic Revival style. Davis himself is generally credited with coining the term "Collegiate Gothic."In 1838, the Regents contracted with Alexander Jackson Davis, who according to Superintendent John Davis Pierce provided truly "magnificent designs" in the Gothic Revival style; but unfortunately the completion of them at that day would, as Pierce said, involve an expenditure of half a million dollars.[10]: 31  Although approving the designs, the tight budget of the fledgling university forced the Regents to ultimately abandon them and instead adopted a much less expensive plan.[18] The superintendent of construction on the first structure to be built for the university was Isaac Thompson, an associate of Davis.[19]Mason Hall was the first building at the University of Michigan dedicated to instruction, serving as both a dormitory and a classroom facility. The building was known as the University Main Building upon its completion in 1841 before changing its name to honor the state's first governor, Stevens T. Mason, in 1843. In 1849, a twin building called South College was constructed south of Mason Hall. University Hall, built between 1871 and 1873, connected the two buildings, which were then referred to as the South Wing and the North Wing.
Andrew Dickson White, founder and first president of Cornell University. White was one the earliest benefactors of the University of Michigan; he joined the Michigan faculty in 1858.[20]Asa Gray was the first professor appointed to Michigan on July 17, 1837.[21] His position was also the first one devoted solely to botany at any educational institution in America.[22][23][24][25]Douglass Houghton was named the university's first professor of geology, mineralogy, and chemistry in 1839.[25] Other notable faculty members appointed at the university during this period included Andrew Ten Brook, Samuel Denton, Alexander Winchell, Franz Brünnow, Henry Simmons Frieze, Thomas McIntyre Cooley, and De Volson Wood.[25] Andrew Dickson White filled the first permanent chair of history in the country at the university from 1857 to 1864.[25]The first classes in Ann Arbor were held in 1841, with six freshmen and a sophomore, taught by two professors. Eleven students graduated in the first commencement in 1845.[26]In the following years, the regents established branches of the university in various parts of the state.[27] These decentralized branches were designed to serve as preparatory schools for the primary university.[27] The first branch was located in Pontiac, and others followed in Kalamazoo, Detroit, Niles, Tecumseh, White Pigeon, and Romeo.[27] Despite its optimism, the branches floundered, finding it difficult to enroll students. Some of the branches would later merge with local colleges. Kalamazoo College, the oldest private college in the state, once operated as the Kalamazoo Branch of the University of Michigan from 1840 to 1850.[27]The years 1837–1850 revealed weakness in the organization and working of the university. Regents of the university discovered that the organic act from which they derived their powers made them too dependent upon the legislature. The subject was brought to the attention of the legislature more than once but without securing the desired action in order to achieve increased independence. By the late 1840s, the Regents achieved a strong position relative to collective bargaining with the legislature as the opinion was becoming common among capitalists, clergymen and intellectual elites, since by then the state derived significant tax revenue through them. Such a situation ultimately led to a change in the organic act of the university. Remodeled, the act, which was approved April 8, 1851, emancipated the university from legislative control that would have been injudicious and harmful. The office of Regent was changed from an appointed one to an elected one, and the office of President was created, with the Regents directed to select one. As Hinsdale argued, "the independent position of the university has had much to do with its growth and prosperity. In fact, its larger growth may be dated from the time when the new sections began to take effect."[10]: 40 The University of Michigan conferred the degree of Bachelor of Science in 1855, four years after the Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge conferred the degree in 1851, for the first time in the United States, making Michigan the second institution in the country to confer the degree.[10]: 48  The degree of Bachelor of Philosophy was conferred for the first time in the university's history upon six students in 1870.[10]: 79  The degrees of Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy was first offered in 1875.[10]: 88 
The Diag in the 19th centuryMichigan establishing its medical school in 1850, engineering courses in 1854, and a law school in 1859.[12] In 1875, the University of Michigan established the College of Dental Surgery, becoming the second university in the United States to offer dental education after Harvard Dental College, which was founded in 1867. The university was also the first to provide graduate-level dentistry education. In 1876, Albert B. Prescott established the university's College of Pharmacy, which was the nation's first school of pharmacy at a state university.The university was among the first to introduce instruction in fields as diverse as zoology and botany, modern languages, modern history, American literature, speech, journalism, teacher education, forestry, bacteriology, naval architecture, aeronautical engineering, computer engineering, and nuclear engineering.[12] In 1856, Michigan built the nation's first chemical laboratory.[28] That laboratory was the first structure on the North American continent that was designed and equipped solely for instruction in chemistry.[28] In 1869, the University of Michigan opened the first hospital in the country owned and operated by a university.Methods of instruction had also undergone important changes. The seminar method of study was first introduced into the university by Charles Kendall Adams in 1871–1872, making the university the first American institution to naturalize this product of the German soil.[29][10]: 71 
Literary Class of 1880 (includes Mary Henrietta Graham, the first African American woman graduate of the University of Michigan)By 1866, enrollment had increased to 1,205 students. Women were first admitted in 1870,[30] although Alice Robinson Boise Wood was the first woman to attend classes (without matriculating) in 1866–67.[31] In 1870, Gabriel Franklin Hargo graduated from Michigan Law as the second African American to graduate from a law school in the United States. In 1871, Sarah Killgore became the first woman to graduate from law school and be admitted to the bar of any state in the United States.[32] Among the early students in the School of Medicine was Jose Celso Barbosa, who graduated as valedictorian in 1880, becoming the first Puerto Rican to earn a university degree in the United States.[33]By the 1870s, the university had built an international reputation. During this period, over 80 subjects of the Emperor of Japan were sent to Ann Arbor to study law as part of the opening of that empire to external influence.[34] The University of Michigan was also involved with the building of the Philippine education, legal, and public health systems during the era of the American colonization of the Philippines through the efforts of Michigan alumni that included Dean Conant Worcester and George A. Malcolm.[35]Descendants of Massachusetts founding families made up a large portion of the university population in the 19th century; among them was Regent Charles Hebard, a lineal descendant of William Bradford, a founding father of Plymouth Colony.[10]: 204  In the early 20th century, the university became a favored choice for high-achieving Jewish students seeking a quality education free of religious discrimination when the private colleges with protestant affiliation often imposed quotas on Jewish admissions. Since then, the university has served as a haven for the community of Jewish-American scholars.[36][37]
Commencement, 1912: University President H.B. Hutchins and dignitaries walking across The Diag toward the Engineering ArchThroughout its history, Michigan has been one of the nation's largest universities, vying with the largest private universities such as Harvard University and Columbia University (then known as Columbia College) during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and then holding this position of national leadership until the emergence of the statewide public university systems in the post-WWII years.[12] By the turn of the 19th century, the university was the second largest in the United States after Harvard University.[38]
20th century
Law Quadrangle, ca. 1930sFrom 1900 to 1920, the growth of higher education led the university to build numerous new facilities. The Martha Cook Building was constructed as an all-female residence in 1915 as the result of a gift from William Wilson Cook in honor of his mother, Martha Walford Cook.[39] Cook planned to endow a professorship of law of corporations, but eventually made possible the development of the Law Quadrangle.[40] The five buildings comprising the Law Quadrangle were constructed during the decade of 1923–33 on two city blocks purchased by the university: Lawyers Club, Dormitory Wing, John P. Cook Dormitory, William W Cook Legal Research Library, and Hutchins Hall.[40] The buildings, in the Tudor Gothic style, recalled the quadrangles of the two English ancient universities Oxford and Cambridge.[40]
Physicists G.E. Uhlenbeck, H.A. Kramers, and S.A. Goudsmit circa 1928 at MichiganFrom 1915 to 1941, the physics department was led by H.M. Randall, who established the importance of theoretical colleagues. O.B. Klein, S.A. Goudsmit, G.E. Uhlenbeck, O. Laporte and D.M. Dennison joined the physics faculty during this time. Theoretical physicist W. Pauli, who became known as one of the pioneers of quantum physics, held a visiting professorship at the university in 1931.[41] Other physicists with ties to the university include the inventor of the Race Track Synchrotron H.R. Crane, G.B.B.M. Sutherland and H.A. Kramers. S. Timoshenko, who is considered to be the father of modern engineering mechanics, created the first U.S. bachelor's and doctoral programs in engineering mechanics when he was a faculty professor at the university.
Summer Symposium on Theoretical Physics in 1931 at the University of MichiganParticipants: H.A. Kramers (second row, sixth left); J.R. Oppenheimer (second row, fourth left)The University of Michigan Summer Symposium in Theoretical Physics was held annually from 1928 to 1941.[42] During this period, virtually every world-renowned physicist lectured at the symposium, including N. Bohr, P.A.M. Dirac, E. Fermi, W. Heisenberg, P. Ehrenfest, E. Schrödinger, and others.[41] No fewer than fifteen of the visiting physicists were either Nobel laureates or would later receive the Nobel Prize in physics. J.R. Oppenheimer, who was a professor at the California Institute of Technology and would later be known as the "father of the atomic bomb," visited in 1931 and 1934.[41]
West Engineering Building, 1905The University of Michigan has been the birthplace of some important academic movements, establishing the Michigan schools of thought and developing the Michigan Models in various fields. John Dewey, Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead, and Robert Ezra Park first met at Michigan. There, they would influence each other greatly.[43] In political science, Angus Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren Miller and Donald Stokes, proposed the Michigan model of voting.[44]Shortly after the war, in 1947, the Regents appointed a War Memorial Committee to consider establishing a war memorial in honor of students and alumni who fell in World War II, and in 1948, approved a resolution to "create a war memorial center to explore the ways and means by which the potentialities of atomic energy may become a beneficent influence in the life of man, to be known as the Phoenix Project of the University of Michigan", leading to the world's first academic program in nuclear science and engineering.[45][12] The Memorial Phoenix Project was funded by over 25,000 private contributors by individuals and corporations, such as the Ford Motor Company.[46]During the 1960s, the university campus was the site of numerous protests against the Vietnam War and university administration. On March 24, 1965, a group of U-M faculty members and 3,000 students held the nation's first-ever faculty-led "teach-in" to protest against American policy in Southeast Asia.[47][48] The university's Spectrum Center is the oldest collegiate LGBT student center in the U.S., pre-dating Penn's.[49]Due to concerns over the university's financial situation there have been suggestions for the complete separation of the university and state through privatization.[50][51] Even though the university is a public institution de jure, it has embraced funding models of a private university that emphasize tuition funding and raising funds from private donors.[52] Considering that "the University of Michigan already has only minimal fiscal ties to the state," the legislature convened a panel in 2008 that recommended converting the University of Michigan from a public to a private institution.[53]Since the fall of 2021, the university has had the largest number of students in the state, surpassing Michigan State University's former enrollment leadership.[54] Given the state's shrinking pool of college-age students, there is public concern that the university's expansion could harm smaller schools by drawing away good students.[55][56] Some of the state's regional public universities and smaller private colleges have already seen significant declines in enrollment, while others face difficulties in maintaining enrollment figures without lowering admission standards.[55]
Historical links
Harry Burns Hutchins (left), James Burrill Angell (center), Andrew Dickson White (right) circa 1900sThe University of Michigan was the first attempt in the New World to build a modern university in the European sense. The institution was the clearest and strongest presentation that had yet been made of what, in this country, at once came to be called the "Prussian ideas." It was a radically different approach to higher education; a complete civil system of education, in contradistinction to the ecclesiastical system made out of the colonial colleges. Michigan alumni and faculty members carried this newer concept of the university with them as they founded other institutions including Andrew Dixon White, a cofounder of Cornell University.[12] Cornell alumni David Starr Jordan and John Casper Branner passed the concept to Stanford University in the late 19th century.[57] Clark Kerr, the first chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, called Michigan the "mother of state universities" and credited the university for the first creation of the research university in America.[58] University of California: had its early planning based upon the University of Michigan.[59][60]
University of Chicago: Michigan alumnus Robert Ezra Park played a leading role in the development of the Chicago School of sociology. The University of Chicago Laboratory School was founded in 1896 by John Dewey and Calvin Brainerd Cady, who were members of the Michigan faculty.
Cornell University: Andrew Dixon White and Charles Kendall Adams, the first and second presidents of Cornell, respectively, were members of the Michigan faculty. Cornell also had its Law School founded by Michigan alumni Charles Kendall Adams and Harry Burns Hutchins.
Harvard University: Michigan alumnus Edwin Francis Gay was the founding dean of the Harvard Business School from 1908 to 1919,[61] instrumental in the school's planning.
Johns Hopkins University: had its pharmacology department established by John Jacob Abel, an alumnus of Michigan.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: had its Media Lab co-founded by Michigan alumnus Jerome Wiesner. Nicholas Negroponte, the co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Media Lab, has held a visiting professorship at the University of Michigan.
Northwestern University: Michigan alumnus Henry Wade Rogers was instrumental in transforming Northwestern from a small cluster of colleges into a major, nationally recognized university. His wife, Emma Winner Rogers, founded the Northwestern University Settlement Association.[62]
Syracuse University: Alexander Winchell and Erastus O. Haven, the first and second chancellors of Syracuse University, respectively, were members of the Michigan faculty.
Wellesley College: Michigan alumna Alice Freeman Palmer, the President of Wellesley College from 1881 to 1887, "transformed the fledgling school from one devoted to Christian domesticity into one of the nation's premier colleges for women."[63]
Yale University: had its residential college system co-organized by James Rowland Angell, a graduate of Michigan.[64] Michigan alumnus Henry Wade Rogers introduced the "case system" and the college degree requirement into the Yale Law School.Campus
William W. Cook Legal Research LibraryThe Ann Arbor campus is divided into four main areas: the North, Central, Medical, and South campuses. The physical infrastructure includes more than 500 major buildings,[65] with a combined area of more than 37.48 million square feet (860 acres; 3.482 km2).[66] The Central and South Campus areas are contiguous, while the North Campus area is separated from them, primarily by the Huron River.[67] There is also leased space in buildings scattered throughout the city, many occupied by organizations affiliated with the University of Michigan Health System. An East Medical Campus was developed on Plymouth Road, with several university-owned buildings for outpatient care, diagnostics, and outpatient surgery.[68]In addition to the University of Michigan Golf Course on South Campus, the university operates a second golf course on Geddes Road called Radrick Farms Golf Course. The golf course is only open to faculty, staff and alumni.[69] Another off-campus facility is the Inglis House, which the university has owned since the 1950s. The Inglis House is a 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) mansion used to hold various social events, including meetings of the Board of Regents, and to host visiting dignitaries.[70] The university also operates a large office building called Wolverine Tower in southern Ann Arbor near Briarwood Mall. Another major facility is the Matthaei Botanical Gardens, which is located on the eastern outskirts of Ann Arbor.[71]All four campus areas are connected by bus services, the majority of which connect the North and Central campuses. There is a shuttle service connecting the University Hospital, which lies between North and Central campuses, with other medical facilities throughout northeastern Ann Arbor.[72]
Central Campus
Further information: University of Michigan Central Campus Historic District
James Burrill Angell HallCentral Campus was the original location of University of Michigan when it moved to Ann Arbor in 1837. It originally had a school and dormitory building (where Mason Hall now stands) and several houses for professors on 40 acres (16 ha) of land bounded by North University Avenue, South University Avenue, East University Avenue, and State Street. The President's House, located on South University Avenue, is the oldest building on campus as well as the only surviving building from the original 40-acre (16 ha) campus.[17] Because Ann Arbor and Central Campus developed simultaneously, there is no distinct boundary between the city and university, and some areas contain a mixture of private and university buildings.[73] The Central Campus residence halls are split up into two groups: the Hill Neighborhood and Central Campus.[74]Central Campus is the location of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, and is immediately adjacent to the medical campus. Most of the graduate and professional schools, including the Ross School of Business, the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the Law School and the School of Dentistry, are on Central Campus. Two prominent libraries, the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library and the Shapiro Undergraduate Library (which are connected by a skywalk), are also on Central Campus.[75] as well as museums housing collections in archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, zoology, dentistry and art. Ten of the buildings on Central Campus were designed by Detroit-based architect Albert Kahn between 1904 and 1936 including Burton Memorial Tower and Hill Auditorium.[76]
North Campus
Earl V. Moore Building on North CampusNorth Campus is the most contiguous campus, built independently from the city on a large plot of farmland—approximately 800 acres (3.2 km2)—that the university bought in 1952.[77] It is newer than Central Campus, and thus has more modernist architecture, whereas most Central Campus buildings are classical or Collegiate Gothic in style. The architect Eero Saarinen, based in Birmingham, Michigan, created one of the early master plans for North Campus and designed several of its buildings in the 1950s, including the Earl V. Moore School of Music Building.[78] North and Central Campuses each have unique bell towers that reflect the predominant architectural styles of their surroundings. Each of the bell towers houses a grand carillon, 2 of only 57 globally. The North Campus tower is called Lurie Tower.[79] The University of Michigan's largest residence hall, Bursley Hall, is part of North Campus.[74]North Campus houses the College of Engineering, the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, the Stamps School of Art & Design, the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and an annex of the School of Information.[80] The campus is served by the Duderstadt Center, which houses the Art, Architecture and Engineering Library. The Duderstadt Center also contains multiple computer labs, video editing studios, electronic music studios, an audio studio, a video studio, multimedia workspaces, and a 3D virtual reality room.[81] Other libraries located on North Campus include the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and the Bentley Historical Library.
South Campus
The University of Michigan Golf Course was designed by Scottish golf course architect Alister MacKenzie and opened in 1931South Campus is the site for the athletic programs, including major sports facilities such as Michigan Stadium, Crisler Center, and Yost Ice Arena. South Campus is also the site of the Buhr library storage facility, Revelli Hall, home of the Michigan Marching Band, the Institute for Continuing Legal Education,[82] and the Student Theatre Arts Complex, which provides shop and rehearsal space for student theatre groups.[83] The university's departments of public safety and transportation services offices are located on South Campus.[82]The University of Michigan Golf Course is located south of Michigan Stadium. It was designed in the late 1920s by Alister MacKenzie, the designer of Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, home of the Masters Tournament.[84] The course opened to the public in 1931 and has one of "the best holes ever designed by Augusta National architect Alister MacKenzie" according to the magazine Sports Illustrated in 2006.[85]
Organization and administration
See also: Board of Regents of the University of Michigan and President of the University of Michigan
Photograph of Michigan University Regents 75th Anniversary Celebration on June 27, 1912.
Standing L-R: Frank B. Leland, John H. Grant, Shirley W. Smith, Harry O. Bulkey, William L. Clements, Lucius Lee Hubbard, Benjamin Hanchett, Junius E. Beal
Seated L-R: Luther L. Wright, James B. Angell, Harry B. Hutchins, Walter M. SawyerThe University of Michigan is governed by the Board of Regents, established by the Organic Act of March 18, 1837. It consists of eight members, elected at large in biennial state elections[86] for overlapping eight-year terms.[87][88] Between the establishment of the University of Michigan in 1837 and 1850, the Board of Regents ran the university directly; although they were, by law, supposed to appoint a chancellor to administer the university, they never did. Instead, a rotating roster of professors carried out the day-to-day administration duties.[89]The President of the University of Michigan is the principal executive officer of the university. The office was created by the Michigan Constitution of 1850, which also specified that the president was to be appointed by the Regents of the University of Michigan and preside at their meetings, but without a vote.[90] Today, the president's office is at the Ann Arbor campus; the president lives in the President's House, the university's oldest building.[91] Mark Schlissel was president from July 2014 to January 2022, when he was fired after an investigation determined he "may have been involved in an inappropriate relationship with an employee of the university".[92]
Student governmentHoused in the Michigan Union, the Central Student Government (CSG) is the central student government of the university. With representatives from each of the university's colleges and schools, including graduate students, CSG represents students and manages student funds on the campus. CSG is a 501(c)(3) organization, independent from the University of Michigan.[93] In recent years CSG has organized Airbus, a transportation service between campus and the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, and has led the university's efforts to register its student population to vote, with its Voice Your Vote Commission (VYV) registering 10,000 students in 2004. VYV also works to improve access to non-partisan voting-related information and increase student voter turnout.[94] CSG was successful at reviving Homecoming activities, including a carnival and parade, for students after a roughly eleven-year absence in October 2007,[95] and during the 2013–14 school year, was instrumental in persuading the university to rescind an unpopular change in student football seating policy at Michigan Stadium.[96] In 2017, CSG successfully petitioned the Ann Arbor City Council to create a Student Advisory Council to give student input into Ann Arbor city affairs.[97]
Samuel Trask Dana Building (West Medical Building) houses the School for Environment and SustainabilityThere are student governance bodies in each college and school, independent of Central Student Government. Undergraduate students in the LS&A are represented by the LS&A Student Government (LSA SG).[98] Engineering Student Government (ESG) manages undergraduate student government affairs for the College of Engineering. Graduate students enrolled in the Rackham Graduate School are represented by the Rackham Student Government (RSG), and law students are represented by the Law School Student Senate (LSSS) as is each other college with its own respective government. In addition, the students who live in the residence halls are represented by the University of Michigan Residence Halls Association (RHA), which contains the third most constituents after CSG and LSA SG.[99]A longstanding goal of the student government is to create a student-designated seat on the Board of Regents, the university's governing body.[100] Such a designation would achieve parity with other Big Ten schools that have student regents. In 2000, students Nick Waun and Scott Trudeau ran for the board on the statewide ballot as third-party nominees. Waun ran for a second time in 2002, along with Matt Petering and Susan Fawcett.[101] Although none of these campaigns has been successful, a poll conducted by the State of Michigan in 1998 concluded that a majority of Michigan voters would approve of such a position if the measure were put before them.[100] A change to the board's makeup would require amending the Michigan Constitution.[102]
Finances
The William W. Cook Legal Research Library and other buildings comprising the Law Quadrangle were built during 1923–33 and then donated to the university by William Wilson Cook. It was the university's most significant private gift at the time.In the fiscal year 2022-23, the State of Michigan spent $333 million on the university, which represents 3.03% of its total operating revenues of $11 billion.[103] The Office of Budget and Planning reports that Michigan Medicine's auxiliary activities are the largest funding source, contributing $6.05 billion to the Auxiliary Funds, which accounts for 55.1% of the total operating budget. Student tuition and fees contributed $1.95 billion to the General Fund, accounting for 11% of the total budget.[103] Research grants and contracts from the U.S. federal government contributed $1.15 billion to the Expendable Restricted Funds, accounting for 10.4% of the total budget.[103]The university’s current (FY 2022-23) operating budget has four major sources of funding:[103] General Fund money, which accounts for 25.4% of the operating budget, is derived from various sources: student tuition and fees ($1.95 billion or 75.2%), state support ($333 million or 12.8%), sponsored research ($301 million or 11.6%), and other revenue ($8 million or 0.3%). It covers the costs of teaching, student services, facilities, and administrative support. The state's annual contribution to the school's operating budget was 3.03% in 2023 and does not cover intercollegiate athletics, housing, or Michigan Medicine.[103] Auxiliary Funds, which account for 58.2% of the operating budget, are sourced from self-supporting units and do not receive taxpayer or tuition support. These include Michigan Medicine ($6.16 billion), intercollegiate athletics ($186 million), student housing ($160 million), and student publications.[103] Expendable Restricted Funds, which account for 14.2% of the operating budget, are from providers who designate how their money is spent. Funding comes from research grants and contracts, endowment payout ($305 million), and private gifts ($157 million). It pays for scholarships and fellowships; salaries, benefits and research support for some faculty; and research, programs and academic centers.[103] Designated Funds, which account for 2.2% of the operating budget, come from fees charged for and spent on experiential learning, programs, conferences, performance venues, and executive and continuing education.[103]EndowmentThe university's financial endowment, known as the "University Endowment Fund," comprises over 12,400 individual funds.[104] Each fund must be spent according to the donor's specifications.[104] Approximately 28% of the total endowment is allocated to support academic programs, while 22% is designated for student scholarships and fellowships.[104] Approximately 19% of the endowment was allocated to Michigan Medicine and can only be used to support research, patient care, or other purposes specified by donors.[104]As of 2023, the university's endowment, valued at $17.9 billion, ranks as the tenth largest among all universities in the country.[105][106] The university ranks 86th in endowment per student.[105] The law school's endowment, totaling over $500 million, has a significantly higher per-student value compared to that of its parent university.[107] It ranks as the eighth wealthiest law school in the nation in fall freshman statistics
2022[108] 2021[109] 2020[110] 2019[111] 2018[112]
Applicants 84,289 79,743 65,021 64,972 64,917
Admits 14,914 16,071 16,974 14,883 14,818
Admit rate 17.69% 20.15% 26.11% 22.91% 22.83%
Enrolled 7,050 7,290 6,879 6,830 6,695
Yield 47.27% 45.36% 40.53% 45.89% 45.18%
SAT range 1350–1530 1360–1530 1340–1520 1340–1530 –
ACT range 31–34 31–35 31–34 31–34 30–34U.S. News & World Report rates Michigan "Most Selective"[113] and The Princeton Review rates its admissions selectivity of 96 out of 99.[114] Admissions are characterized as "more selective, lower transfer-in" according to the Carnegie Classification.[115][116] Michigan received over 83,000 applications for a place in the 2021–22 freshman class, making it one of the most applied-to universities in the United States.[116][117] Half of the applicants accepted to Michigan have an SAT score between 1350 and 1530 or an ACT score between 31 and 34. Of those students accepted to Michigan's Class of 2027, 7,050 chose to attend.Admission is based on academic prowess, extracurricular activities, and personal qualities. The university's admission process is need-blind for domestic applicants.[118] Admissions officials consider a student's standardized test scores, application essay and letters of recommendation to be important academic factors, with emphasis on an applicant's academic record and GPA, while ranking an applicant's high school class rank as 'not considered'.[108][109] In terms of non-academic materials as of 2022, Michigan ranks character/personal qualities and whether the applicant is a first-generation university applicant as 'important' in making first-time, first-year admission decisions, while ranking extracurricular activities, talent/ability, geographical residence, state residency, volunteer work, work experience and level of applicant’s interest as 'considered'.[108] Some applicants to Music, Theatre and Dance and some applicants to the College of Engineering may be interviewed.[108] A portfolio is required and considered for admission for Art, Architecture and the Ross School of Business.[108]
Enrollment in University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (2013–2023) Academic Year Undergraduates Graduate Total Enrollment
2013–2014[119] 28,283 15,427 43,710
2014–2015[120] 28,395 15,230 43,625
2015–2016[121] 28,312 15,339 43,651
2016–2017[122] 28,964 15,754 44,718
2017–2018[123] 29,821 16,181 46,002
2018–2019[112] 30,318 16,398 46,716
2019–2020[111] 31,266 16,824 48,090
2020–2021[110] 31,329 16,578 47,907
2021–2022[109] 32,282 17,996 50,278
2022–2023[108] 32,695 18,530 51,225
RequirementsThe requirements for admission to the freshman class were first published in August 1841, with fluency in ancient languages, such as Latin and Greek, being among the many requirements.[10]: 33  Candidates for admission to the freshman class were examined in English grammar, geography, arithmetic, algebra, Virgil, Cicero's Select Orations, Jacob's or Felton's Greek Reader, Andrews and Stoddard's Latin Grammar, and Sophocles's Greek Grammar. In 1851, the university dropped the requirement for students who did not wish to pursue the usual collegiate course embracing the ancient languages, permitting their admission without examination in such languages.[10]: 44  This provision may be considered a prelude to scientific education.
The archway to the Law QuadrangleRequirements for admission varied from department to department in the early days, and admissions were mostly given by referral. Candidates were required to do no more than satisfying professors on such inquiry as professors saw fit to make of their ability to do the work to obtain admission to the university. Such a practice was deemed flawed, eventually leading to corruption. In 1863, a rigid generalized entrance examination was imposed, creating one standard of qualifications for admission to all the departments, academical and professional.[10]: 79  The early administration praised the then-new practice for its role in strengthening admission to the university.[10]: 44  The entrance examination imposed in 1863 had played a significant role in the admission process during the 19th century until the emergence of the nationwide standardized tests, which were not offered until 1900.
Affirmative action
Main article: Affirmative action at the University of MichiganIn 2003, two lawsuits involving U-M's affirmative action admissions policy reached the U.S. Supreme Court (Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger). President George W. Bush publicly opposed the policy before the court issued a ruling.[124] The court found that race may be considered as a factor in university admissions in all public universities and private universities that accept federal funding, but it ruled that a point system was unconstitutional. In the first case, the court upheld the Law School admissions policy, while in the second it ruled against the university's undergraduate admissions policy.[citation needed] The debate continued because in November 2006, Michigan voters passed Proposal 2, banning most affirmative action in university admissions. Under that law, race, gender, and national origin can no longer be considered in admissions.[125] U-M and other organizations were granted a stay from implementation of the law soon after that referendum. This allowed time for proponents of affirmative action to decide legal and constitutional options in response to the initiative results. In April 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action that Proposal 2 did not violate the U.S. Constitution. The admissions office states that it will attempt to achieve a diverse student body by looking at other factors, such as whether the student attended a disadvantaged school, and the level of education of the student's Year founded[126]
Literature, Science, and the Arts 1841
Medicine 1850
Engineering 1854
Law 1859
Dentistry 1875
Pharmacy 1876
Music, Theatre & Dance 1880
Nursing 1893
Architecture & Urban Planning 1906
Graduate Studies 1912
Government 1914
Education 1921
Business 1924
Environment and Sustainability 1927
Public Health 1941
Social Work 1951
Information 1969
Art & Design 1974
Kinesiology 1984There are thirteen undergraduate schools and colleges.[127] By enrollment, the three largest undergraduate units are the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the College of Engineering, and the Ross School of Business.[128] At the graduate level, the Rackham School of Graduate Studies serves as the central administrative unit of graduate education at the university.[129] There are 18 graduate schools and colleges. Professional degrees are conferred by the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, the School of Public Health, the School of Dentistry, the Law School, the Medical School, and the College of Pharmacy.[128] Michigan Medicine, the university’s health system, comprises the university's three hospitals, dozens of outpatient clinics, and many centers for medical care, research, and education.With over 200 undergraduate majors, and 100 doctoral and 90 master's programs,[130] U-M conferred 6,490 undergraduate degrees, 4,951 graduate degrees, and 709 first professional degrees in 2011–2012.[131] Its most popular undergraduate majors, by 2021 graduates, were:[132] Computer and Information Sciences (874)
Business Administration and Management (610)
Economics (542)
Behavioral Neuroscience (319)
Mechanical Engineering (316)
Experimental Psychology (312)Reputation and rankings
Academic rankings
National
ARWU[133] 18
Forbes[134] 23
THE / WSJ[135] 28
U.S. News & World Report[136] 21
Washington Monthly[137] 23
Global
ARWU[138] 26
QS[139] 33
THE[140] 23
U.S. News & World Report[141] 19The University of Michigan is a large, four-year, residential research university accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.[115][142][143] The four-year, full-time undergraduate program comprises the majority of enrollments and emphasizes instruction in the arts, sciences, and professions with a high level of coexistence between graduate and undergraduate programs. The university has "very high" research activity and the comprehensive graduate program offers doctoral degrees in the humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields as well as professional degrees in medicine, law, and dentistry.[115] U-M has been included on Richard Moll's list of Public Ivies.[144]The 2021 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges report ranked Michigan 3rd among public universities in the United States.[145] Michigan was ranked 6th in the 2021 U.S. News & World Report Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs Rankings.[146] Michigan was ranked 3rd in the 2021 U.S. News & World Report Best Undergraduate Business Programs Rankings.[147] The 2020 Princeton Review College Hopes & Worries Survey ranked Michigan as the No. 9 "Dream College" among students and the No. 7 "Dream College" among parents.[148] The 2022-23 edition of the CWUR rankings ranked Michigan 12th nationally and 15th globally.[149]
National rankings
National Institution Rankings
Institution U.S. Rank
(2023)[150][151] Source
Undergraduate
University of Michigan—Ann Arbor Best National Universities 21 U.S. News
Dream College Among Students 9 Princeton Review
Dream College Among Parents 8 Princeton Review
Undergraduate Research/Creative Projects 5 U.S. News
Stephen M. Ross School of Business Business Programs 4 U.S. News
College of Engineering Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs 5 U.S. News
Computer Science – U.S. News
School of Nursing Nursing 7 U.S. News
College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Psychology Programs 3 U.S. News
Economics 15 U.S. News
Graduate
Stephen M. Ross School of Business Best B-Schools 9 Bloomberg Businessweek
Best Business Schools 8 U.S. News
Part-time MBA 7 U.S. News
Marsal Family School of Education Best Education Schools 1 U.S. News
College of Engineering Best Engineering Schools 7 U.S. News
Computer Science 11 U.S. News
Law School Best Law Schools 8 U.S. News
Medical School Best Medical Schools: Research 13 U.S. News
Best Medical Schools: Primary Care 26 U.S. News
School of Nursing Best Nursing Schools: Master's 8 U.S. News
Best Nursing Schools: Doctor of Nursing Practice 6 U.S. News
Nursing-Midwifery 2 U.S. News
School of Social Work Social Work 1 U.S. News
College of Pharmacy Pharmacy 3 U.S. News
Stamps School of Art & Design Best Fine Arts Programs 8 U.S. News
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy Best Public Affairs Programs 4 U.S. News
Political Science 4 U.S. News
College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Biological Sciences 23 U.S. News
Chemistry 14 U.S. News
Clinical Psychology 10 U.S. News
Earth Sciences 9 U.S. News
Economics 12 U.S. News
English 8 U.S. News
History 2 U.S. News
Mathematics 11 U.S. News
Physics 13 U.S. News
Psychology 3 U.S. News
Sociology 2 U.S. News
Statistics 7 U.S. News
School of Public Health Public Health 5 U.S. News
Biostatistics 4 U.S. News
Health Care Management 3 U.S. News
School of Information Best Library and Information Studies Programs 6 U.S. News
Other
University of Michigan—Ann Arbor Top Public Schools 3 U.S. News
Public Universities 1 QS
Public Universities 1 THE
Public Universities 4 Forbes
World rankingsGlobal Rankings
Institution World Rank
(2023-24)[152] Source
Overall
University of Michigan—Ann Arbor Best Global Universities 19 U.S. News
World University Rankings 23 THE
World Reputation Rankings 18 THE
Academic Ranking of World Universities 26 ARWU
Top Global Universities 33 QS
World University Rankings 15 CWUR
By Subject
Marsal Family School of Education Education 8 THE
Stephen M. Ross School of Business Economics & Business 13 U.S. News
Business and economics 20 THE
Business & Management Studies 27 QS
Global MBA 26 Financial Times
School of Dentistry Dentistry 1 QS
School of Public Health Social Sciences & Public Health 6 U.S. News
Public, Environmental and Occupational Health 22 U.S. News
College of Pharmacy Pharmacology & Toxicology 27 U.S. News
Law School Law 26 THE
Medical School Surgery 11 U.S. News
Clinical Medicine 12 U.S. News
Clinical and Health 21 THE
Infectious Diseases 12 U.S. News
Oncology 15 U.S. News
Molecular Biology & Genetics 15 U.S. News
Biology & Biochemistry 17 U.S. News
Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems 18 U.S. News
Gastroenterology and Hepatology 22 U.S. News
Endocrinology and Metabolism 23 U.S. News
Cell Biology 26 U.S. News
Immunology 31 U.S. News
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging 37 U.S. News
Neuroscience & Behavior 40 U.S. News
Microbiology 43 U.S. News
School for Environment and Sustainability Environment/Ecology 35 U.S. News
College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Arts & Humanities 10 U.S. News
Arts and Humanities 18 THE
Social sciences 9 THE
Psychiatry/Psychology 13 U.S. News
Psychology 11 THE
Mathematics 21 U.S. News
Physical sciences 23 THE
Physics 25 U.S. News
Life sciences 29 THE
Chemistry 46 U.S. News
Biotechnology and Applied Microbiology 56 U.S. News
Geosciences 67 U.S. News
Physical Chemistry 84 U.S. News
Condensed Matter Physics 85 U.S. News
Plant and Animal Science 93 U.S. News
College of Engineering Computer Science 18 U.S. News
Computer Science 41 THE
Engineering 21 U.S. News
Engineering 19 THE
Space Science 25 U.S. News
Mechanical Engineering 36 U.S. News
Materials Science 44 U.S. News
Civil Engineering 46 U.S. News
Optics 57 U.S. News
Energy and Fuels 76 U.S. News
Nanoscience and Nanotechnology 87 U.S. News
Chemical Engineering 94 U.S. News
Electrical and Electronic Engineering 105 U.S. News
Research
Science research output, by year[153][154][155][156][157][158] Share National Rank Global Rank
2022 365.97 Increase 6 18
2021 337.95 Decrease 6 19
2020 398.64 Increase 4 11
2019 343.84 Decrease 5 14
2018 344.48 Increase 6 14
2017 336.06 Increase 5 11Michigan is one of the founding members (in the year 1900) of the Association of American Universities. The university manages one of the largest annual collegiate research budgets of any university in the United States. According to the National Science Foundation, Michigan spent $1.639 billion on research and development in 2021, ranking it 3rd in the nation.[159] This figure totaled over $1 billion in 2009.[160] The Medical School spent the most at over $445 million, while the College of Engineering was second at more than $160 million.[160]
The Thomas Henry Simpson Memorial Institute for Medical Research was constructed in 1924 as the result of a donation from the widow of iron magnate Thomas H. Simpson, in memory of her late husband, who succumbed to pernicious anemiaIn 2009, U-M signed an agreement to purchase a facility formerly owned by Pfizer. The acquisition includes over 170 acres (0.69 km2) of property, and 30 major buildings comprising roughly 1,600,000 square feet (150,000 m2) of wet laboratory space, and 400,000 square feet (37,000 m2) of administrative space. At the time of the agreement, the university's intentions for the space were not fully articulated, but the expectation was that the new space would allow the university to ramp up its research and ultimately employ in excess of 2,000 people.[161]The university is also a major contributor to the medical field with the EKG[162] and the gastroscope.[163] The university's 13,000-acre (53 km2) biological station in the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan is one of only 47 Biosphere Reserves in the United States.[164]In the mid-1960s U-M researchers worked with IBM to develop a new virtual memory architectural model[165] that model became part of IBM's Model 360/67 mainframe computer (the 360/67 was initially dubbed the 360/65M where the "M" stood for Michigan).[166] The Michigan Terminal System (MTS), an early time-sharing computer operating system developed at U-M, was the first system outside of IBM to use the 360/67's virtual memory features.[167]
R&D statistics, by year[168][169][170][171][172] Total
Research
x $1000 National
Rank Federal
Research
x $1000 National
Rank National
Academy
Members National
Rank
2019 – – – – 120 10
2018 1,493,353 3 841,158 3 118 9
2017 1,434,535 2 822,436 3 113 12
2016 1,357,228 2 780,080 3 108 13
2015 1,300,340 2 728,712 3 106 13
2014 1,279,603 2 733,779 3 – –U-M is home to the National Election Studies and the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. The Correlates of War project, also located at U-M, is an accumulation of scientific knowledge about war. The university is also home to major research centers in optics, reconfigurable manufacturing systems, wireless integrated microsystems, and social sciences. The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute and the Life Sciences Institute are located at the university. The Institute for Social Research (ISR), the nation's longest-standing laboratory for interdisciplinary research in the social sciences,[173] is home to the Survey Research Center, Research Center for Group Dynamics, Center for Political Studies, Population Studies Center, and Inter-Consortium for Political and Social Research. Undergraduate students are able to participate in various research projects through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) as well as the UROP/Creative-Programs.[174]The U-M library system comprises nineteen individual libraries with twenty-four separate collections—roughly 13.3 million volumes as of 2012.[175] U-M was the original home of the JSTOR database, which contains about 750,000 digitized pages from the entire pre-1990 backfile of ten journals of history and economics, and has initiated a book digitization program in collaboration with Google.[176] The University of Michigan Press is also a part of the U-M library system.In the late 1960s U-M, together with Michigan State University and Wayne State University, founded the Merit Network, one of the first university computer networks.[177] The Merit Network was then and remains today administratively hosted by U-M. Another major contribution took place in 1987 when a proposal submitted by the Merit Network together with its partners IBM, MCI, and the State of Michigan won a national competition to upgrade and expand the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) backbone from 56,000 to 1.5 million, and later to 45 million bits per second.[178] In 2006, U-M joined with Michigan State University and Wayne State University to create the University Research Corridor. This effort was undertaken to highlight the capabilities of the state's three leading research institutions and drive the transformation of Michigan's economy.[179] The three universities are electronically interconnected via the Michigan LambdaRail (MiLR, pronounced 'MY-lar'), a high-speed data network providing 10 Gbit/s connections between the three university campuses and other national and international network connection points in Chicago.[180]In May 2021, the university announced plans to cut carbon emissions from its campuses. The plan covers all of its operations and goals include removing emissions from direct, on-campus sources by 2040.[181]
Student life
Student body
Undergraduate student body composition as of October 10, 2023
Race and ethnicity[182] Total
White 53% Asian 17% Hispanic 7% Black 4% Other[a] 10% Foreign national 8% Economic diversity[citation needed]
Low-income[b] 18% Affluent[c] 82%
As of October 2023, the university had an enrollment of 52,065 students: 33,730 undergraduate students and 18,335 graduate students[183] in a total of 600 academic programs.[citation needed] This makes it the largest university in the state of Michigan.[184] The largest college at the university was the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts with 21,973 students (42.2% of the total student body), followed by the College of Engineering (11,113; 21.3%) and Ross School of Business (4,433; 8.1%). All other colleges each hosted less than 5% of the total student population.[185]Students come from all 50 U.S. states and nearly 100 countries.[116] As of 2022, 52% of undergraduate students were Michigan residents, while 43% came from other states. The remainder of the undergraduate student body was composed of international students.[186] Of the total student body, 43,253 (83.1%) were U.S. citizens or permanent residents and 8,812 (16.9%) were international students as of November 2023.[187]In terms of race, as of October 2023 the undergraduate student body was approximately 53% White, 17% Asian, 7% Hispanic, 4% Black, 5% from two or more races, and 5% from an unknown racial composition. The remaining 8% of undergraduates were international students.[182]According to a 2017 report by the New York Times, the median family income of a student at Michigan was $154,000. 66% of students came from families within the top 20% in terms of income.[188] As of 2022, approximately 23% of in-state undergradute students and 14% of out-of-state students received a Pell Grant.[186]
Residential life
Main article: University of Michigan Housing
Law Quadrangle
Law Quadrangle, constructed during the decade of 1923–33, was designed by York and Sawyer in the Tudor style. Its design recalled the quadrangles of two ancient English universities, Oxford and CambridgeThe University of Michigan's campus housing system can accommodate approximately 10,000 students, or nearly 25 percent of the total student population at the university.[189] The residence halls are located in three distinct geographic areas on campus: Central Campus, Hill Area (between Central Campus and the University of Michigan Medical Center) and North Campus. Family housing is located on North Campus and mainly serves graduate students. The largest residence hall has a capacity of 1,270 students,[190] while the smallest accommodates 25 residents.[191] A majority of upper-division and graduate students live in off-campus apartments, houses, and cooperatives, with the largest concentrations in the Central and South Campus areas.
Lawyers Club Dining HallThe residential system has a number of "living-learning communities" where academic activities and residential life are combined. These communities focus on areas such as research through the Michigan Research and Discovery Scholars, medical sciences, community service and the German language.[192] The Michigan Research and Discovery Scholars and the Women in Science and Engineering Residence Program are housed in Mosher-Jordan Hall. The Residential College (RC), a living-learning community that is a division of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, also has its principal instructional space in East Quad. The Michigan Community Scholars Program, dedicated to civic engagement, community service learning and intercultural understanding and dialogue, is located in West Quad.[193] The Lloyd Hall Scholars Program (LHSP) is located in Alice Lloyd Hall. The Health Sciences Scholars Program (HSSP) is located in Couzens Hall. The North Quad complex houses two additional living-learning communities: the Global Scholars Program[194] and the Max Kade German Program.[195] It is "technology-rich", and houses communication-related programs, including the School of Information, the Department of Communication Studies, and the Department of Screen Arts and Cultures.[196][197] North Quad is also home to services such as the Language Resource Center and the Sweetland Center for Writing.[198]The residential system also has a number of "theme communities" where students have the opportunity to be surrounded by students in a residential hall who share similar interests. These communities focus on global leadership, the college transition experience, and internationalism.[199] The Adelia Cheever Program is housed in the Helen Newberry House.[200] The First Year Experience is housed in the Baits II Houses and Markley Hall along with portions of all other buildings with the exception of North Quad, Northwood, and Stockwell Hall.[201] The Sophomore Experience is housed in Stockwell Hall and the Transfer Year Experience is housed in Northwood III.[202][203] The newly organized International Impact program is housed in North Quad.[204]
Stockwell Residence Hall
Groups and activities
Photograph of the University of Michigan Democratic Club in 1898.
Back Row (L–R): Arthur Lacy, C. Thomas, J.M. Baily
Front Row (L–R): F.K. Bowers, C.F. Kelley, C.D. Landis, JS. McElligottThe university lists 1,438 student organizations, including Omega Omega Omega (OOO), the nation's first mental health fraternity.[205][206] The student body is politically engaged, though, with 96% stating they intended to vote in the 2020 election. It is largely progressive, with 43% identifying as very liberal, 33% as somewhat liberal, and 13% moderate. 11% identified as conservative or very conservative.[207] With a history of student activism, some of the most visible groups include those dedicated to causes such as civil rights and labor rights, such as local chapters of Students for a Democratic Society and United Students Against Sweatshops. Conservative groups also organize, such as the Young Americans for Freedom.[208]There are also several engineering projects teams, including the University of Michigan Solar Car Team, which has placed first in the North American Solar Challenge six times and third in the World Solar Challenge four times.[209] Michigan Interactive Investments,[210] the TAMID Israel Investment Group, and the Michigan Economics Society[211] are also affiliated with the university.The university also showcases many community service organizations and charitable projects, including Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children, Dance Marathon at the University of Michigan,[212] The Detroit Partnership, Relay For Life, U-M Stars for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, InnoWorks at the University of Michigan, SERVE, Letters to Success, PROVIDES, Circle K, Habitat for Humanity,[213] and Ann Arbor Reaching Out. Intramural sports are popular, and there are recreation facilities for each of the three campuses.[214]
Michigan Union, an Art Deco building constructed on land wholly owned by the student society in 1917, was designed by Michigan alumni Irving Kane Pond and Allen Bartlit Pond.The Michigan Union and Michigan League are student activity centers located on Central Campus; Pierpont Commons is on North Campus. The Michigan Union houses a majority of student groups, including the student government. The William Monroe Trotter House, located east of Central Campus, is a multicultural student center operated by the university's Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs.[215] The University Activities Center (UAC) is a student-run programming organization and is composed of 14 committees.[216] Each group involves students in the planning and execution of a variety of events both on and off campus.
Michigan Marching Band on the field at Michigan versus Harvard football game in 1940The Michigan Marching Band, composed of more than 350 students from almost all of U-M's schools,[217] is the university's marching band. Over 125 years old (with a first performance in 1897),[218] the band performs at every home football game and travels to at least one away game a year. The student-run and led University of Michigan Pops Orchestra is another musical ensemble that attracts students from all academic backgrounds. It performs regularly in the Michigan Theater. The University of Michigan Men's Glee Club, founded in 1859 and the second oldest such group in the country, is a men's chorus with over 100 members.[219] Its eight-member subset a cappella group, the University of Michigan Friars, which was founded in 1955, is the oldest currently running a cappella group on campus.[220] The University of Michigan is also home to over twenty other a cappella groups, including Amazin' Blue, The Michigan G-Men, and Compulsive Lyres, all of which have competed at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) finals in New York City. Compulsive Lyres are the first and only group from Michigan to claim an ICCA title, having won in 2002.[221] The Michigan G-Men are one of only six groups in the country to compete at ICCA finals four times, one of only two TTBB ensembles to do so, and placed third at the competition in 2015.[222] Amazin' Blue placed fourth at ICCA finals in 2017. In 2020, The A Cappella Archive ranked The Michigan G-Men and Amazin' Blue at #7 and #13, respectively, out of all groups that have ever competed in ICCA.[223]The University of Michigan has over 380 cultural and ethnic student organizations on campus.[224] There are organizations for almost every culture from the Arab Student Association to Persian Student Association[225] to African Students Association[226] to even the Egyptian Student Association.[227] These organizations hope to promote various aspects of their culture along with raising political and social awareness around campus by hosting an assortment of events throughout the school year. These clubs also help students make this large University into a smaller community to help find people with similar interests and backgrounds.
Fraternities and sororities
of the 14 founding members of Acacia, the only general fraternity to be founded in Michigan.Fraternities and sororities play a role in the university's social life; approximately seven percent of undergraduate men and 16% of undergraduate women are active in the Greek system.[228] Four different Greek councils—the Interfraternity Council, Multicultural Greek Council, National Pan-Hellenic Council, and Panhellenic Association—represent most Greek organizations. Each council has a different recruitment process.[229]
Delta Sigma Delta, the first dental fraternity in the worldNational honor societies such as Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and Tau Beta Pi have chapters at U-M.[230] Degrees "with Highest Distinction" are recommended to students who rank in the top 3% of their class, "with High Distinction" to the next 7%, and "with Distinction" to the next 15%. Students earning a minimum overall GPA of 3.4 who have demonstrated high academic achievement and capacity for independent work may be recommended for a degree "with Highest Honors", "with High Honors", or "with Honors."[230] Those students who earn all A's for two or more consecutive terms in a calendar year are recognized as James B. Angell Scholars and are invited to attend the annual Honors Convocation, an event which recognizes undergraduate students with distinguished academic achievements.[230]
Phi Delta Phi, the oldest legal organization in continuous existence in the United States
Collegiate secret societiesThe University of Michigan hosts three secret societies: Michigauma, Adara, and the Vulcans. Michigauma and Adara were once under the umbrella group "The Tower Society", the name referring to their historical locations in the Michigan Union tower. Michigauma was all-male while Adara was all-female, although both later became co-ed. Michigauma, more recently known as the Order of Angell, was formed in 1902 by a group of seniors in coordination with University president James Burrill Angell. The group disbanded itself in 2021 due to public concerns about elitism and the society's history. The group was granted a lease for the top floor of the Michigan Union tower in 1932, which they referred to as the "tomb," but the society vacated the space in 2000. Until more recent reforms, the group's rituals were inspired by the culture of Native Americans.[231] Some factions on campus identified Michigauma as a secret society, but many disputed that characterization, as its member list has been published some years in The Michigan Daily and the Michiganensian, and online since 2006 reforms.
Adara, known as Phoenix, was formed in the late 1970s by women leaders on campus and disbanded itself in 2021 amid campus criticisms of secret societies.[232] In the early 1980s they joined the tower society and occupied the sixth floor of the tower just below Michigamua.
Vulcans, occupied the fifth floor of the Union tower though were not formally a part of the tower society. They draw their heritage from the Roman god Vulcan. The group which used to do its tapping publicly is known for its long black robes and for its financial contributions of the College of Engineering.Media and publications
Stanford Lipsey Student Publications BuildingSeveral academic journals are published at the university: The Law School publishes Michigan Law Review and six other law journals: The Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law, University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, Michigan Journal of Race & Law, Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review, Michigan Journal of International Law, and Michigan Journal of Gender and Law.[233]
The Ross School of Business publishes the Michigan Journal of Business.
Several undergraduate journals are also published at the university, including the Michigan Journal of Political Science, Michigan Journal of History, University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Journal, the Michigan Journal of International Affairs, and the Michigan Journal of Asian Studies.The student newspaper is The Michigan Daily, founded in 1890 and editorially and financially independent of the university. The Daily is published five days a week during academic year, and weekly from May to August. The yearbook is the Michiganensian, founded in 1896. Other student publications at the university include the conservative The Michigan Review and the progressive Michigan Independent. The humor publication Gargoyle Humor Magazine is also published by Michigan students.WCBN-FM (88.3 FM) is the student-run college radio station which plays in freeform format. WOLV-TV is the student-run television station that is primarily shown on the university's cable television system. WJJX was previously the school's student-run radio station. A carrier current station, it was launched in 1953.[234]
SafetyViolent crime is rare on the campus though a few of the cases have been notorious including Theodore Kaczynski's attempted murder of professor James V. McConnell and research assistant Nicklaus Suino in 1985. Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, graduated from Michigan with his PhD in 1967.A radical left-wing militant organization Weather Underground was founded at the university in 1969.[235] It was later designated a domestic terrorist group by the FBI.[236]In 2014, the University of Michigan was named one of 55 higher education institutions under investigation by the Office of Civil Rights "for possible violations of federal law over the handling of sexual violence and harassment complaints." President Barack Obama's White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault was organized for such investigations.[237] Seven years later, in 2021, the university attracted national attention when a report commissioned by the university was released that detailed an investigation into sexual assault allegations against doctor Robert Anderson who reportedly abused at least 950 university students, many of whom were athletes, from 1966 to 2003.[238] Several football players from that time say football coach Bo Schembechler ignored and enabled the abuse and told players to "toughen up" after being molested.[239] Schembechler reportedly punched his then 10-year-old son Matthew after he reported abuse by Anderson.[240] Following the exposure of a similar history of abuse at Ohio State University, male survivors of both Anderson at Michigan and Strauss at Ohio State spoke out to combat sexual abuse.[241] The University of Michigan settled with the survivors for $490 million.[242]
Athletics
Main article: Michigan Wolverines
Burgee of University of MichiganThe University of Michigan's sports teams are called the Wolverines. They participate in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and in the Big Ten Conference in all sports except women's water polo, which is a member of the Collegiate Water Polo Association. U-M boasts 27 varsity sports, including 13 men's teams and 14 women's teams.[243] In 10 of the past 14 years concluding in 2009, U-M has finished in the top five of the NACDA Director's Cup, a ranking compiled by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to tabulate the success of universities in competitive sports. U-M has finished in the top 10 of the Directors' Cup standings in 21 of the award's 29 seasons between 1993-2021 and has placed in the top six in nine of the last 10 seasons.[244]More than 250 Michigan athletes or coaches have participated in Olympic events,[245] and as of 2021 its students and alumni have won 155 Olympic medals.[246]Michigan Stadium is the largest college football stadium in the nation and one of the largest football-only stadiums in the world, with an official capacity of 107,601[247] (the extra seat is said to be "reserved" for Fritz Crisler[248]) though attendance—frequently over 111,000 spectators—regularly exceeds the official capacity.[249] The NCAA's record-breaking attendance has become commonplace at Michigan Stadium.U-M is also home to 29 men's and women's club sports teams, such as rugby, hockey, volleyball, boxing, soccer, and tennis.
National championshipsThe Michigan football program ranks first in NCAA history in total wins (989 through the end of the 2022 season) and third among FBS schools in winning percentage (.731).[250][251] The team won the first Rose Bowl game in 1902. U-M had 40 consecutive winning seasons from 1968 to 2007, including consecutive bowl game appearances from 1975 to 2007.[252] The Wolverines have won a record 44 Big Ten championships. The program has 12 national championships, most recently the 2023 National Championship,[253] and has produced three Heisman Trophy winners: Tom Harmon, Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson.[254]The men's ice hockey team, which plays at Yost Ice Arena, has won nine national championships.[255]The men's basketball team, which plays at the Crisler Center, has appeared in five Final Fours and won the national championship in 1989. The program also voluntarily vacated victories from its 1992–1993 and 1995–1999 seasons in which illicit payments to players took place, as well as its 1992 and 1993 Final Four appearances.[256] The men's basketball team has most recently won back-to-back Big Ten Tournament Championships.
In the OlympicsThrough the 2012 Summer Olympics, 275 U-M students and coaches had participated in the Olympics, winning medals in each Summer Olympic Games except 1896, and winning gold medals in all but four Olympiads. U-M students/student-coaches (e.g., notably, Michael Phelps) have won a total of 185 Olympic medals: 85 golds, 48 silvers, and 52 bronzes.[257]
Fight songs and chants
Singing The Yellow and the Blue between halves of the Penn Game, November 1916The University of Michigan's fight song, "The Victors", was written by student Louis Elbel in 1898 following the last-minute football victory over the University of Chicago that won a league championship. The song was declared by John Philip Sousa to be "the greatest college fight song ever written."[258] The song refers to the university as being "the Champions of the West." At the time, U-M was part of the Western Conference, which would later become the Big Ten Conference. Michigan was considered to be on the Western Frontier when it was founded in the old Northwest Territory.Although mainly used at sporting events, the Michigan fight song is often heard at other events as well. President Gerald Ford had it played by the United States Marine Band as his entrance anthem during his term as president from 1974 to 1977, in preference over the more traditional "Hail to the Chief",[259] and the Michigan Marching Band performed a slow-tempo variation of the fight song at his funeral.[260] The fight song is also sung during graduation commencement ceremonies. The university's alma mater song is "The Yellow and Blue." A common rally cry is "Let's Go Blue!" which has a complementary short musical arrangement written by former students Joseph Carl, a sousaphonist, and Albert Ahronheim, a drum major.[261]Before "The Victors" was officially the university's fight song, the song "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" was considered to be the school song.[262] After Michigan temporarily withdrew from the Western Conference in 1907, a new Michigan fight song "Varsity" was written in 1911 because the line "champions of the West" was no longer appropriate.[263]
Museums
For a more comprehensive list, see List of museums and collections at the University of Michigan.
Newberry Hall (Kelsey Museum of Archeology)The university is also home to several public and research museums including but not limited to the University Museum of Art, University of Michigan Museum of Natural History, Detroit Observatory, Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry, and the LSA Museum of Anthropological Archaeology.Kelsey Museum of Archeology has a collection of Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and Middle Eastern artifacts.[264] Between 1972 and 1974, the museum was involved in the excavation of the archaeological site of Dibsi Faraj in northern Syria.[265] The Kelsey Museum re-opened November 1, 2009, after a renovation and expansion.[266]The collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Art include nearly 19,000 objects that span cultures, eras, and media and include European, American, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African art, as well as changing exhibits. The Museum of Art re-opened in 2009 after a three-year renovation and expansion.[267] UMMA presents special exhibitions and diverse educational programs featuring the visual, performing, film and literary arts that contextualize the gallery experience.[268]The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History began in the mid-19th century and expanded greatly with the donation of 60,000 specimens by Joseph Beal Steere in the 1870s. The building also houses three research museums: the Museum of Anthropology, Museum of Paleontology. Today, the collections are primarily housed and displayed in the Ruthven Museums Building which was completed in 1928.[269]
Notable people
Benefactors
Henry Ford (second from the left) at the dedication of Yost Field House in 1923The Zion Masonic Lodge funded the university's first academic building in the 1810s.[270] Two-thirds of the total funding to establish the university was contributed by the Masonic lodge and its members.[270] Since then, private donors have become an important source of funding for the university. Among the individuals who have made significant donations commemorated at the university are William Wilson Cook, Dexter Mason Ferry, the Ford family, the Nichols family, the Marsal Family, William Erastus Upjohn, John Stoughton Newberry, Clara Harrison Stranahan, William K. Brehm, William Morse Davidson, A. Alfred Taubman, Penny W. Stamps, and Ronald Weiser. The Zell Family Foundation, led by Sam and Helen Zell, has donated a total of $152 million to the university over the years.[271][272] Stephen M. Ross made a $200 million donation to the business school and athletic campus in 2013.[273] Ross made a separate $100 million contribution to the university in 2004.[274] Charles Munger pledged $110 million in 2013 for a graduate residence and fellowships.[275]
Faculty and staff
For a more comprehensive list, see List of University of Michigan faculty and staff.
Faculty memberships (2023)
National Academies
National Academy of Engineering[276] 30
National Academy of Medicine[277] 62
National Academy of Sciences[278] 37
Other
American Academy of Arts and Sciences[279] 99
American Philosophical Society[280] 17As of fall 2022, Michigan had 7,954 faculty members and the full-time-equivalent (FTE) total was 6,752. Tenured and tenure-track faculty comprise 2,787 FTEs, lecturers comprise 830 FTEs and another 3,135 FTEs are individuals with clinical, research and other titles who are primarily involved in health care, research, and related scholarly activities.[281]Michigan's current faculty includes 30 members of National Academy of Engineering; 62 members of National Academy of Medicine; 37 members of the National Academy of Sciences; 99 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; 17 members of American Philosophical Society.[282]The university's current and former faculty includes thirteen Nobel laureates, eight Pulitzer Prize winners, 41 MacArthur Fellows, as well as eighteen AAAS fellows.
Alumni
For a more comprehensive list, see List of University of Michigan alumni.As of 2013, nine Michigan alumni have won the Nobel Prize.[283] As of 2022, 35 of Michigan's matriculants have been awarded a Pulitzer Prize winners. By alumni count, Michigan ranks fifth as of 2018, among all schools whose alumni have won Pulitzers. The university is, as of 2020, associated one Mitchell Scholar.[284] As of 2021, 30 Michigan students or alumni have been named Rhodes Scholars.[285]
Government and law
Presidential candidate Gerald Ford wears a "Michigan #1" sweater, Kick-off of Ford's 1976 presidential campaign at the University of Michigan campus in Ann ArborMichigan graduates have held a range of high-level U.S. government positions, including United States President (Gerald Ford); United States Secretary of State (William Rufus Day); United States Supreme Court justice (Frank Murphy, George Sutherland); United States Secretary of the Treasury (George M. Humphrey); United States Attorney General (Harry Micajah Daugherty); United States Secretary of the Interior (Kenneth Lee Salazar); United States Secretary of Agriculture (Clinton Anderson, Julius Sterling Morton, Arthur M. Hyde, and Dan Glickman); United States Secretary of Commerce (Roy D. Chapin and Robert P. Lamont); United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (Tom Price); United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (Ben Carson); Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget (Rob Portman); United States Trade Representative (Rob Portman); Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (Harvey S. Rosen).More than 250 Michigan graduates have served as legislators as either a United States Senator (47 graduates) or as a Congressional representative (over 215 graduates), including former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt,[286] U.S. Representative Justin Amash.[287] As of 2021, Michigan has matriculated 63 U.S. governors or lieutenant governors, including former Governor of Michigan Rick Snyder and former Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey. Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan are also Michigan graduates. As of 2019, Michigan has placed onto various State Supreme Courts over 125 graduates, 40 of whom served as Chief Justice. As of 2022, Michigan has matriculated 64 Ambassadors who served as Ambassador in more than 72 countries.Foreign alumni include the Prime Minister of Italy 1995–1996 (Lamberto Dini); the 47th President of Costa Rica (Luis Guillermo Solís); the 13th President of Pakistan (Arif Alvi); the Prime Minister of Jordan 2012–2016 (Abdullah Ensour); the current ruler of the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah (Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi); the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda 1994–2004 (Lester Bird); the Prime Minister of Peru 1993–1994 (Alfonso Bustamante); the Chief Minister of Punjab 1952–1964 (Pratap Singh Kairon); Chief Secretary of Hong Kong 2007–2011 (Henry Tang Ying-yen); Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore (Lawrence Wong); Deputy Prime Minister of South Korea 2017–2018 (Kim Dong-yeon); Deputy Prime Minister of Bulgaria in the government of Boyko Borisov (Simeon Djankov).
ScienceNumerous U-M graduates contributed to the field of computer science, including Claude Shannon (who made major contributions to the mathematics of information theory),[288] and Turing Award winners Edgar Codd, Stephen Cook, Frances E. Allen, and Michael Stonebraker.U-M's contributions to aeronautics include aircraft designer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson of Lockheed Skunk Works fame.[289]
Business
For a more comprehensive list, see List of University of Michigan business alumni.Michigan alumni have founded or cofounded companies such as Alphabet Inc. (Larry Page[290]), General Motors Company (Frederic Latta Smith), The Boeing Company (Edgar Gott), Stryker Corporation (Homer Stryker), Domino's Pizza, Inc. (Tom Monaghan), Merrill Lynch (Charles Edward Merrill), Saba Capital, EQ Office (Samuel Zell), Related Group (Stephen M. Ross), Science Applications International Corporation (J. Robert Beyster[291]), H&R Block, Groupon (Brad Keywell), Five Guys, Haworth, Inc., Uptake Technologies, Skype (Niklas Zennström), Redbox (Gregg Kaplan), DoubleClick, Graphiq, Leo Burnett Company (Leo Burnett), C-SPAN and Taubman Company (A. Alfred Taubman).Alumni have also led several companies, including Berkshire Hathaway (Charlie Munger), Allstate Insurance (Thomas J. Wilson), Tencent (Martin Lau), Twitter (Dick Costolo), Meijer (Doug Meijer and Hank Meijer), Walgreens (Charles Rudolph Walgreen Jr.), Craigslist (Jim Buckmaster), Chrysler Group LLC (C. Robert Kidder), BorgWarner (Timothy M. Manganello), American Motors Corporation (Robert Beverley Evans), Activision Blizzard (Bobby Kotick), Priceline.com (Ralph Bahna), Turkish Airlines (Temel Kotil), JetBlue (Dave Barger), and Coinstar (Gregg Kaplan).
Authors and journalistsNotable writers who attended U-M include playwright Arthur Miller,[286] essayists Susan Orlean,[286] Jia Tolentino,[292] Sven Birkerts, journalists and editors Mike Wallace,[286] Jonathan Chait of The New Republic, Indian author and columnist Anees Jung, Daniel Okrent,[286] and Sandra Steingraber, food critics Ruth Reichl and Gael Greene, novelists Brett Ellen Block, Elizabeth Kostova, Marge Piercy,[286] Brad Meltzer,[286] Betty Smith,[286] and Charles Major, screenwriter Judith Guest,[286] Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Theodore Roethke, National Book Award winners Keith Waldrop and Jesmyn Ward, composer/author/puppeteer Forman Brown, Alireza Jafarzadeh (a Middle East analyst, author, and TV commentator), and memoirist and self-help book author Jerry Newport.
Music and entertainmentMusical graduates include operatic soprano Jessye Norman,[286] singer Joe Dassin, multiple members of the band Tally Hall, jazz guitarist Randy Napoleon, and Mannheim Steamroller founder Chip Davis.[286] Well-known composers who are alumni include Frank Ticheli, Andrew Lippa, and the Oscar and Tony Award-winning duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Pop superstar Madonna[286] and rock legend Iggy Pop[286] attended but did not graduate.
Film and televisionIn Hollywood, famous alumni include actors Michael Dunn,[286] Darren Criss, James Earl Jones,[286] and David Alan Grier;[286] actresses Lucy Liu,[286] Gilda Radner,[286] and Selma Blair[286] as well as television director Mark Cendrowski and filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan.[286] Many Broadway and musical theatre actors, including Gavin Creel,[286] Andrew Keenan-Bolger, his sister Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Taylor Louderman attended U-M for musical theatre. Emmy Award winner Sanjay Gupta attended both college and medical school at the university.[293] Conservative pundit Ann Coulter is another U-M law school graduate (J.D. 1988).[286]
SportsU-M athletes have starred in Major League Baseball, the National Football League and National Basketball Association as well as in other professional sports. Notable among recent players is Tom Brady of the New England Patriots and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.[286] Three players have won college football's Heisman Trophy, awarded to the player considered the best in the nation: Tom Harmon (1940), Desmond Howard (1991), and Charles Woodson (1997).[254] Professional golfer John Schroeder and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps also attended the University of Michigan; the latter studied Sports Marketing and Management. Phelps also swam competitively for Club Wolverine, a swimming club associated with the university.[294] The Canada national team's Shelina Zadorsky played soccer at the University of Michigan.[295]National Hockey League players Marty Turco, Luke Hughes, Chris Summers, Max Pacioretty, Carl Hagelin, Dylan Larkin, Zach Hyman, Brendan Morrison,[286] Jack Johnson, and Michael Cammalleri[286] all played for U-M's ice hockey team. MLB Hall of Famers George Sisler and Barry Larkin also played baseball at the university.[286] Several team owners have been alumni, including multiple-team owner Bill Davidson (NBA Detroit Pistons, NHL Tampa Bay Lightning, WNBA Detroit Shock, among others) and NFL owners Stephen M. Ross (Miami Dolphins), Preston Robert Tisch (New York Giants), and Ralph Wilson (Buffalo Bills).
Activists and humanitariansActivists associated with the university include Weather Underground radical activist Bill Ayers,[296] activist Tom Hayden,[286] architect Charles Moore,[297] Swedish hero of the Holocaust Raoul Wallenberg,[298] Civil War General Benjamin D. Pritchard,[299] and assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian.
ExplorationSeveral astronauts attended Michigan including the all-U-M crews of both Gemini 4[300] and Apollo 15.[301] The university claims the only alumni association with a chapter on the Moon, established in 1971 when the crew of Apollo 15 placed a charter plaque for a new U-M Alumni Association on the lunar surface.[286][301]
NotesOther consists of Multiracial Americans & those who prefer to not say.
The percentage of students who received an income-based federal Pell grant intended for low-income students.
The percentage of students who are a part of the American middle class at the bare minimum.The Michigan Wolverines football team represents the University of Michigan in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision level. Michigan has the most all-time wins in college football history.[3][4] The team is known for its distinctive winged helmet, its fight song, its record-breaking attendance figures at Michigan Stadium,[5] and its many rivalries, particularly its annual, regular season-ending game against Ohio State, known simply as "The Game," once voted as ESPN's best sports rivalry.[6]Michigan began competing in intercollegiate football in 1879. The Wolverines joined the Big Ten Conference at its inception in 1896, and other than a hiatus from 1907 to 1916, have been members since. Michigan has won or shared 45 league titles, and since the inception of the AP Poll in 1936, has finished in the top 10 a total of 39 times. The Wolverines claim 12 national championships, including 3 (1948, 1997, 2023) from the major wire-service: AP Poll and/or Coaches' Poll.[7]From 1900 to 1989, Michigan was led by a series of nine head coaches, each of whom has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame either as a player or as a coach. Fielding H. Yost became Michigan's head coach in 1901 and guided his "Point-a-Minute" squads to a streak of 56 games without a defeat, spanning from his arrival until the season finale in 1905, including a victory in the 1902 Rose Bowl, the first college football bowl game ever played. Fritz Crisler brought his winged helmet from Princeton University in 1938 and led the 1947 Wolverines to a national title and Michigan's second Rose Bowl win. Bo Schembechler coached the team for 21 seasons (1969–1989) in which he won 13 Big Ten titles and 194 games, a program record. The first decade of his tenure was underscored by a fierce competition with his former mentor, Woody Hayes, whose Ohio State Buckeyes squared off against Schembechler's Wolverines in a stretch of the Michigan–Ohio State rivalry dubbed the "Ten-Year War".Following Schembechler's retirement, the program was coached by two of his former assistants, Gary Moeller and then Lloyd Carr, who maintained the program's overall success over the next 18 years. However, the program's fortunes declined under the next two coaches, Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke, who were both fired after relatively short tenures. Following Hoke's dismissal, Michigan hired Jim Harbaugh on December 30, 2014.[8] Harbaugh is a former quarterback for the team, having played for Michigan from 1982 to 1986 under Schembechler. Harbaugh led the Wolverines to three consecutive Big Ten titles and College Football Playoff appearances during his final three years as head coach, from 2021 to 2023. His final team, the 2023 Michigan Wolverines won the program's first national championship since 1997, and first undisputed national championship since 1948 after beating Washington in the 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship. Following the championship victory, Harbaugh left Michigan to return to coaching in the National Football League (NFL). Currently, the head coach position is held by Sherrone Moore, who had been on Harbaugh's coaching staff since 2018, and had been an offensive coordinator since 2021. He was the acting head coach for four games during the national championship-winning 2023 season. He won them all, including games against ranked opponents Penn State and Ohio State. The Wolverines promoted Moore on January 26, 2024, two days after Harbaugh's departure.[9][10]The Michigan Wolverines have featured 88 players that have garnered consensus selection to the College Football All-America Team. Three Wolverines have won the Heisman Trophy: Tom Harmon in 1940, Desmond Howard in 1991, and Charles Woodson in 1997. Gerald Ford, who later became the 38th president of the United States, started at center and was voted most valuable player by his teammates on the 1934 team.
History
See also: List of Michigan Wolverines football seasons

It has been suggested that portions of this section be split out into another article titled History of Michigan Wolverines football. (Discuss) (September 2019)
Early history (1879–1900)
Main article: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the early years
The 1879 squad, the first team fielded by the universityOn May 30, 1879, Michigan played its first intercollegiate football game against Racine College at White Stocking Park in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune called it "the first rugby-football game to be played west of the Alleghenies."[11] Midway through "the first 'inning',"[12] Irving Kane Pond scored the first touchdown for Michigan.[13][14] According to Will Perry's history of Michigan football, the crowd responded to Pond's plays with cheers of "Pond Forever."[11] In 1881, Michigan played against Harvard in Boston. The game that marked the birth of intersectional football.[15] On their way to a game in Chicago in 1887, Michigan players stopped in South Bend, Indiana and introduced football to students at the University of Notre Dame. A November 23 contest marked the inception of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program and the beginning of the Michigan–Notre Dame rivalry.[16] In 1894, Michigan defeated Cornell, which was the "first time in collegiate football history that a western school defeated an established power from the east."[17]
The 1898 Michigan Wolverines, the first Michigan team to win a conference titleIn 1896, the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives—then commonly known as the Western Conference and later as the Big Ten Conference—was formed by the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin, Northwestern University, and Purdue University.[18] The first Western Conference football season was played in 1896, with Michigan going 9–1, but losing out on the inaugural Western Conference title with a loss to the Chicago Maroons to end the season.[19][20] By 1898 Amos Alonzo Stagg was fast at work at turning the University of Chicago football program into a powerhouse. Before the final game of the 1898 season, Chicago was 9–1–1 and Michigan was 9–0; a game between the two teams in Chicago decided the third Western Conference championship. Michigan won, 12–11, capturing the program's first conference championship in a game that inspired "The Victors", which later became the school's fight song.[21] Michigan went 8–2 and 7–2–1 in 1899 and 1900, results that were considered unsatisfactory relative to the 10–0 season of 1898.[22]
Yost era (1901–1928)
Main article: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the Yost era
Fielding Yost in 1902.After the 1900 season, Charles A. Baird, Michigan's first athletic director, wrote to Fielding H. Yost, "Our people are greatly roused up over the defeats of the past two years", and gave Yost an offer to come to Michigan to coach the football team.[23] The New York Times reported that Michigan's margin of victory was "one of the most remarkable ever made in the history of football in the important colleges."[24] At the end of the season, Michigan participated in the inaugural Rose Bowl.[25] Michigan dominated the game so thoroughly that Stanford's captain requested the game be called with eight minutes remaining. Neil Snow scored five touchdowns in the game, which is still the all-time Rose Bowl record.[26] The next year, 1902, Michigan outscored its opponents 644 to 12 and finished the season 11–0. In 1903, Michigan played a game against Minnesota that started the rivalry for the Little Brown Jug, the oldest rivalry trophy in college football.[27] The game marked the only time from 1901 to 1904 that Michigan failed to win.[22] Michigan finished the season at 11–0–1. In 1904, Michigan once again went undefeated at 10–0 while recording one of the most lopsided defeats in college football history, a 130–0 defeat of the West Virginia Mountaineers.[20]From 1901 through 1904, Michigan didn't lose a single game.[22] The streak was finally halted at the end of the 1905 season by Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago Maroons, a team that went on to win two Big 9 (as the Western Conference was now being called with the addition of Iowa and Indiana) titles in the next three years.[19] The game, dubbed "The First Greatest Game of the Century,"[28] broke Michigan's 56-game unbeaten streak and marked the end of the "Point-a-Minute" years. The 1905 Michigan team had outscored opponents 495–0 in its first 12 games. 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. Michigan tied for another Big 9 title in 1906 before opting to go independent for the 1907 season.[20] The independent years were not as kind to Yost as his years in the Big 9. Michigan suffered one loss in 1907.[22] In 1908, Michigan got battered by Penn (a team that went 11–0–1 that year) in a game in which Michigan center Germany Schulz took such a battering as to have to be dragged off the field.[29] In 1909, Michigan suffered its first loss to Notre Dame, leading Yost to refuse to schedule another game against Notre Dame; the schools did not play again until 1942.[20] In 1910, Michigan played their only undefeated season of the independent years, going 3–0–3.[22] Overall from 1907 to 1916, Michigan lost at least one game every year (with the exception of 1910).[22]
Benny Friedman in 1929.Michigan rejoined the Big 9 in 1917, after which it was called the Big Ten. Yost immediately got back to work. In 1918, Michigan played the first game against Stagg's Chicago Maroons since Chicago ended Michigan's winning streak in 1905.[20] Michigan defeated the Maroons, 18–0, on the way to a 5–0 record.[20][22] The next three years were lean, with Michigan going 3–4, 5–2, and 5–1–1, in 1919, 1920, and 1921.[22] However, in 1922 Michigan managed to spoil the "Dedication Day" for Ohio Stadium, defeating the Buckeyes 19–0.[20] Legend has it that the rotunda at Ohio Stadium is painted with maize flowers on a blue background due to the outcome of the 1922 dedication game.[30] Michigan went 5–0–1 in 1922, capturing a Big Ten title.[19][22] In 1923, Michigan went 8–0, winning another conference championship.[19][22] The 1924 Wolverines, coached by George Little, saw their 20-game unbeaten streak end at the hands of Red Grange.[20] After the 1924 season, Little left Michigan to accept the head coach and athletic director positions at Wisconsin, returning athletic director Yost to the head coaching position.[31] Although the 1925 and 1926 seasons did not include a conference title, they were memorable due to the presence of the famous "Benny-to-Bennie" combination, a reference to Benny Friedman and Bennie Oosterbaan. The two helped popularize passing the ball in an era when running held dominance. Oosterbaan became a three-time All-American and was selected for the All-Time All-American team in 1951,[32] while Friedman went on to have a Hall of Fame NFL career.[33] Also during 1926, Michigan was retroactively awarded national titles for the 1901 and 1902 seasons via the Houlgate System, the first national titles awarded to the program. Other major selectors (such as the National Championship Foundation and Jeff Sagarin) later retroactively awarded Michigan with titles in the 1903, 1904, 1918, 1923, 1925, and 1926 seasons.[34] Michigan claims titles in the 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1918, and 1923 seasons.[35]Yost stepped aside in 1926 to focus on being Michigan's athletic director, a post he had held since 1921, thus ending the greatest period of success in the history of Michigan football.[36] Under Yost, Michigan posted a 165–29–10 record, winning ten conference championships and six national championships.[19][20][35] One of his main actions as athletic director was to oversee the construction of Michigan Stadium. Michigan began playing football games in Michigan Stadium in the fall of 1927. At the time Michigan Stadium had a capacity of 72,000, although Yost envisioned eventually expanding the stadium to a capacity well beyond 100,000.[37] Michigan Stadium was formally dedicated during a game against the Ohio State Buckeyes that season to the tune of a 21–0 victory.[38] Tad Wieman became Michigan's head coach in 1927. That year, Michigan posted a modest 6–2 record.[22] However, the team ended 1928 with a losing 3–4–1 record and Wieman was fired.[39][40]
Kipke years (1929–1937)
Main article: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the Kipke years
Future U.S. president Gerald Ford during practice as a center on Wolverines football team, 1933In 1929, Harry Kipke, a former player under Yost, took over as head coach.[41] From 1930 to 1933, Kipke returned Michigan to prominence. During that stretch, Michigan won the Big Ten title every year and the national championship in 1932 and 1933.[19][35] In 1932, quarterback and future College Football Hall of Famer Harry Newman was a unanimous first-team All-American, and the recipient of the Douglas Fairbanks Trophy as Outstanding College Player of the Year (predecessor of the Heisman Trophy), and the Helms Athletic Foundation Player of the Year Award, the Chicago Tribune Silver Football trophy as the Most Valuable Player in the Big Ten Conference.[42] During this span Kipke's teams only lost one game, to Ohio State.[20][22] After 1933, however, Kipke's teams compiled a 12–22 record from 1934 to 1937.[22] The 1934 Michigan team only won one game, against Georgia Tech in a controversial contest. Georgia Tech coach and athletic director W. A. "Bill" Alexander refused to allow his team to take the field if Willis Ward, an African-American player for Michigan, stepped on the field. Michigan conceded, and the incident reportedly caused Michigan player Gerald R. Ford to consider quitting the team.[43] Overall, Kipke posted a 49–26–4 record at Michigan, winning four conference championships and two national championships.[19][22][35]
Crisler years (1938–1947)
Main article: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the Crisler years
Fritz Crisler in 1948.In 1938, Michigan hired Fritz Crisler as Kipke's successor.[44] Crisler had been head coach of the Princeton Tigers and reportedly wasn't excited to leave Princeton.[44] Michigan invited him to name his price, and Crisler demanded what he thought would be unacceptable: the position of athletic director when Yost stepped down and the highest salary in college football.[45] Michigan accepted, and Crisler became the new head coach of the Michigan football program.[44]Upon arriving at Michigan, Crisler introduced the winged football helmet, ostensibly to help his players find the receivers down field.[46] Whatever the reasoning, the winged helmet has since become one of the iconic marks of Michigan football.[47] Michigan debuted the winged helmet in a game against Michigan State in 1938.[48] Two years later in 1940, Tom Harmon led the Wolverines to a 7–1 record on his way to winning the Heisman Trophy.[22][49] Harmon ended the season by scoring three rushing touchdowns, two passing touchdowns, four extra points, intercepting three passes, and punting three times for an average of 50 yards in a game against the Ohio State Buckeyes.[50] The 1943 season included a No. 1 (Notre Dame) vs. No. 2 (Michigan) match-up against Notre Dame, a game the Wolverines lost 35–12.[20] Michigan ended the season at 8–1, winning Crisler's first Big Ten championship.[19][22]Crisler had reversed the misfortune of the end of the Kipke era and returned Michigan to one and two-loss seasons. From 1938 to 1944, Michigan posted a 48–11–2 record,[51] although the period lacked a national title and only contained one conference title.[22] Yet, Crisler's biggest mark on the game of football was made in 1945, when Michigan faced a loaded Army squad that featured two Heisman trophy winners, Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis. Crisler didn't feel that his Michigan team could match up with Army, so he opted to take advantage of a 1941 NCAA rule that allowed players to enter or leave at any point during the game.[45] Crisler divided his team into "offensive" and "defensive" specialists, an act that earned him the nickname "the father of two-platoon football."[52] Michigan still lost the game with Army 28–7,[20] but Crisler's use of two-platoon football shaped the way the game was played in the future. Eventually, Crisler's use of the platoon system propelled his team to a conference championship and a national title in 1947, his final season.[19][20][35] The 1947 team, nicknamed the "Mad Magicians" due to their use of two-platoon football, capped their season with a 49–0 victory over the USC Trojans in the 1948 Rose Bowl.[20] Crisler finished with a 116–32–9 record at Michigan, winning two conference titles and one national title.[19][22][35][51]
Oosterbaan years (1948–1958)
Main article: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the Oosterbaan years
Bennie OosterbaanCrisler continued as athletic director while Bennie Oosterbaan, the same Bennie that had electrified the world while making connections with Benny Friedman 20 years earlier, took over the football program.[53] Things started off well for Oosterbaan in 1948 with the Wolverines earning a quality mid-season victory over No. 3 Northwestern.[20][53] Michigan finished the season undefeated at 9–0, thus winning another national championship.[22][35] Initially, Oosterbaan continued Crisler's tradition of on-field success, winning conference titles each year from 1948 to 1950 and the national title in 1948.[19][35] The 1950 season ended in interesting fashion, with Michigan and Ohio State combining for 45 punts in a game that came to be known as the "Snow Bowl." Michigan won the game 9–3, winning the Big Ten conference and sending the Wolverines off to the 1951 Rose Bowl.[19][20] Subsequently, Michigan's football team began to decline under Oosterbaan. From 1951 to 1958, Michigan compiled a record of 42–26–2, a far cry from the success under Crisler and Yost.[22] Perhaps more importantly, Oosterbaan posted a 2–5–1 record against Michigan State and a 3–5 record against Ohio State over the same time period.[20] Under mounting pressure, Oosterbaan stepped down after 1958.[53]
Elliott years (1959–1968)
Main article: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the Elliott yearsIn place of Oosterbaan stepped Bump Elliott, a former Michigan player of Crisler's.[54] Elliott continued many of the struggles that began under Oosterbaan, posting a 51–42–2 record from 1959 through 1968 (including a 2–7–1 record against Michigan State and a 3–7 record against Ohio State).[22] Michigan's only Big Ten title under Elliott came in 1964, a season that included a win over Oregon State in the 1965 Rose Bowl.[19][20] Following a 50-14 drubbing at the hands of Ohio State in 1968,[20] Elliott resigned.
Schembechler era (1969–1989)
Bo Schembechler in 1975.It only took 15 minutes for Don Canham to be sold on Bo Schembechler, resulting in Schembechler becoming the 15th coach in Michigan football history.[55] At the time, Schembechler's employer, the Miami RedHawks, could have thrown more money at Schembechler, but Canham managed to sell Schembechler on Michigan's tradition and prestige.[56] Schembechler's first team got off to a moderate start, losing to rival Michigan State and entering the Ohio State game with a 7–2 record.[22] Ohio State, coached by icon Woody Hayes, entered the game at 8–0 and poised to repeat as national champions.[57] The 1969 Ohio State team was hailed by some as being the "greatest college football team ever assembled" and came into the game favored by 17 points over Michigan.[58] Michigan shocked the Buckeyes, winning 24–12, going to the Rose Bowl, and launching The Ten Year War between Hayes and Schembechler.[20] From 1969 to 1978, one of either Ohio State or Michigan won at least a share of the Big Ten title and represented the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl every season.[19] In 1970 Schembechler failed to repeat on the magic of 1969, that year losing to Ohio State 20–9 and finishing at 9–1.[20] However, in 1971, Schembechler led Michigan to an undefeated regular season, only to lose to the Stanford Indians in the Rose Bowl to finish at 11–1.[22] From 1972 to 1975, Michigan failed to win a game against Ohio State (powered by phenom running back Archie Griffin).[20] However, Michigan did tie Ohio State in 1973, only missing out on the Rose Bowl due to a controversial vote that sent Ohio State to the Rose Bowl and left Michigan at home.[20] Another notable event occurred during the 1975 season, with the first of Michigan's record streak of games with more than 100,000 people in attendance occurring during a game against the Purdue Boilermakers.
Rick Leach, who played quarterback for Michigan from 1975 through 1978.From 1976 to 1978, Michigan asserted its own dominance of the rivalry, beating Ohio State, going to the Rose Bowl, and posting a 10–2 record every year.[20][22] After the 1978 season, Woody Hayes was fired for punching an opposing player during the 1978 Gator Bowl, thus ending The Ten Year War.[59] Michigan had a slight edge in the war, with Schembechler going 5–4–1 against Hayes. However, while Schembechler successfully placed great emphasis on the rivalry, Michigan's bowl performances were sub-par. Michigan failed to win their last game of the season every year during The Ten Year War.[20] The only year in which Michigan didn't lose its last game of the season was the 1973 tie against Ohio State.[20] After the end of the Ten Year War, Michigan's regular season performance declined, but its post season performance improved. The 1979 season included a memorable game against Indiana that ended with a touchdown pass from John Wangler to Anthony Carter with six seconds left in the game.[60] Michigan went 8–4 on the season, losing to North Carolina in the 1979 Gator Bowl.[20][22] In 1980, Michigan went 10–2 and got their first win in the Rose Bowl under Schembechler, a 23–6 win over Washington.[20][22] Michigan went 9–3 in 1981 to get Schembechler's second bowl win in the 1981 Bluebonnet Bowl.[20][22] In 1982, Michigan won the Big Ten championship while being led by three-time All-American wide receiver Anthony Carter.[19][61] Michigan fell to UCLA Bruins in the 1983 Rose Bowl.[20] Without Anthony Carter, the Wolverines did not win the Big Ten title in 1983, going 9–3.[22] In 1984, the Wolverines suffered their worst season under Schembechler, going 6–6 with a loss to national champion BYU in the 1984 Holiday Bowl.[20][22]Michigan needed to reverse its fortunes in 1985, and they began doing so with new quarterback Jim Harbaugh.[62] Harbaugh led the Wolverines to a 5–0 record, propelling them to a No. 2 ranking heading into a game with the No. 1 Iowa Hawkeyes.[63] Michigan lost 12–10,[20] but did not lose another game the rest of the season to finish at 10–1–1 with a victory over Tom Osborne's Nebraska Cornhuskers in the 1986 Fiesta Bowl.[22] In 1986 Michigan won the Big Ten at 11–2, suffering a loss to the Arizona State Sun Devils in the 1987 Rose Bowl.[20][22] The departure of Harbaugh after 1986 once again left Michigan on tough times, by Michigan standards, as Schembechler's team stumbled to an 8–4 record in 1987.[22] However, Michigan bounced back again in 1988 and 1989, winning the Big Ten title outright both years at 9–2–1 and 10–2 with trips to Rose Bowl.[19][22] From 1981 through 1989, Michigan went 80–27–2, winning four Big Ten titles and going to a bowl game every year (with another Rose Bowl win obtained against USC Trojans after the 1988 season).[20] Bo Schembechler retired after the 1989 season, handing the job over to his offensive coordinator Gary Moeller.[64] Under Schembechler, Michigan posted a 194–48–5 record[65] (11–9–1 against Ohio State), and won 13 Big Ten championships.[65]
Moeller years (1990–1994)
Coach MoellerGary Moeller took over from Schembechler for the 1990 season, becoming the 16th head coach in Michigan football history.[66] Moeller inherited a talented squad that had just played in the 1990 Rose Bowl, including wide receiver Desmond Howard. Moeller led Michigan to a 9–3 record in his first season,[22] tying for the Big Ten championship but losing out on a Rose Bowl offer to Iowa.[19][20] The next two years, Moeller's teams won the conference outright, setting marks of 10–2 and 9–0–3.[19][22] In 1991, Desmond Howard had a memorable season that propelled him to win the Heisman Trophy, the award given to college football's most outstanding player.[67] The 1992 team, led by quarterback Elvis Grbac, posted a 9–0–3 record,[22] defeating Washington in the 1993 Rose Bowl.[20] Moeller led Michigan to 8–4 records in both 1993 and 1994.[22] The 1994 season was marked by an early-season loss to Colorado that included a Hail Mary pass from Kordell Stewart to Michael Westbrook to end the game, leading to the game being dubbed "The Miracle at Michigan."[68] Moeller was forced out after the 1994 season when intoxicated at a Southfield, MI restaurant in an incident in which Moeller was caught on tape throwing a punch in a police station. According to his lawyers, Moeller was fired, but allowed to publicly save face by resigning.[69][70][71][72][73]
Carr years (1995–2007)Michigan's athletic director appointed Lloyd Carr, an assistant at Michigan since 1980, as interim head coach for the 1995 season.[74] However, after an 8–2 start, Michigan dropped the interim tag from Carr's title and named him its 17th head coach.[75] Michigan finished his first season at 9–4.[22][76] Carr had similar success in his second season, going 8–4 and earning a trip to the 1997 Outback Bowl.[22] Carr returned a strong squad for the 1997 season, led by cornerback and punt returner Charles Woodson.[77] Michigan went undefeated in 1997.[20][22] Overall, the Michigan defense only allowed 9.5 points per game and ended the season ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll, giving Michigan its first national championship since 1948 with a victory in the 1998 Rose Bowl.[78][79][20][35] For his efforts, Woodson won the Heisman Trophy and was selected 4th overall in the 1998 NFL Draft by the Oakland Raiders.[80]With Tom Brady as quarterback,[81] Michigan went 10–3 and repeated as Big Ten champions in 1998, but in 1999 Michigan lost out on the conference championship at 10–2 to the Wisconsin Badgers.[19][22] Drew Henson led Michigan to a 9–3 record and a tie for the Big Ten championship in 2000.[19][22] Ohio State, Michigan's chief rival, fired their coach John Cooper,[82] who was 2–10–1 against Michigan while at Ohio State, after the 2000 season and replaced him with Jim Tressel.[83][84] Tressel immediately ushered in a new era in the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry, upsetting the Wolverines 26–20 in 2001.[85] This came on the heels of another last-second loss in which Michigan State defeated Michigan with a pass in the last second of the game in a controversial finish that led to the game being referred to as "Clockgate."[86] Despite these setbacks, Michigan's 2001 squad, led by John Navarre, went 8–4 with an appearance in the 2002 Florida Citrus Bowl.[87][20][22] Again under Navarre in 2002, Michigan compiled a 10–3 record,[88] but included another loss to Ohio State, who went on to win the national championship.[89][20][22] Carr got over the hump against Tressel in 2003 as John Navarre and Doak Walker Award winner Chris Perry led the Wolverines to a 10–3 record,[90] a Big Ten championship, and an appearance in the 2004 Rose Bowl.[19][20][22]
2006 Michigan Wolverines huddle during a game against the Central Michigan Chippewas.For the 2004 season, Carr turned to highly rated recruit Chad Henne to lead the Wolverines at quarterback.[91] Michigan went 9–3 in 2004[92] to tie for another Big Ten championship and earn a trip to the 2005 Rose Bowl, but the season again included a loss to Ohio State,[93] who only went 8–4 on the season.[19][20][22]In 2005, Michigan struggled to make a bowl game, only going 7–5, with the season capped with another loss to Ohio State.[20][22] Expectations were tempered going into the 2006 season; however, a 47–21 blowout of No. 2 Notre Dame and an 11–0 start propelled Michigan to the No. 2 rankings going into "The Game" with No. 1 Ohio State.[94] The 2006 Ohio State-Michigan game was hailed by the media as the "Game of the Century." The day before the game, Bo Schembechler died, leading Ohio State to honor him with a moment of silence, one of the few Michigan Men to be so honored in Ohio Stadium.[95] The game itself was a back-and-forth affair, with Ohio State winning 42–39 for the right to play in the 2007 BCS National Championship Game.[20] Michigan lost to USC in the 2007 Rose Bowl, ending the season at 11–2.[20][22]Going into 2007, Michigan had high expectations.[96] Standout players Chad Henne, Mike Hart, and Jake Long all opted to return for their senior seasons for one last crack at Ohio State and a chance at a national championship, causing Michigan to be ranked fifth in the preseason polls.[97] However, Michigan's struggles against the spread offense reared its ugly head again as the Wolverines shockingly lose the opener to the Appalachian State Mountaineers.[98][99][20] The game marked the first win by a Division I-AA team over a team ranked in the Associated Press Poll.[100] The next week, Michigan was blown out by Oregon.[101][20] Despite the early rough start, Michigan won their next eight games and went into the Ohio State game with a chance to win the Big Ten championship.[20] However, Michigan once again fell to the Buckeyes, this time 14–3.[102][20] After the game, Lloyd Carr announced that he would retire as Michigan head coach after the bowl game.[103] In the 2008 Capital One Bowl, Carr's final game, Michigan defeated the defending national champion Florida Gators, led by Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, 41–35.[104] Carr's accomplishments at Michigan included a 122–40 record, five Big Ten championships, and one national championship.[19][20][35]
Rodriguez years (2008–2010)
Rich Rodriguez at Michigan in 2008.Following Carr's retirement, Michigan launched a national coaching search that ultimately saw Rich Rodriguez lured away from his alma mater, West Virginia.[105] Rodriguez's arrival marked the beginning of major upheaval in the Michigan football program. Rodriguez, a proponent of the spread offense, installed it in place of the pro-style offense that had been used by Carr. The offseason saw significant attrition in Michigan's roster. The expected starting quarterback Ryan Mallett departed the program, stating that he would be unable to fit in a spread offense. Starting wide receivers Mario Manningham and Adrian Arrington both decided to forgo their senior seasons and enter the NFL Draft.[106] Michigan lost a good deal of its depth and, when the 2008 season began, was forced to start players with very little playing experience. The 2008 season was disappointing for Michigan, finishing at 3–9 and suffering its first losing campaign since 1967. Michigan also missed a bowl game invitation for the first time since 1974.The week before the 2009 season began, the Detroit Free Press accused the team of violating the NCAA's practice time limits.[107] While the NCAA conducted investigations, Michigan won its first four games, including a last second victory against its rival Notre Dame. The season ended in disappointment, however, as Michigan went 1–7 in its last eight games and missed a bowl for the second straight season.Rodriguez's final season began with new hope in the program, as Robinson was named the starting quarterback over Forcier. Robinson led the Wolverines to a 5–0 start, but after a defeat to Michigan State at home, the Wolverines finished the season 2–5 over their last seven games. Michigan did, however, qualify for a bowl game with a 7–5 record, and clinched its bowl berth in dramatic fashion against Illinois, with Michigan winning 67–65 in three overtime periods. The game was the highest combined scoring game in Michigan history, and saw Michigan's defense give up the most points in its history.[108] Michigan was invited to the Gator Bowl to face Mississippi State, losing 52–14. The Michigan defense set new school records as the worst defense in Michigan history. In the middle of the season, the NCAA announced its penalties against Michigan for the practice time violations. The program was placed on three of years probation and docked 130 practice hours, which was twice the amount Michigan had exceeded.[109]Rodriguez was fired following the bowl game, with athletic director Dave Brandon citing Rodriguez's failure to meet expectations as the main reason for his dismissal.[110][111] Rodriguez left the program winless against rivals Michigan State and Ohio State and compiled a 15–22 record, the worst record of any head coach in Michigan history.[112]
Hoke years (2011–2014)
Coach HokeOn January 11, 2011, Michigan announced the hiring of new head coach Brady Hoke.[113][114] He became the 19th head coach in Michigan football history.[115] Hoke had previously been the head coach at his alma mater Ball State and then San Diego State after serving as an assistant at Michigan under Lloyd Carr from 1995 to 2002.[116] In his first season, Hoke led the Wolverines to 11 wins, beating rival Notre Dame with a spectacular comeback in Michigan's first night game at Michigan Stadium. Despite losing to Iowa and Michigan State, the Wolverines finished with a 10–2 regular season record with their first win over Ohio State in eight years. The Wolverines received an invitation to the Sugar Bowl in which they defeated Virginia Tech, 23–20, in overtime. This was the program's first bowl win since the season of 2007.In Hoke's second season, the Wolverines dropped their season opener to eventual national champions, Alabama in Dallas, Texas. U-M won the next two games at home in non-conference bouts against Air Force and UMass. Michigan then traveled to face eventual national runner-up Notre Dame. They fell to the Fighting Irish by a 13–6 final. After back-to-back wins over Purdue and Illinois, they defeated in-state rival Michigan State for the first time since 2007. The win was the 900th in program history, becoming the first program to reach the milestone. U-M finished the season with wins over Minnesota, Northwestern and Iowa as well as losses to Nebraska and Ohio State to finish the regular season. Michigan was selected to participate in the Outback Bowl, where they fell to South Carolina by a 33–28 score.In the 2013 campaign, Michigan finished with a 7–6 record, including a 3–5 record in Big Ten play and a loss to Kansas State in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl 31–14.[117] On December 2, 2014, Hoke was fired as the head coach after four seasons following a 5–7 record in 2014.[118][119] This marked only the third season since 1975 in which Michigan missed a bowl game.[120] Hoke compiled a 31–20 record, including an 18–14 record in Big Ten play.[121]
Harbaugh years (2015–2023)
Coach HarbaughOn December 30, 2014, the University of Michigan announced the hiring of Jim Harbaugh as the team's 20th head coach.[122][123] Harbaugh, who was starting quarterback in the mid-1980s under Bo Schembechler, had most recently served as head coach of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers.[124] He also led an impressive turnaround of Stanford football program as the Cardinal's head coach.[125] When he was hired, Harbaugh signed a seven-year contract worth $7 million annually excluding incentives.[126] In his first season in 2015, Harbaugh led Michigan to a 10–3 record, including a 41–7 win over the Florida Gators in the 2016 Citrus Bowl.[127]The 2016 Wolverines won their first nine games of the season, including wins over then 8th-ranked Wisconsin and rival Michigan State, and reached number two in the College Football Playoff rankings. The team then lost at Iowa and again at Ohio State two weeks later. The season ended with a 33–32 loss to Florida State in the Orange Bowl on December 30, resulting in a second straight 10–3 record. Jabrill Peppers, who played linebacker and defensive back as well as special teams and offense, was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, finishing fifth.[128] The team lost many key players on the offensive and defensive side of the ball prior to Harbaugh's third season. The Wolverines went 8–4 in the regular season losing to their main rivals, Michigan State and Ohio State, and lost to South Carolina in the Outback Bowl, becoming the only team in the Big Ten Conference to lose its bowl game in the 2017–2018 bowl season and dropping the record on the year to 8–5.[129]Harbaugh's fourth season in 2018 started with a loss to rival Notre Dame, followed by ten consecutive wins. Wins over ranked Big Ten opponents Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Penn State, all of whom beat Michigan the previous year, led to the team rallying around referring to the season as a "revenge tour."[130] The Wolverines rose to fourth in the College Football Playoff rankings, but the "revenge tour" came to an abrupt end when they were upset by rival Ohio State by a lopsided score of 62–39 to end the regular season. Ohio State's 62 points set a record for points against Michigan during regulation. A blowout loss to Florida in the Peach Bowl ended the season, and they finished at 10–3 for the third time in Harbaugh's four years. During Harbaugh's fifth season in 2019, the Wolverines lost to Wisconsin 35–14 and to Penn State 28–21, both on the road. Michigan went on to beat rivals Notre Dame 45–14 and Michigan State 44–10, but once again lost to then No. 1 ranked Ohio State by a score of 56–27 to end the regular season. Michigan later lost to Alabama 16–35 in the Citrus Bowl to end the season with a record of 9–4.For the 2020 season, COVID-19 precautions delayed the start of Big Ten play. The Wolverines started with a dominating 49–24 win against Minnesota. However, in a highly physical game against Michigan State, the Wolverines incurred many player injuries and narrowly lost 27–24. The next week, Michigan lost to Indiana 38–21. Michigan had beaten Indiana in the previous 24 matchups, not having lost to the Hoosiers since the 1987 season.[131] On November 14, 2020, Michigan hosted Wisconsin and suffered its largest halftime deficit at home since Michigan Stadium opened in 1927 (28–0), as well as its largest home loss (49–11) since 1935.[132][133] It was also Harbaugh's first loss at Michigan Stadium to a team other than Michigan State or Ohio State. On November 28, 2020, Michigan hosted Penn State and, for the first time in Michigan football history, lost to a team that was 0–5 or worse.[134] Michigan was winless at home during the 2020 season, marking the first time in program history that Michigan did not win any games at home.[135] The final three scheduled games of the season, against Maryland, Ohio State, and Iowa, were canceled due to COVID-19 concerns. Michigan did not play in a postseason bowl game for the first time under Harbaugh. On January 8, 2021, the Michigan administration and Jim Harbaugh agreed to a contract extension through 2025.[136]The Wolverines started the 2021 season unranked, but quickly found their footing to surge into the rankings. They won their first seven games, which included blowout wins against Washington and Wisconsin. The team rose to number six in the polls before a top-ten showdown with eighth ranked rival Michigan State. Michigan narrowly lost to their instate rival, but rebounded with wins against Indiana, Penn State, and Maryland in their subsequent three games to set up a winner-take-all for the Big Ten East division against arch-rival Ohio State. In a top-five showdown, Michigan used a dominant second half performance to rout Ohio State 42–27, giving the Wolverines their first win against the Buckeyes since 2011, and a berth to their first-ever Big Ten Championship Game. In the Big Ten Championship Game against Big Ten West champions Iowa, the second-ranked Wolverines dominated the Hawkeyes 42–3 to win their outright first Big Ten Championship since 2003. As the second seed in the College Football Playoff, the Wolverines lost the semifinal Orange Bowl to the eventual national champions Georgia Bulldogs 34–11 to finish the season 12–2. Michigan was ranked third in the final AP and Coaches Poll rankings of the season. Defensive end Aidan Hutchinson finished runner-up in voting for the Heisman Trophy.[137] Michigan began the 2022 season ranked eighth.[138] They won a top-10 showdown against then 6-0 #10 Penn State 41-17[139] and beat Michigan State 29–7.[140] The Wolverines defeated then 11-0 #2 Ohio State 45–23 in Columbus, marking their first win there since 2000 and the first time Harbaugh's Michigan beat both Michigan State and Ohio State in the same season. Michigan's perfect 12–0 regular season earned them their second straight Big Ten East Division championship and appearance in the Big Ten Championship Game.[141] Michigan would defeat the West Division champions Purdue 43–22 to repeats as conference champions and head back to the College Football Playoff.[142] In the semifinal Fiesta Bowl, Michigan lost to TCU, 51–45, to finish the season 13–1. Michigan's 13 wins set a school record for most wins in a single season and it was again ranked third in the final AP and Coaches Poll rankings of the season. This marked the first time since 1947 and 1948 that Michigan finished consecutive seasons ranked in the top three.[143] Running back Blake Corum finished seventh in voting for the Heisman Trophy.[144]In 2023, the NCAA opened an investigation into allegations regarding a Michigan sign-stealing operation against other teams.[145][146] The ensuing controversy led to the firing of linebackers coach Chris Partridge and a commissioner-imposed suspension of coach Harbaugh for the final three games of the 2023 regular season.[147][148] Despite the punishments, the Wolverines continued to win games, including a record-setting 1,000th win against Maryland and a third straight victory over rival Ohio State.[149][150][151] After completing his suspension, Harbaugh coached Michigan to a 26–0 win over #16 Iowa in the 2023 Big Ten Championship Game.[152] Michigan was then ranked #1 in both major polls and by the College Football Playoff Committee, securing a playoff game for the third straight year, this time facing number #4 Alabama. Harbaugh coached Michigan to a 27–20 victory over Alabama in the Rose Bowl, improving their record to 14–0 on the season.[153] Harbaugh then coached Michigan to a 34–13 victory over Washington in the College Football Playoff National Championship, setting a single-season program record of 15 wins during the season.[154] On January 24, 2024, Harbaugh accepted an offer to become the head coach of the NFL's Los Angeles Chargers.[155] In his nine-season tenure at Michigan, Harbaugh compiled an 89–25 record, winning three Big Ten championships and one national championship.
Hiring of Sherrone Moore (2024)
Moore in 2021On January 26, 2024, Michigan named Sherrone Moore as its head coach. He is the first African American to serve as the head coach of the Michigan football team on a non-interim basis.[156]
Conference affiliations Independent (1879–1891)
Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the Northwest (1892–1893)
Independent (1894–1895)
Western Conference (1896–1906)
Independent (1907–1916)
Big Ten Conference (1917–present)
Big Nine Conference (1946–1949)
Big Ten Conference (1917–1945, 1950–present)Bowl gamesMichigan has played in 52 bowl games in its history, compiling a record of 23–29. Before missing a bowl game in 2008, Michigan had made a bowl game 33 years in a row. From the 1921 to 1945 seasons, the Big Ten Conference did not allow its teams to participate in bowls. From the 1946 to 1974 seasons, only a conference champion or a surrogate representative was allowed to attend a bowl, the Rose Bowl, and no team could go two years in a row until the 1972 Rose Bowl, with the exception of Minnesota in 1961 and 1962.
Michigan defeated Stanford 49–0 in the first ever Rose Bowl on January 1, 1902
Date Bowl Opponent Result
January 1, 1902 Rose Bowl Stanford W 49–0
January 1, 1948 Rose Bowl USC W 49–0
January 1, 1951 Rose Bowl California W 14–6
January 1, 1965 Rose Bowl Oregon State W 34–7
January 1, 1970 Rose Bowl USC L 3–10
January 1, 1972 Rose Bowl Stanford L 12–13
January 1, 1976 Orange Bowl Oklahoma L 6–14
January 1, 1977 Rose Bowl USC L 6–14
January 2, 1978 Rose Bowl Washington L 20–27
January 1, 1979 Rose Bowl USC L 10–17
December 28, 1979 Gator Bowl North Carolina L 15–17
January 1, 1981 Rose Bowl Washington W 23–6
December 31, 1981 Bluebonnet Bowl UCLA W 33–14
January 1, 1983 Rose Bowl UCLA L 14–24
January 2, 1984 Sugar Bowl Auburn L 7–9
December 21, 1984 Holiday Bowl BYU L 17–24
January 1, 1986 Fiesta Bowl Nebraska W 27–23
January 1, 1987 Rose Bowl Arizona State L 15–22
January 2, 1988 Hall of Fame Bowl Alabama W 28–24
January 2, 1989 Rose Bowl USC W 22–14
January 1, 1990 Rose Bowl USC L 10–17
January 1, 1991 Gator Bowl Ole Miss W 35–3
January 1, 1992 Rose Bowl Washington L 14–34
January 1, 1993 Rose Bowl Washington W 38–31
January 1, 1994 Hall of Fame Bowl NC State W 42–7
December 30, 1994 Holiday Bowl Colorado State W 24–14
December 28, 1995 Alamo Bowl Texas A&M L 20–22
January 1, 1997 Outback Bowl Alabama L 14–17
January 1, 1998 Rose Bowl Washington State W 21–16
January 1, 1999 Citrus Bowl Arkansas W 45–31
January 1, 2000 Orange Bowl Alabama W 35–34 (OT)
January 1, 2001 Citrus Bowl Auburn W 31–28
January 1, 2002 Citrus Bowl Tennessee L 17–45
January 1, 2003 Outback Bowl Florida W 38–30
January 1, 2004 Rose Bowl USC L 14–28
January 1, 2005 Rose Bowl Texas L 37–38
December 28, 2005 Alamo Bowl Nebraska L 28–32
January 1, 2007 Rose Bowl USC L 18–32
January 1, 2008 Capital One Bowl Florida W 41–35
January 1, 2011 Gator Bowl Mississippi State L 14–52
January 3, 2012 Sugar Bowl Virginia Tech W 23–20 OT
January 1, 2013 Outback Bowl South Carolina L 28–33
December 28, 2013 Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl Kansas State L 14–31
January 1, 2016 Citrus Bowl Florida W 41–7
December 30, 2016 Orange Bowl † Florida State L 32–33
January 1, 2018 Outback Bowl South Carolina L 19–26
December 29, 2018 Peach Bowl † Florida L 15–41
January 1, 2020 Citrus Bowl Alabama L 16–35
December 31, 2021 Orange Bowl (CFP Semifinal) † Georgia L 11–34
December 31, 2022 Fiesta Bowl (CFP Semifinal) † TCU L 45–51
January 1, 2024 Rose Bowl (CFP Semifinal) † Alabama W 27–20OT
January 8, 2024 CFP National Championship Washington W 34–13
Total 52 bowl games 23–29 1,218–1,155† New Year's Six bowl gameBowl record by gameBowl # W L %
Alamo Bowl 2 0 2 .000
Bluebonnet Bowl 1 1 0 1.000
Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl 1 0 1 .000
Citrus Bowl (Capital One Bowl) 6 4 2 .667
Fiesta Bowl 2 1 1 .500
Gator Bowl 3 1 2 .333
Holiday Bowl 2 1 1 .500
Outback Bowl (Hall of Fame Bowl) 6 3 3 .500
Orange Bowl 4 1 3 .250
Peach Bowl 1 0 1 .000
Rose Bowl 21 9 12 .428
Sugar Bowl 2 1 1 .500
Venues
Washtenaw County Fairgrounds (1883–1892)
Main article: Washtenaw County FairgroundsIn the early days of Michigan football, Michigan played smaller home games at the Washtenaw County Fairgrounds with larger games being held in Detroit at the Detroit Athletic Club.[157] The Fairgrounds were originally located at the southeast intersection of Hill and Forest, but in 1890 moved to what is now called Burns Park.[157]
Regents Field (1893–1905)
Main article: Regents Field
Regents Field just before kickoff during the 1904 game between Michigan and ChicagoIn 1890, the Board of Regents authorized $3,000 ($78,947.37 in 2014 dollars) for the purchase of a parcel of land along South State Street.[158] In 1891 a further $4,500 ($118,421.05 in 2014 dollars) was authorized "for the purpose of fitting up the athletic field."[158] Michigan began play on Regents Field in 1893, with capacity being expanded to over 15,000 by the end of the field's use.[158]
Ferry Field (1906–1926)
Main article: Ferry FieldBy 1902 Regents Field had grown inadequate for the uses of the football team as a result of the sport's increasing popularity.[159] Thanks to donations from Dexter M. Ferry, work began on planning the next home stadium for the Michigan football team. Powered by a $30,000 donation from Ferry, Ferry Field was constructed with a maximum temporary capacity of 18,000 for the 1906 season.[159] Ferry Field was expanded to a capacity of 21,000 in 1914 and 42,000 in 1921.[159] However, attendance was often over-capacity with crowds of 48,000 cramming into the small stadium.[159] This prompted athletic director Fielding Yost to contemplate the construction of a much larger stadium.
Michigan Stadium (1927–present)
Main article: Michigan Stadium
Michigan Stadium on September 17, 2011Fielding H. Yost anticipated massive crowds as college football's popularity increased and wished to build a stadium with a capacity of at least 80,000.[37] Ultimately, the final plans authorized the construction of a stadium with a capacity of 72,000 with footings to be set in place to expand it beyond 100,000 later.[37] Michigan Stadium was dedicated in 1927 during a game against the Ohio State Buckeyes, drawing an over-capacity crowd of 84,401.[160] After World War II, crowd sizes increased, prompting another stadium expansion to a capacity of 93,894 in 1949.[160] Michigan Stadium cracked the 100,000 mark by expanding to 101,001 in 1955.[160] Michigan Stadium temporarily lost the title of "largest stadium" to Neyland Stadium of the Tennessee Volunteers in 1996, but recaptured the title in 1998 with another expansion to 107,501.[161] In 2007, the Board of Regents authorized a $226 million renovation to add a new press box, 83 luxury boxes, and 3,200 club seats.[162] For the 2011 season, lights were installed at Michigan Stadium at the cost of $1.8 million.[163] This allowed Michigan to play its first night game at home against Notre Dame in 2011.[164] Michigan Stadium underwent a renovation for the 2023–2024 season, installing new screens and LED stadium lighting with color-changing fixtures.[165]
Rivalries
Ohio State
Main article: Michigan–Ohio State football rivalryMichigan and Ohio State first played each other in 1897. The rivalry was particularly enhanced during The Ten Year War, a period in which Ohio State was coached by Woody Hayes and Michigan was coached by Bo Schembechler. Overall, the Buckeyes and Wolverines football programs have combined for 19 national titles, 77 conference titles, and 10 Heisman Trophy winners. Michigan holds a 61–51–6 advantage through the 2023 season.[166]
Michigan State
Main article: Michigan–Michigan State football rivalryMichigan and Michigan State first played each other in 1898. Since Michigan State joined the Big Ten Conference in 1953, the two schools have competed annually for the Paul Bunyan – Governor of Michigan Trophy. The winner retains possession of the trophy until the next year's game. Michigan leads the trophy series 40–28–2. Michigan is the holder of the trophy following a 2023 win over the Spartans, 49–0. Michigan holds a 73–38–5 advantage through the 2023 season.[167]
Minnesota
Main article: Little Brown Jug (college football trophy)Michigan plays Minnesota for the Little Brown Jug trophy. The Little Brown Jug is the most regularly exchanged rivalry trophy in college football, the oldest trophy game in FBS college football, and the second oldest rivalry trophy overall.[168] Through the 2023 season, Michigan leads the overall series 77–25–3.[169]
Notre Dame
Main article: Michigan–Notre Dame football rivalryMichigan and Notre Dame began playing each other in 1887 in Notre Dame's first football game.[170] The rivalry is notable due to the historical success of the football programs. Through the end of the 2017 season, Michigan is ranked No. 1 in wins and all-time winning percentage while Notre Dame is No. 2 in both categories.[171] Michigan claims 12 national championships, while Notre Dame claims 12 national championships.[172] Michigan and Notre Dame have played in 42 contests, with Michigan holding a 25–17–1 advantage through the 2019 season.[173]
Northwestern
Main article: George Jewett TrophyMichigan and Northwestern first played each other in 1892. In 2021, the two universities announced the creation of a new rivalry trophy to be awarded to the game's winner, the George Jewett Trophy. The trophy honors George Jewett, the first African-American player in Big Ten Conference history, who played for both schools. The game is the first FBS rivalry game named for an African-American player.[174] Michigan holds a 59–15–2 advantage in the all-time series through the 2021 championshipsMichigan has been selected 19 times as national champions by NCAA-designated major selectors, including 3 (1948, 1997, 2023) from the major wire-service: AP Poll and/or Coaches' Poll.[7] Michigan claims 12 (1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1918, 1923, 1932, 1933, 1947, 1948, 1997, and 2023) of these championships.[176][177] Before 1926, there were generally no contemporaneous selectors.[178]
Year Coach Selector Record Bowl Final AP Final Coaches
1901 Fielding H. Yost Billingsley,[179] Helms, Houlgate, NCF[180] 11–0 Won Rose
1902 Billingsley, Helms, Houlgate, NCF, Parke Davis[180] 11–0
1903 Billingsley,[179] NCF[180] 11–0–1
1904 10–0
1918 Billingsley, NCF[180] 5–0
1923 8–0
1932 Harry G. Kipke Dickinson, Parke Davis[180] 8–0
1933 Berryman (QPRS), Billingsley, Boand, CFRA, Dickinson, Helms, Houlgate, NCF, Parke Davis, Poling, Sagarin[180] 7–0–1
1947 Fritz Crisler Berryman (QPRS), Billingsley, Boand, CFRA, DeVold, Dunkel, Helms, Houlgate, Litkenhous, NCF, Poling, Sagarin,[180] Special post-bowl Associated Press poll[181][a] 10–0 Won Rose No. 2[181]
1948 Bennie Oosterbaan AP, Berryman (QPRS), Billingsley, CFRA, DeVold, Dunkel, Helms, Houlgate, Litkenhous, NCF, Poling, Sagarin, Williamson[180] 9–0 No. 1
1997 Lloyd Carr AP, Billingsley, FWAA, NCF, NFF, Sporting News[180] 12–0 Won Rose No. 1 No. 2
2023 Jim Harbaugh AP,[182] CCR,[183] College Football Playoff,[184] CFRA,[185] CM,[186] NFF,[187] MCFR,[188] SR,[189] USAT(Coaches Poll)[190] 15–0 Won Rose (CFP Semifinal)
Won CFP National Championship Game No. 1 No. 1 Not an NCAA-designated major selector.Michigan has also been selected an additional seven times by various NCAA-designated "major selectors", in 1910,[191] 1925, 1926, 1964, 1973, 1976,[192] and 1985.
Conference championshipsMichigan has won 45 conference championships, 19 outright and 26 shared.
Year Coach Overall record Big Ten record
1898 Gustave Ferbert 10–0 3–0
1901† Fielding H. Yost 11–0 4–0
1902 5–0
1903† 11–0–1 3–0–1
1904† 10–0 2–0
1906† 4–1 1–0
1918† 5–0 2–0
1922† 6–0–1 4–0
1923† 8–0
1925 7–1 5–1
1926† 5–0
1930† Harry Kipke 8–0–1
1931† 8–1–1 5–1
1932† 8–0 6–0
1933† 7–0–1 5–0–1
1943† Fritz Crisler 8–1 6–0
1947 10–0 6–0
1948 Bennie Oosterbaan 9–0 6–0
1949† 6–2–1 4–1–1
1950 6–3–1 4–1–1
1964 Bump Elliott 9–1 6–1
1969† Bo Schembechler 8–3
1971 11–1 8–0
1972† 10–1 7–1
1973† 10–0–1 7–0–1
1974† 10–1 7–1
1976† 10–2
1977†
1978†
1980 8–0
1982 8–4 8–1
1986† 11–2 7–1
1988 9–2–1 7–0–1
1989 10–2 8–0
1990† Gary Moeller 9–3 6–2
1991 10–2 8–0
1992 9–0–3 6–0–2
1997 Lloyd Carr 12–0 8–0
1998† 10–3 7–1
2000† 9–3 6–2
2003 10–3 7–1
2004† 9–3 7–1
2021 Jim Harbaugh 12–2 8–1
2022 13–1 9–0
2023 15–0 9–0† Co-champions
Division championshipsMichigan has won four division titles.[193][194]
Year Division Coach Opponent CG result
2018† Big Ten – East Jim Harbaugh N/A; lost tiebreaker to Ohio State
2021† Iowa W 42–3
2022 Purdue W 43–22
2023 Iowa W 26–0† Co-champions
Program records and achievements
Team records Most wins in college football history (1,004)[195]
Most winning seasons of any program (122)[196]
Most undefeated seasons of any program currently competing in Division I FBS (24)
Most appearances in the final AP Poll (62)[197]
More conference titles in the Big Ten than any other program with a single conference (45)
First team in college or professional football to win 1,000 games (defeated Maryland 31–24 on November 18, 2023)Head coaching history
Main article: List of Michigan Wolverines head football coaches
Personnel
Coaching staff
Michigan Wolverines
Name Position Consecutive season(s) at Michigan in current position Previous position
Sherrone Moore Head coach 1st Michigan – Offensive coordinator / offensive line (2023)
Kirk Campbell Offensive coordinator / Quarterbacks 1st Michigan – Quarterbacks (2023)
Jesse Minter Defensive coordinator 2nd Vanderbilt – Defensive coordinator / safeties (2021)
Mike Hart Running backs / Run game coordinator 2nd Michigan – Running backs (2021)
Ronald Bellamy Wide receivers 2nd Michigan – Safeties (2021)
Grant Newsome Offensive line 1st Michigan – Tight ends (2022–2023)
Steve Clinkscale Co–defensive coordinator / defensive backs 2nd Michigan – Defensive passing game coordinator / defensive backs (2021)
Jay Harbaugh Special teams coordinator / safeties 2nd Michigan – Special teams coordinator / tight ends (2021)
Vacant Linebackers 1st TBD
Mike Elston Defensive line / recruiting coordinator 2nd Notre Dame – Assistant head coach / defensive line (2018–2021)
Justin Tress Director of strength & conditioning 1st Michigan – Associate director of strength & conditioning (2023)
Reference:[198]
Individual awards and honors
See also: Michigan Wolverines football statistical leaders
National award winners
Players Heisman Trophy 1940: Tom Harmon
1991: Desmond Howard
1997: Charles Woodson Maxwell Award 1940: Tom Harmon
1991: Desmond Howard Walter Camp Award 1991: Desmond Howard
1997: Charles Woodson Chic Harley Award 1964: Bob Timberlake
1986: Jim Harbaugh
1991: Desmond Howard
1997: Charles Woodson Dick Butkus Award 1991: Erick Anderson Jack Lambert Trophy 1991: Erick Anderson Paul Warfield Trophy 1991: Desmond Howard
2004: Braylon Edwards Jim Parker Trophy 1991: Greg Skrepenak
2000: Steve Hutchinson
2007: Jake Long Sammy Baugh Trophy 1992: Elvis Grbac Jack Tatum Trophy 1997: Charles Woodson Jim Thorpe Award 1997: Charles Woodson Chuck Bednarik Award 1997: Charles Woodson Bronko Nagurski Trophy 1997: Charles Woodson Doak Walker Award 2003: Chris Perry Jim Brown Trophy 2003: Chris Perry Fred Biletnikoff Award 2004: Braylon Edwards Rimington Trophy 2004: David Baas
2011: David Molk
2022: Olusegun Oluwatimi Lombardi Award 2006: LaMarr Woodley
2021: Aidan Hutchinson Ted Hendricks Award 2006: LaMarr Woodley
2021: Aidan Hutchinson Ozzie Newsome Award 2015: Jake Butt John Mackey Award 2016: Jake Butt Lott IMPACT Trophy 2016: Jabrill Peppers
2021: Aidan Hutchinson
2023: Junior Colson Paul Hornung Award 2016: Jabrill Peppers Lou Groza Award 2021: Jake Moody Joe Moore Award 2021: Offensive line
2022: Offensive line Outland Trophy 2022: Olusegun OluwatimiCoaches AFCA Coach of the Year 1947: Fritz Crisler
1948: Bennie Oosterbaan
1969: Bo Schembechler
1997: Lloyd Carr Paul "Bear" Bryant Award 1997: Lloyd Carr Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year 1969: Bo Schembechler Walter Camp Coach of the Year Award 1969: Bo Schembechler
1997: Lloyd Carr Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award 1977: Bo Schembechler
2007: Lloyd Carr Associated Press Coach of the Year 2021: Jim Harbaugh Sporting News Coach of the Year 1985: Bo Schembechler Woody Hayes Trophy 1985: Bo Schembechler
1997: Lloyd Carr George Munger Award 1989: Bo Schembechler
1997: Lloyd Carr
2011: Brady Hoke Broyles Award 1997: Jim Herrmann
2021: Josh Gattis AFCA Assistant Coach of the Year 2001: Fred JacksonHeisman Trophy votingTwenty-nine Heisman Trophy candidates have played at Michigan. Three have won the award: 1939: Tom Harmon, 2nd
1940: Tom Harmon, 1st
1941: Bob Westfall, 8th
1943: Bill Daley, 7th
1947: Bob Chappuis, 2nd
1955: Ron Kramer, 8th
1956: Ron Kramer, 6th
1964: Bob Timberlake, 4th
1968: Ron Johnson, 6th
1974: Dennis Franklin, 8th
1975: Gordon Bell, 8th
1976: Rob Lytle, 3rd
1977: Rick Leach, 8th
1978: Rick Leach, 3rd
1980: Anthony Carter, 10th
1981: Anthony Carter, 7th
1982: Anthony Carter, 4th
1986: Jim Harbaugh, 3rd
1991: Desmond Howard, 1st
1993: Tyrone Wheatley, 8th
1994: Tyrone Wheatley, 12th
1995: Tim Biakabutuka, 8th
1997: Charles Woodson, 1st
2003: Chris Perry, 4th
2004: Braylon Edwards, 10th
2006: Mike Hart, 5th
2010: Denard Robinson, 6th
2016: Jabrill Peppers, 5th
2021: Aidan Hutchinson, 2nd
2022: Blake Corum, 7th
2023: Blake Corum, 9th
2023: J. J. McCarthy, 10thAll-Americans
Main article: List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americans
Team and conference MVPMichigan Most Valuable Player Award (1926–1959), Louis B. Hyde Memorial Award (1960–1994),[199] Bo Schembechler Award (1995–present); winners of the Chicago Tribune Silver Football as the Big Ten's MVP also noted:[200] 1926: Benny Friedman (also Big Ten MVP)
1927: Bennie Oosterbaan
1928: Otto Pommerening
1929: James Simrall
1930: Jack Wheeler
1931: Bill Hewitt
1932: Harry Newman (also Big Ten MVP)
1933: Herman Everhardus
1934: Gerald Ford
1935: William Renner
1936: Matt Patanelli
1937: Ralph Heikkinen
1938: Ralph Heikkinen
1939: Tom Harmon
1940: Tom Harmon (also Big Ten MVP)
1941: Reuben Kelto
1942: Albert Wistert
1943: Bob Wiese
1944: Don Lund
1945: Harold Watts
1946: Bob Chappuis
1947: Bump Elliott (also Big Ten MVP)
1948: Dominic Tomasi
1949: Dick Kempthorn
1950: Don Dufek
1951: Don Peterson
1952: Ted Topor
1953: Tony Branoff
1954: Fred Baer
1955: Terry Barr
1956: Dick Hill
1957: Jim Pace (also Big Ten MVP)
1958: Bob Ptacek
1959: Tony Rio
1960: Dennis Fitzgerald
1961: John Walker
1962: Dave Raimey
1963: Tom Keating
1964: Bob Timberlake (also Big Ten MVP)
1965: Bill Yearby
1966: Jack Clancy
1967: Ron Johnson
1968: Ron Johnson (also Big Ten MVP)
1969: Jim Mandich
1970: Henry Hill and Don Moorhead
1971: Billy Taylor
1972: Randy Logan
1973: Paul Seal
1974: Steve Strinko
1975: Gordon Bell
1976: Rob Lytle (also Big Ten MVP)
1977: Russell Davis
1978: Rick Leach (also Big Ten MVP)
1979: Ron Simpkins
1980: Anthony Carter
1981: Butch Woolfolk
1982: Anthony Carter (also Big Ten MVP)
1983: Steve Smith
1984: Mike Mallory
1985: Mike Hammerstein
1986: Jim Harbaugh (also Big Ten MVP)
1987: Jamie Morris
1988: Mark Messner
1989: Tony Boles
1990: Tripp Welborne
1991: Desmond Howard (also Big Ten MVP)
1992: Chris Hutchinson
1993: Buster Stanley
1994: Todd Collins
1995: Tim Biakabutuka
1996: Rod Payne
1997: Charles Woodson (also Big Ten MVP)
1998: Tai Streets
1999: Tom Brady
2000: Anthony Thomas
2001: Marquise Walker
2002: B. J. Askew
2003: Chris Perry (also Big Ten MVP)
2004: Braylon Edwards (also Big Ten MVP)
2005: Jason Avant
2006: David Harris and Mike Hart
2007: Mike Hart
2008: Brandon Graham
2009: Brandon Graham (also Big Ten MVP)
2010: Denard Robinson (also Big Ten MVP)
2011: Denard Robinson
2012: Jordan Kovacs
2013: Jeremy Gallon
2014: Jake Ryan
2015: Jehu Chesson
2016: Jabrill Peppers
2017: Maurice Hurst Jr.
2018: Chase Winovich
2019: Shea Patterson
2020: No award presented
2021: Aidan Hutchinson (also Big Ten MVP)
2022: Blake Corum (also Big Ten MVP)
2023: J. J. McCarthyBig Ten Conference honors Player of the Year 1982: Anthony Carter
1986: Jim Harbaugh Graham–George Offensive Player of the Year 1990: Jon Vaughn (coaches)
1991: Desmond Howard
1992: Tyrone Wheatley
2003: Chris Perry
2004: Braylon Edwards
2010: Denard Robinson Griese–Brees Quarterback of the Year 2023: J. J. McCarthy Ameche–Dayne Running Back of the Year 2022: Blake Corum
2023: Blake Corum Rimington–Pace Offensive Lineman of the Year 1991: Greg Skrepenak
1998: Jon Jansen
2000: Steve Hutchinson
2004: David Baas
2006: Jake Long
2007: Jake Long
2011: David Molk
2012: Taylor Lewan
2013: Taylor Lewan Kwalick–Clark Tight End of the Year 2013: Devin Funchess
2015: Jake Butt
2016: Jake Butt Nagurski–Woodson Defensive Player of the Year 1997: Charles Woodson
2001: Larry Foote
2006: LaMarr Woodley
2016: Jabrill Peppers
2018: Devin Bush
2021: Aidan Hutchinson Smith–Brown Defensive Lineman of the Year 1985: Mike Hammerstein
1988: Mark Messner
1992: Chris Hutchinson
2006: LaMarr Woodley
2021: Aidan Hutchinson
2022: Mike Morris Thompson–Randle El Freshman of the Year 1995: Charles Woodson (coaches)
1997: Anthony Thomas (coaches and media)
2003: Steve Breaston (coaches)
2004: Mike Hart (coaches and media)
2015: Jabrill Peppers (coaches and media) Dave McClain / Hayes–Schembechler Coach of the Year 1972: Bo Schembechler (media)
1976: Bo Schembechler (media)
1980: Bo Schembechler (media)
1982: Bo Schembechler (coaches)
1985: Bo Schembechler (media and coaches)
1989: Bo Schembechler (coaches)
1991: Gary Moeller (media and coaches)
1992: Gary Moeller (media)
2011: Brady Hoke (media and coaches)
2022: Jim Harbaugh (media and coaches) Tatum–Woodson Defensive Back of the Year 2016: Jourdan Lewis Butkus–Fitzgerald Linebacker of the Year 2016: Jabrill Peppers
2018: Devin Bush Bakken–Andersen Kicker of the Year 2021: Jake Moody
2022: Jake Moody Eddleman–Fields Punter of the Year 2012: Will Hagerup
2018: Will Hart Rodgers–Dwight Return Specialist of the Year 2016: Jabrill PeppersRetired numbers
Main article: List of NCAA football retired numbersThe following jersey numbers have been retired by the program:[201]
from left to right: Francis Wistert, Gerald Ford, and Tom Harmon, some of the players who have had their numbers retired by Michigan
Michigan Wolverines retired numbers
No. Player Pos. Tenure No. Ret.
11 Francis Wistert T 1931–1933 1949
Albert Wistert T 1940–1942
Alvin Wistert T 1947–1949
21 Desmond Howard WR 1989–1991 2015
47 Bennie Oosterbaan E 1925–1927 1927
48 Gerald Ford C 1932–1934 1994
87 Ron Kramer E 1954–1956 1956
98 Tom Harmon HB 1938–1940 1940Beginning in 2011, previously retired numbers of "Michigan Football Legends" were assigned to and worn by players selected by the head coach. The Legends program was discontinued in July 2015, and the numbers again permanently retired.[202][203]
Hall of Fame inductees
College Football Hall of Fame
See also: College Football Hall of FameMichigan inductees into the College Football Hall of Fame as of 2024.[204]
= Inducted primarily due to contributions at different university
Name Position Inducted
Albert Benbrook G 1971
Dave Brown S 2007
Lloyd Carr Coach 2011
Anthony Carter WR 2001
Bob Chappuis HB 1988
Fritz Crisler Coach 1954
Tom Curtis S 2005
Dan Dierdorf T 2000
Bump Elliott HB 1989
Jumbo Elliott T 2020
Pete Elliott QB 1994
Benny Friedman QB 1951
Tom Harmon HB 1954
Willie Heston C 1954
Elroy Hirsch HB 1974
Desmond Howard WR 2010
Steve Hutchinson G 2024
Ron Johnson RB 1992
Harry Kipke HB 1958
Ron Kramer E 1978
George Little Coach 1955
Rob Lytle RB 2015

Name Position Inducted
Jim Mandich TE 2004
Johnny Maulbetsch FB 1973
Reggie McKenzie G 2002
Mark Messner DT 2022
Bill Morley HB 1971
David M. Nelson Coach 1987
Harry Newman QB 1975
Bennie Oosterbaan E 1954
Merv Pregulman T 1982
Tubby Raymond Coach 2003
Bo Schembechler Coach 1993
Germany Schulz C 1951
Neil Snow E 1978
Ernie Vick C 1983
Tad Wieman Coach 1956
Bob Westfall FB 1987
Francis Wistert T 1967
Albert Wistert T 1968
Alvin Wistert T 1981
Charles Woodson CB 2018
Fielding H. Yost Coach 1951Pro Football Hall of FameMichigan inductees to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as of 2021.[205]
Name Position Inducted
George Allen Coach 2002
Dan Dierdorf T 1996
Len Ford DE 1976
Benny Friedman QB 2005
Bill Hewitt E 1971
Elroy Hirsch HB/E 1968
Steve Hutchinson G 2020
Ty Law CB 2019
Tom Mack G 1999
Ralph Wilson Owner 2009
Charles Woodson CB 2021
Rose Bowl Hall of FameThe Rose Bowl Hall of Fame has inducted the following Michigan players and coaches.[206]
Name Position Inducted
Mel Anthony FB 2002
Lloyd Carr Coach 2013
Bob Chappuis HB/QB 1992
Bump Elliott HB 1989
Brian Griese QB 2012
Chuck Ortmann HB 2008
Bo Schembechler Coach 1993
Ron Simpkins LB 2021
Neil Snow E/FB 1990
Tyrone Wheatley RB 2015
Charles Woodson CB 2017
Butch Woolfolk HB 1998
Alumni in the NFLUpdated as of December 28, 2023.[207] Ronnie Bell: San Francisco 49ers
Ben Bredeson: New York Giants
Devin Bush: Seattle Seahawks
Frank Clark: Seattle Seahawks
Mason Cole: Pittsburgh Steelers
Nico Collins: Houston Texans
Mike Danna: Kansas City Chiefs
Michael Dwumfour: Chicago Bears (PS)
Chris Evans: Cincinnati Bengals
Rashan Gary: Green Bay Packers
Zach Gentry: Las Vegas Raiders
Graham Glasgow: Detroit Lions
Brandon Graham: Philadelphia Eagles
Vincent Gray: Cleveland Browns (PS)
Hassan Haskins: Tennessee Titans
Ryan Hayes: Miami Dolphins (PS)
Daxton Hill: Cincinnati Bengals
Christopher Hinton: Los Angeles Chargers
Khaleke Hudson: Washington Commanders
Maurice Hurst: Cleveland Browns
Aidan Hutchinson: Detroit Lions
Jourdan Lewis: Dallas Cowboys
David Long: Green Bay Packers
Ben Mason: Baltimore Ravens (PS)
Jalen Mayfield: New York Giants (PS)
Cameron McGrone: Indianapolis Colts
Sean McKeon: Dallas Cowboys
Josh Metellus: Minnesota Vikings
Bryan Mone: Seattle Seahawks
Jake Moody: San Francisco 49ers
Mike Morris: Seattle Seahawks
David Ojabo: Baltimore Ravens
Olusegun Oluwatimi: Seattle Seahawks
Michael Onwenu: New England Patriots
Kwity Paye: Indianapolis Colts
Donovan Peoples-Jones: Detroit Lions
Jabrill Peppers: New England Patriots
Brad Robbins: Cincinnati Bengals
Josh Ross: Baltimore Ravens (PS)
Cesar Ruiz: New Orleans Saints
Jon Runyan: Green Bay Packers
Michael Schofield: Detroit Lions (PS)
Luke Schoonmaker: Dallas Cowboys
Mazi Smith: Dallas Cowboys
Andrew Steuber: New England Patriots (PS)
Ambry Thomas: San Francisco 49ers
DJ Turner: Cincinnati Bengals
Josh Uche: New England Patriots
Luiji Vilain: Carolina Panthers
Chris Wormley: Carolina PanthersFuture non-conference opponentsAnnounced schedules as of February 10, 2023.[208][209]
2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2033 2034
Fresno State New Mexico Oklahoma at Texas Western Michigan Notre Dame at Notre Dame
Texas at Oklahoma Western Michigan
Arkansas State Central Michigan UTEP
Related books Jim Cnockaert (2003). Stadium Stories: Michigan Wolverines: Colorful Tales of the Maize and Blue. Globe Pequot. ISBN 0-7627-2784-5.
Kevin Allen; Art Regner; Nate Brown & Bo Schembechler (2005). What it Means to Be a Wolverine: Michigan's Greatest Players, Talk about Michigan Football. Triumph Books. ISBN 1-5724-3661-1.
Bo Schembechler & John U. Bacon (2007). Bo's Lasting Lessons: The Legendary Coach Teaches the Timeless Fundamentals of Leadership. Business Plus. ISBN 978-0-4465-8199-8.
John Falk & Dan Ewald (2011). If These Walls Could Talk: Michigan Football Stories from Inside the Big House. Triump Books. ISBN 978-1-6007-8657-0.
Martin John Gallagher (2012). 98–21–2 The Story of the Heisman and the Michigan Man. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1-4680-2135-6.
Ken Magee & Jon M. Stevens (2015). The Game: The Michigan–Ohio State Football Rivalry. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5316-7160-0.
John U. Bacon (2011). Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-8090-9466-0.
John U. Bacon (2013). Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4767-0643-6.
John U. Bacon (2015). Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1-2500-7897-1.
John U. Bacon (2019). Overtime: Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College Football. William Morrow. ISBN 978-0-0628-8694-1.NotesMichigan's head coach, Jim Harbaugh, was suspended for the first three games of the 2023 season. Jesse Minter served as interim head coach for the first game of the season, Jay Harbaugh and Mike Hart were interim co-head coaches for the second game, and Moore served as interim head coach for the third game, a non-conference win over Bowling Green. Harbaugh was suspended a second time, for the final three games of the regular season. Moore served as acting head coach for those games, all victories over conference foes—Penn State, Maryland, and Ohio State—but the games were credited to Harbaugh's record.[1]College football refers to gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football first gained popularity in the United States.Like gridiron football generally, college football is most popular in the United States and Canada. While no single governing body exists for college football in the United States, most schools, especially those at the highest levels of play, are members of the NCAA. In Canada, collegiate football competition is governed by U Sports for universities. The Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (for colleges) governs soccer and other sports but not gridiron football. Other countries, such as Mexico, Japan and South Korea, also host college football leagues with modest levels of support.Unlike most other major sports in North America, no official minor league farm organizations exist for American football or Canadian football. Therefore, college football is generally considered to be the second tier of American and Canadian football; ahead of high school competition, but below professional competition. In some parts of the United States, especially the South and Midwest, college football is more popular than professional football.[2] For much of the 20th century, college football was generally considered to be more prestigious than professional football.[citation needed]As the second highest tier of gridiron football competition in the United States, many college football players later play professionally in the NFL or other leagues. The NFL draft each spring sees 224 players selected and offered a contract to play in the league, with the vast majority coming from the NCAA. Other professional leagues, such as the CFL and XFL, additionally hold their own drafts each year which see many college players selected. Players who are not selected can still attempt to land a professional roster spot as an undrafted free agent. Despite these opportunities, only around 1.6% of NCAA college football players end up playing professionally in the NFL.[3]
History
See also: History of American football and History of Canadian football

This section may be too long and excessively detailed. Please consider summarizing the material. (December 2023)Even after the emergence of the professional National Football League (NFL), college football has remained extremely popular throughout the U.S.[4] Although the college game has a much larger margin for talent than its pro counterpart, the sheer number of fans following major colleges provides a financial equalizer for the game, with Division I programs — the highest level — playing in huge stadiums, six of which have seating capacity exceeding 100,000 people.[5] In many cases, college stadiums employ bench-style seating, as opposed to individual seats with backs and arm rests (although many stadiums do have a small number of chair back seats in addition to the bench seating). This allows them to seat more fans in a given amount of space than the typical professional stadium, which tends to have more features and comforts for fans. Only three stadiums owned by U.S. colleges or universities, L&N Stadium at the University of Louisville, Center Parc Stadium at Georgia State University, and FAU Stadium at Florida Atlantic University, consist entirely of chair back seating.College athletes, unlike players in the NFL, are not permitted by the NCAA to be paid salaries. Colleges are only allowed to provide non-monetary compensation such as athletic scholarships that provide for tuition, housing, and books. With new bylaws made by the NCAA, college athletes can now receive "name, image, and likeness" (NIL) deals, a way to get sponsorships and money before their pro debut.[6]
Rugby football in Great Britain and CanadaModern North American football has its origins in various games, all known as "football", played at public schools in Great Britain in the mid-19th century. By the 1840s, students at Rugby School were playing a game in which players were able to pick up the ball and run with it, a sport later known as rugby football. The game was taken to Canada by British soldiers stationed there and was soon being played at Canadian colleges.The first documented gridiron football game was played at University College, a college of the University of Toronto, on November 9, 1861. One of the participants in the game involving University of Toronto students was William Mulock, later chancellor of the school. A football club was formed at the university soon afterward, although its rules of play then are unclear.In 1864, at Trinity College, also a college of the University of Toronto, F. Barlow Cumberland and Frederick A. Bethune devised rules based on rugby football. Modern Canadian football is widely regarded as having originated with a game played in Montreal, in 1865, when British Army officers played local civilians. The game gradually gained a following, and the Montreal Football Club was formed in 1868, the first recorded non-university football club in Canada.
American college footballEarly games appear to have had much in common with the traditional "mob football" played in Great Britain. The games remained largely unorganized until the 19th century, when intramural games of football began to be played on college campuses. Each school played its own variety of football. Princeton University students played a game called "ballown" as early as 1820.In 1927, a Harvard tradition known as "Bloody Monday" began, which consisted of a mass ballgame between the freshman and sophomore classes. In 1860, both the town police and the college authorities agreed the Bloody Monday had to go. Harvard students responded by going into mourning for a mock figure called "Football Fightum", for whom they conducted funeral rites. The authorities held firm, and it was another dozen years before football was once again played at Harvard. Dartmouth played its own version called "Old division football", the rules of which were first published in 1871, though the game dates to at least the 1830s. All of these games, and others, shared certain commonalities. They remained largely "mob" style games, with huge numbers of players attempting to advance the ball into a goal area, often by any means necessary. Rules were simple, and violence and injury were common.[7][8] The violence of these mob-style games led to widespread protests and a decision to abandon them. Yale, under pressure from the city of New Haven, banned the play of all forms of football in 1860.[7]American football historian Parke H. Davis described the period between 1869 and 1875 as the 'Pioneer Period'; the years 1876–93 he called the 'Period of the American Intercollegiate Football Association'; and the years 1894–1933 he dubbed the "Period of Rules Committees and article: 1869 college football season
The first game
Left: "The Foot-Ball Match", a news article on the first college football game ever played, published in The Targum, the Rutgers University student newspaper, in November 1869. Right: A plaque on College Avenue on the campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey commemorating the location where the first college football game was played.On November 6, 1869, Rutgers University faced Princeton University, then known as the College of New Jersey, in the first collegiate football game. The game more closely resembled soccer than football as it is played in the 21st century. It was played with a round ball, and used a set of rules suggested by Rutgers captain William J. Leggett, based on The Football Association's first set of rules, which were an early attempt by the former pupils of England's public schools, to unify the rules of their various public schools.[7][10][11][12]The game was played at a Rutgers Field in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Two teams of 25 players attempted to score by kicking the ball into the opposing team's goal. Throwing or carrying the ball was not allowed, but there was plenty of physical contact between players. The first team to reach six goals was declared the winner. Rutgers won by a score of six to four. A rematch was played at Princeton a week later under Princeton's own set of rules (one notable difference was the awarding of a "free kick" to any player that caught the ball on the fly, which was a feature adopted from The Football Association's rules; the fair catch kick rule has survived through to modern American game). Princeton won that game by a score of 8 – 0. Columbia joined the series in 1870 and by 1872 several schools were fielding intercollegiate teams, including Yale and Stevens Institute of Technology.[7]Columbia University was the third school to field a team. The Lions traveled from New York City to New Brunswick on November 12, 1870, and were defeated by Rutgers 6 to 3. The game suffered from disorganization and the players kicked and battled each other as much as the ball. Later in 1870, Princeton and Rutgers played again with Princeton defeating Rutgers 6–0. This game's violence caused such an outcry that no games at all were played in 1871. Football came back in 1872, when Columbia played Yale for the first time. The Yale team was coached and captained by David Schley Schaff, who had learned to play football while attending Rugby School. Schaff himself was injured and unable to play the game, but Yale won the game 3-0 nonetheless. Later in 1872, Stevens Tech became the fifth school to field a team. Stevens lost to Columbia, but beat both New York University and City College of New York during the following year.By 1873, the college students playing football had made significant efforts to standardize their fledgling game. Teams had been scaled down from 25 players to 20. The only way to score was still to bat or kick the ball through the opposing team's goal, and the game was played in two 45 minute halves on fields 140 yards long and 70 yards wide. On October 20, 1873, representatives from Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and Rutgers met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City to codify the first set of intercollegiate football rules. Before this meeting, each school had its own set of rules and games were usually played using the home team's own particular code. At this meeting, a list of rules, based more on the Football Association's rules than the rules of the recently founded Rugby Football Union, was drawn up for intercollegiate football games.[7]
Harvard–McGill (1874)
Main article: 1874 Harvard vs. McGill football game
The McGill vs. Harvard football game in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1874; Harvard won 3-0.Old "Football Fightum" had been resurrected at Harvard in 1872, when Harvard resumed playing football. Harvard, however, preferred to play a rougher version of football called "the Boston Game" in which the kicking of a round ball was the most prominent feature though a player could run with the ball, pass it, or dribble it (known as "babying"). The man with the ball could be tackled, although hitting, tripping, "hacking" and other unnecessary roughness was prohibited. There was no limit to the number of players, but there were typically ten to fifteen per side. A player could carry the ball only when being pursued.As a result of this, Harvard refused to attend the rules conference organized by Rutgers, Princeton and Columbia at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City on October 20, 1873, to agree on a set of rules and regulations that would allow them to play a form of football that was essentially Association football; and continued to play under its own code. While Harvard's voluntary absence from the meeting made it hard for them to schedule games against other American universities, it agreed to a challenge to play the rugby team of McGill University, from Montreal, in a two-game series. It was agreed that two games would be played on Harvard's Jarvis baseball field in Cambridge, Massachusetts on May 14 and 15, 1874: one to be played under Harvard rules, another under the stricter rugby regulations of McGill. Jarvis Field was at the time a patch of land at the northern point of the Harvard campus, bordered by Everett and Jarvis Streets to the north and south, and Oxford Street and Massachusetts Avenue to the east and west. Harvard beat McGill in the "Boston Game" on the Thursday and held McGill to a 0–0 tie on the Friday. The Harvard students took to the rugby rules and adopted them as their own,[7][13][14] The games featured a round ball instead of a rugby-style oblong ball.[14] This series of games represents an important milestone in the development of the modern game of American football.[15][16] In October 1874, the Harvard team once again traveled to Montreal to play McGill in rugby, where they won by three tries.In as much as Rugby football had been transplanted to Canada from England, the McGill team played under a set of rules which allowed a player to pick up the ball and run with it whenever he wished. Another rule, unique to McGill, was to count tries (the act of grounding the football past the opposing team's goal line; it is important to note that there was no end zone during this time), as well as goals, in the scoring. In the Rugby rules of the time, a try only provided the attempt to kick a free goal from the field. If the kick was missed, the try did not score any points itself.
Harvard–Tufts, Harvard–Yale (1875)Harvard quickly took a liking to the rugby game, and its use of the try which, until that time, was not used in American football. The try would later evolve into the score known as the touchdown. On June 4, 1875, Harvard faced Tufts University in the first game between two American colleges played under rules similar to the McGill/Harvard contest, which was won by Tufts.[17] The rules included each side fielding 11 men at any given time, the ball was advanced by kicking or carrying it, and tackles of the ball carrier stopped play – actions of which have carried over to the modern version of football played today[18]Harvard later challenged its closest rival, Yale, to which the Bulldogs accepted. The two teams agreed to play under a set of rules called the "Concessionary Rules", which involved Harvard conceding something to Yale's soccer and Yale conceding a great deal to Harvard's rugby. They decided to play with 15 players on each team. On November 13, 1875, Yale and Harvard played each other for the first time ever, where Harvard won 4–0. At the first The Game (as the annual contest between Harvard and Yale came to be named) the future "father of American football" Walter Camp was among the 2000 spectators in attendance. Walter, who would enroll at Yale the next year, was torn between an admiration for Harvard's style of play and the misery of the Yale defeat, and became determined to avenge Yale's defeat. Spectators from Princeton also carried the game back home, where it quickly became the most popular version of football.[7]On November 23, 1876, representatives from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia met at the Massasoit House hotel in Springfield, Massachusetts to standardize a new code of rules based on the rugby game first introduced to Harvard by McGill University in 1874. Three of the schools—Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton—formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, as a result of the meeting. Yale initially refused to join this association because of a disagreement over the number of players to be allowed per team (relenting in 1879) and Rutgers were not invited to the meeting. The rules that they agreed upon were essentially those of rugby union at the time with the exception that points be awarded for scoring a try, not just the conversion afterwards (extra point). Incidentally, rugby was to make a similar change to its scoring system 10 years later.[19]
Walter Camp: Father of American football
Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", then the captain of the Yale University football team, in 1878Walter Camp is widely considered to be the most important figure in the development of American football.[10][11][19] As a youth, he excelled in sports like track, baseball, and association football, and after enrolling at Yale in 1876, he earned varsity honors in every sport the school offered.[19]Following the introduction of rugby-style rules to American football, Camp became a fixture at the Massasoit House conventions where rules were debated and changed. Dissatisfied with what seemed to him to be a disorganized mob, he proposed his first rule change at the first meeting he attended in 1878: a reduction from fifteen players to eleven. The motion was rejected at that time but passed in 1880. The effect was to open up the game and emphasize speed over strength. Camp's most famous change, the establishment of the line of scrimmage and the snap from center to quarterback, was also passed in 1880. Originally, the snap was executed with the foot of the center. Later changes made it possible to snap the ball with the hands, either through the air or by a direct hand-to-hand pass.[19] Rugby league followed Camp's example, and in 1906 introduced the play-the-ball rule, which greatly resembled Camp's early scrimmage and center-snap rules. In 1966, rugby league introduced a four-tackle rule (changed in 1972 to a six-tackle rule) based on Camp's early down-and-distance rules.Camp's new scrimmage rules revolutionized the game, though not always as intended. Princeton, in particular, used scrimmage play to slow the game, making incremental progress towards the end zone during each down. Rather than increase scoring, which had been Camp's original intent, the rule was exploited to maintain control of the ball for the entire game, resulting in slow, unexciting contests. At the 1882 rules meeting, Camp proposed that a team be required to advance the ball a minimum of five yards within three downs. These down-and-distance rules, combined with the establishment of the line of scrimmage, transformed the game from a variation of rugby football into the distinct sport of American football.[19]Camp was central to several more significant rule changes that came to define American football. In 1881, the field was reduced in size to its modern dimensions of 120 by 531⁄3 yards (109.7 by 48.8 meters). Several times in 1883, Camp tinkered with the scoring rules, finally arriving at four points for a touchdown, two points for kicks after touchdowns, two points for safeties, and five for field goals. Camp's innovations in the area of point scoring influenced rugby union's move to point scoring in 1890.[citation needed] In 1887, game time was set at two halves of 45 minutes each. Also in 1887, two paid officials—a referee and an umpire—were mandated for each game. A year later, the rules were changed to allow tackling below the waist, and in 1889, the officials were given whistles and stopwatches.[19]After leaving Yale in 1882, Camp was employed by the New Haven Clock Company until his death in 1925. Though no longer a player, he remained a fixture at annual rules meetings for most of his life, and he personally selected an annual All-American team every year from 1889 through 1924. The Walter Camp Football Foundation continues to select All-American teams in his honor.[20]
Scoring table
Historical college football scoring[21] Era Touchdown Field goal Conversion (kick) Conversion (touchdown) Safety Conversion safety Defensive conversion
1883 2 5 4 – 1 – –
1883–1897 4 2 2
1898–1903 5 1
1904–1908 4
1909–1911 3
1912–1957 6
1958–1987 2 1
1988–present 2
Note: For brief periods in the late 19th century, some penalties awarded one or more points for the opposing teams, and some teams in the late 19th and early 20th centuries chose to negotiate their own scoring system for individual games.
ExpansionCollege football expanded greatly during the last two decades of the 19th century. Several major rivalries date from this time period.November 1890 was an active time in the sport. In Baldwin City, Kansas, on November 22, 1890, college football was first played in the state of Kansas. Baker beat Kansas 22–9.[22] On the 27th, Vanderbilt played Nashville (Peabody) at Athletic Park and won 40–0. It was the first time organized football played in the state of Tennessee.[23] The 29th also saw the first instance of the Army–Navy Game. Navy won 24–0.
EastRutgers was first to extend the reach of the game. An intercollegiate game was first played in the state of New York when Rutgers played Columbia on November 2, 1872. It was also the first scoreless tie in the history of the fledgling sport.[24] Yale football starts the same year and has its first match against Columbia, the nearest college to play football. It took place at Hamilton Park in New Haven and was the first game in New England. The game was essentially soccer with 20-man sides, played on a field 400 by 250 feet. Yale wins 3–0, Tommy Sherman scoring the first goal and Lew Irwin the other two.[25]After the first game against Harvard, Tufts took its squad to Bates College in Lewiston, Maine for the first football game played in Maine.[26] This occurred on November 6, 1875.Penn's Athletic Association was looking to pick "a twenty" to play a game of football against Columbia. This "twenty" never played Columbia, but did play twice against Princeton.[27] Princeton won both games 6 to 0. The first of these happened on November 11, 1876, in Philadelphia and was the first intercollegiate game in the state of Pennsylvania.Brown enters the intercollegiate game in 1878.[28]The first game where one team scored over 100 points happened on October 25, 1884, when Yale routed Dartmouth 113–0. It was also the first time one team scored over 100 points and the opposing team was shut out.[29] The next week, Princeton outscored Lafayette 140 to 0.[30]The first intercollegiate game in the state of Vermont happened on November 6, 1886, between Dartmouth and Vermont at Burlington, Vermont. Dartmouth won 91 to 0.[31]Penn State played its first season in 1887,[32] but had no head coach for their first five years, from 1887 to 1891.[32] The teams played its home games on the Old Main lawn on campus in State College, Pennsylvania. They compiled a 12–8–1 record in these seasons, playing as an independent from 1887 to 1890.In 1891, the Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Football Association (PIFA) was formed. It consisted of Bucknell (University of Lewisburg), Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall, Haverford, Penn State and Swarthmore. Lafayette and Lehigh were excluded because it was felt they would dominate the Association. Penn State won the championship with a 4–1–0 record. Bucknell's record was 3–1–1 (losing to Franklin & Marshall and tying Dickinson). The Association was dissolved prior to the 1892 season.[32]The first nighttime football game was played in Mansfield, Pennsylvania on September 28, 1892, between Mansfield State Normal and Wyoming Seminary and ended at halftime in a 0–0 tie.[33] The Army–Navy game of 1893 saw the first documented use of a football helmet by a player in a game. Joseph M. Reeves had a crude leather helmet made by a shoemaker in Annapolis and wore it in the game after being warned by his doctor that he risked death if he continued to play football after suffering an earlier kick to the head.[34]
Middle West
A 1902 football game between the University of Minnesota and the University of Michigan
The University of Wisconsin football team in 1903In 1879, the University of Michigan became the first school west of Pennsylvania to establish a college football team. On May 30, 1879, Michigan beat Racine College 1–0 in a game played in Chicago. The Chicago Daily Tribune called it "the first rugby-football game to be played west of the Alleghenies."[35] Other Midwestern schools soon followed suit, including the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Minnesota. The first western team to travel east was the 1881 Michigan team, which played at Harvard, Yale and Princeton.[36][37] The nation's first college football league, the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives (also known as the Western Conference), a precursor to the Big Ten Conference, was founded in 1895.[38]Led by coach Fielding H. Yost, Michigan became the first "western" national power. From 1901 to 1905, Michigan had a 56-game undefeated streak that included a 1902 trip to play in the first college football bowl game, which later became the Rose Bowl Game. During this streak, Michigan scored 2,831 points while allowing only 40.[39]Organized intercollegiate football was first played in the state of Minnesota on September 30, 1882, when Hamline was convinced to play Minnesota. Minnesota won 2 to 0.[40] It was the first game west of the Mississippi River.November 30, 1905, saw Chicago defeat Michigan 2 to 0. Dubbed "The First Greatest Game of the Century",[41] it broke Michigan's 56-game unbeaten streak and marked the end of the "Point-a-Minute" years.
South
An 1895 football game between Auburn and Georgia
An 1894 football game in Staunton, Virginia between VMI and Virginia Tech
Sewanee's 1899 "Iron Men"
The 1904 Vanderbilt team in action; note the grid pattern on the fieldOrganized collegiate football was first played in the state of Virginia and the south on November 2, 1873, in Lexington between Washington and Lee and VMI. Washington and Lee won 4–2.[42] Some industrious students of the two schools organized a game for October 23, 1869, but it was rained out.[43] Students of the University of Virginia were playing pickup games of the kicking-style of football as early as 1870, and some accounts even claim it organized a game against Washington and Lee College in 1871; but no record has been found of the score of this contest. Due to scantiness of records of the prior matches some will claim Virginia v. Pantops Academy November 13, 1887, as the first game in Virginia.On April 9, 1880, at Stoll Field, Transylvania University (then called Kentucky University) beat Centre College by the score of 13+3⁄4–0 in what is often considered the first recorded game played in the South.[44] The first game of "scientific football" in the South was the first instance of the Victory Bell rivalry between North Carolina and Duke (then known as Trinity College) held on Thanksgiving Day, 1888, at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, North Carolina.[45]On November 13, 1887, the Virginia Cavaliers and Pantops Academy fought to a scoreless tie in the first organized football game in the state of Virginia.[46] Students at UVA were playing pickup games of the kicking-style of football as early as 1870, and some accounts even claim that some industrious ones organized a game against Washington and Lee College in 1871, just two years after Rutgers and Princeton's historic first game in 1869. But no record has been found of the score of this contest. Washington and Lee also claims a 4 to 2 win over VMI in 1873.[42]On October 18, 1888, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons defeated the North Carolina Tar Heels 6 to 4 in the first intercollegiate game in the state of North Carolina.[47]On December 14, 1889, Wofford defeated Furman 5 to 1 in the first intercollegiate game in the state of South Carolina. The game featured no uniforms, no positions, and the rules were formulated before the game.[48]January 30, 1892, saw the first football game played in the Deep South when the Georgia Bulldogs defeated Mercer 50–0 at Herty Field.The beginnings of the contemporary Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference start in 1894. The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) was founded on December 21, 1894, by William Dudley, a chemistry professor at Vanderbilt.[49] The original members were Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Sewanee, and Vanderbilt. Clemson, Cumberland, Kentucky, LSU, Mercer, Mississippi, Mississippi A&M (Mississippi State), Southwestern Presbyterian University, Tennessee, Texas, Tulane, and the University of Nashville joined the following year in 1895 as invited charter members.[50] The conference was originally formed for "the development and purification of college athletics throughout the South".[51]The first forward pass in football likely occurred on October 26, 1895, in a game between Georgia and North Carolina when, out of desperation, the ball was thrown by the North Carolina back Joel Whitaker instead of punted and George Stephens caught the ball.[52] On November 9, 1895, John Heisman executed a hidden ball trick utilizing quarterback Reynolds Tichenor to get Auburn's only touchdown in a 6 to 9 loss to Vanderbilt. It was the first game in the south decided by a field goal.[53] Heisman later used the trick against Pop Warner's Georgia team. Warner picked up the trick and later used it at Cornell against Penn State in 1897.[54] He then used it in 1903 at Carlisle against Harvard and garnered national attention.The 1899 Sewanee Tigers are one of the all-time great teams of the early sport. The team went 12–0, outscoring opponents 322 to 10. Known as the "Iron Men", with just 13 men they had a six-day road trip with five shutout wins over Texas A&M; Texas; Tulane; LSU; and Ole Miss. It is recalled memorably with the phrase "... and on the seventh day they rested."[55][56] Grantland Rice called them "the most durable football team I ever saw."[57]Organized intercollegiate football was first played in the state of Florida in 1901.[58] A 7-game series between intramural teams from Stetson and Forbes occurred in 1894. The first intercollegiate game between official varsity teams was played on November 22, 1901. Stetson beat Florida Agricultural College at Lake City, one of the four forerunners of the University of Florida, 6–0, in a game played as part of the Jacksonville Fair.[59]On September 27, 1902, Georgetown beat Navy 4 to 0. It is claimed by Georgetown authorities as the game with the first ever "roving center" or linebacker when Percy Given stood up, in contrast to the usual tale of Germany Schulz.[60] The first linebacker in the South is often considered to be Frank Juhan.On Thanksgiving Day 1903, a game was scheduled in Montgomery, Alabama between the best teams from each region of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association for an "SIAA championship game", pitting Cumberland against Heisman's Clemson. The game ended in an 11–11 tie causing many teams to claim the title. Heisman pressed hardest for Cumberland to get the claim of champion. It was his last game as Clemson head coach.[61]1904 saw big coaching hires in the south: Mike Donahue at Auburn, John Heisman at Georgia Tech, and Dan McGugin at Vanderbilt were all hired that year. Both Donahue and McGugin just came from the north that year, Donahue from Yale and McGugin from Michigan, and were among the initial inductees of the College Football Hall of Fame. The undefeated 1904 Vanderbilt team scored an average of 52.7 points per game, the most in college football that season, and allowed just four points.
SouthwestThe first college football game in Oklahoma Territory occurred on November 7, 1895, when the "Oklahoma City Terrors" defeated the Oklahoma Sooners 34 to 0. The Terrors were a mix of Methodist college and high school students.[62] The Sooners did not manage a single first down. By next season, Oklahoma coach John A. Harts had left to prospect for gold in the Arctic.[63][64] Organized football was first played in the territory on November 29, 1894, between the Oklahoma City Terrors and Oklahoma City High School. The high school won 24 to 0.[63]
Pacific Coast
The first USC football team in 1888; before they were nicknamed the "Trojans", they were known as the USC Methodists.
The 1893 Stanford University football team
The Big Game between Stanford and California was played as rugby union from 1906 to 1914The University of Southern California first fielded an American football team in 1888. Playing its first game on November 14 of that year against the Alliance Athletic Club, in which USC gained a 16–0 victory. Frank Suffel and Henry H. Goddard were playing coaches for the first team which was put together by quarterback Arthur Carroll; who in turn volunteered to make the pants for the team and later became a tailor.[65] USC faced its first collegiate opponent the following year in fall 1889, playing St. Vincent's College to a 40–0 victory.[65] In 1893, USC joined the Intercollegiate Football Association of Southern California (the forerunner of the SCIAC), which was composed of USC, Occidental College, Throop Polytechnic Institute (Caltech), and Chaffey College. Pomona College was invited to enter, but declined to do so. An invitation was also extended to Los Angeles High School.[66]In 1891, the first Stanford football team was hastily organized and played a four-game season beginning in January 1892 with no official head coach. Following the season, Stanford captain John Whittemore wrote to Yale coach Walter Camp asking him to recommend a coach for Stanford. To Whittemore's surprise, Camp agreed to coach the team himself, on the condition that he finish the season at Yale first.[67] As a result of Camp's late arrival, Stanford played just three official games, against San Francisco's Olympic Club and rival California. The team also played exhibition games against two Los Angeles area teams that Stanford does not include in official results.[68][69] Camp returned to the East Coast following the season, then returned to coach Stanford in 1894 and 1895.On December 25, 1894, Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago Maroons agreed to play Camp's Stanford football team in San Francisco in the first postseason intersectional contest, foreshadowing the modern bowl game.[70][71] Future president Herbert Hoover was Stanford's student financial manager.[72] Chicago won 24 to 4.[73] Stanford won a rematch in Los Angeles on December 29 by 12 to 0.[74]The Big Game between Stanford and California is the oldest college football rivalry in the West. The first game was played on San Francisco's Haight Street Grounds on March 19, 1892, with Stanford winning 14–10. The term "Big Game" was first used in 1900, when it was played on Thanksgiving Day in San Francisco. During that game, a large group of men and boys, who were observing from the roof of the nearby S.F. and Pacific Glass Works, fell into the fiery interior of the building when the roof collapsed, resulting in 13 dead and 78 injured.[75][76][77][78][79] On December 4, 1900, the last victim of the disaster (Fred Lilly) died, bringing the death toll to 22; and, to this day, the "Thanksgiving Day Disaster" remains the deadliest accident to kill spectators at a U.S. sporting event.[80]The University of Oregon began playing American football in 1894 and played its first game on March 24, 1894, defeating Albany College 44–3 under head coach Cal Young.[81][82][83] Cal Young left after that first game and J.A. Church took over the coaching position in the fall for the rest of the season. Oregon finished the season with two additional losses and a tie, but went undefeated the following season, winning all four of its games under head coach Percy Benson.[83][84][85] In 1899, the Oregon football team left the state for the first time, playing the California Golden Bears in Berkeley, California.[81]American football at Oregon State University started in 1893 shortly after athletics were initially authorized at the college. Athletics were banned at the school in May 1892, but when the strict school president, Benjamin Arnold, died, President John Bloss reversed the ban.[86] Bloss's son William started the first team, on which he served as both coach and quarterback.[87] The team's first game was an easy 63–0 defeat over the home team, Albany College.In May 1900, Yost was hired as the football coach at Stanford University,[88] and, after traveling home to West Virginia, he arrived in Palo Alto, California, on August 21, 1900.[89] Yost led the 1900 Stanford team to a 7–2–1, outscoring opponents 154 to 20. The next year in 1901, Yost was hired by Charles A. Baird as the head football coach for the Michigan Wolverines football team. On January 1, 1902, Yost's dominating 1901 Michigan Wolverines football team agreed to play a 3–1–2 team from Stanford University in the inaugural "Tournament East-West football game" what is now known as the Rose Bowl Game by a score of 49–0 after Stanford captain Ralph Fisher requested to quit with eight minutes remaining.The 1905 season marked the first meeting between Stanford and USC. Consequently, Stanford is USC's oldest existing rival.[90] The Big Game between Stanford and Cal on November 11, 1905, was the first played at Stanford Field, with Stanford winning 12–5.[67]In 1906, citing concerns about the violence in American Football, universities on the West Coast, led by California and Stanford, replaced the sport with rugby union.[91] At the time, the future of American football was very much in doubt and these schools believed that rugby union would eventually be adopted nationwide.[91] Other schools followed suit and also made the switch included Nevada, St. Mary's, Santa Clara, and USC (in 1911).[91] However, due to the perception that West Coast football was inferior to the game played on the East Coast anyway, East Coast and Midwest teams shrugged off the loss of the teams and continued playing American football.[91] With no nationwide movement, the available pool of rugby teams to play remained small.[91] The schools scheduled games against local club teams and reached out to rugby union powers in Australia, New Zealand, and especially, due to its proximity, Canada. The annual Big Game between Stanford and California continued as rugby, with the winner invited by the British Columbia Rugby Union to a tournament in Vancouver over the Christmas holidays, with the winner of that tournament receiving the Cooper Keith Trophy.[91][92][93]During 12 seasons of playing rugby union, Stanford was remarkably successful: the team had three undefeated seasons, three one-loss seasons, and an overall record of 94 wins, 20 losses, and 3 ties for a winning percentage of .816. However, after a few years, the school began to feel the isolation of its newly adopted sport, which was not spreading as many had hoped. Students and alumni began to clamor for a return to American football to allow wider intercollegiate competition.[91] The pressure at rival California was stronger (especially as the school had not been as successful in the Big Game as they had hoped), and in 1915 California returned to American football. As reasons for the change, the school cited rule change back to American football, the overwhelming desire of students and supporters to play American football, interest in playing other East Coast and Midwest schools, and a patriotic desire to play an "American" game.[91] California's return to American football increased the pressure on Stanford to also change back in order to maintain the rivalry. Stanford played its 1915, 1916, and 1917 "Big Games" as rugby union against Santa Clara and California's football "Big Game" in those years was against Washington, but both schools desired to restore the old traditions.[91] The onset of American involvement in World War I gave Stanford an out: In 1918, the Stanford campus was designated as the Students' Army Training Corps headquarters for all of California, Nevada, and Utah, and the commanding officer Sam M. Parker decreed that American football was the appropriate athletic activity to train soldiers and rugby union was dropped.[91]
Mountain West
Colorado's first football team in 1890
Kickoff during the 1916 Colorado – Utah game
The 1905 Utah football teamThe University of Colorado began playing American football in 1890. Colorado found much success in its early years, winning eight Colorado Football Association Championships (1894–97, 1901–08).The following was taken from the Silver & Gold newspaper of December 16, 1898. It was a recollection of the birth of Colorado football written by one of CU's original gridders, John C. Nixon, also the school's second captain. It appears here in its original form: At the beginning of the first semester in the fall of '90 the boys rooming at the dormitory on the campus of the U. of C. being afflicted with a super-abundance of penned up energy, or perhaps having recently drifted from under the parental wing and delighting in their newly found freedom, decided among other wild schemes, to form an athletic association. Messrs Carney, Whittaker, Layton and others, who at that time constituted a majority of the male population of the University, called a meeting of the campus boys in the old medical building. Nixon was elected president and Holden secretary of the association. It was voted that the officers constitute a committee to provide uniform suits in which to play what was called "association football". Suits of flannel were ultimately procured and paid for assessments on the members of the association and generous contributions from members of the faculty. ... The Athletic Association should now invigorate its base-ball and place it at par with its football team; and it certainly has the material with which to do it. The U of C should henceforth lead the state and possibly the west in athletic sports. ... The style of football playing has altered considerably; by the old rules, all men in front of the runner with the ball, were offside, consequently we could not send backs through and break the line ahead of the ball as is done at present. The notorious V was then in vogue, which gave a heavy team too much advantage. The mass plays being now barred, skill on the football field is more in demand than mere weight and strength.
— John C. Nixon, Silver & Gold, December 16, 1898[94]In 1909, the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference was founded, featuring four members: Colorado, Colorado College, Colorado School of Mines, and Colorado Agricultural College. The University of Denver and the University of Utah joined the RMAC in 1910. For its first thirty years, the RMAC was considered a major conference equivalent to today's Division I, before 7 larger members left and formed the Mountain States Conference (also called the Skyline Conference).
Violence, formation of NCAACollege football increased in popularity through the remainder of the 19th and early 20th century. It also became increasingly violent. Between 1890 and 1905, 330 college athletes died as a direct result of injuries sustained on the football field. These deaths could be attributed to the mass formations and gang tackling that characterized the sport in its early years. No sport is wholesome in which ungenerous or mean acts which easily escape detection contribute to victory.Charles William Eliot, President of Harvard University (1869–1909) opposing football in 1905.[95]The 1894 Harvard–Yale game, known as the "Hampden Park Blood Bath", resulted in crippling injuries for four players; the contest was suspended until 1897. The annual Army–Navy game was suspended from 1894 to 1898 for similar reasons.[96] One of the major problems was the popularity of mass-formations like the flying wedge, in which a large number of offensive players charged as a unit against a similarly arranged defense. The resultant collisions often led to serious injuries and sometimes even death.[97] Georgia fullback Richard Von Albade Gammon notably died on the field from concussions received against Virginia in 1897, causing Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Mercer to suspend their football programs.The situation came to a head in 1905 when there were 19 fatalities nationwide. President Theodore Roosevelt reportedly threatened to shut down the game if drastic changes were not made.[98] However, the threat by Roosevelt to eliminate football is disputed by sports historians. What is absolutely certain is that on October 9, 1905, Roosevelt held a meeting of football representatives from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Though he lectured on eliminating and reducing injuries, he never threatened to ban football. He also lacked the authority to abolish football and was, in fact, actually a fan of the sport and wanted to preserve it. The President's sons were also playing football at the college and secondary levels at the time.[99]Meanwhile, John H. Outland held an experimental game in Wichita, Kansas that reduced the number of scrimmage plays to earn a first down from four to three in an attempt to reduce injuries.[100] The Los Angeles Times reported an increase in punts and considered the game much safer than regular play but that the new rule was not "conducive to the sport".[101] In 1906, President Roosevelt organized a meeting among thirteen school leaders at the White House to find solutions to make the sport safer for the athletes. Because the college officials could not agree upon a change in rules, it was decided over the course of several subsequent meetings that an external governing body should be responsible. Finally, on December 28, 1905, 62 schools met in New York City to discuss rule changes to make the game safer. As a result of this meeting, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States was formed in 1906. The IAAUS was the original rule making body of college football, but would go on to sponsor championships in other sports. The IAAUS would get its current name of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in 1910,[102] and still sets rules governing the sport.[102][103]The rules committee considered widening the playing field to "open up" the game, but Harvard Stadium (the first large permanent football stadium) had recently been built at great expense; it would be rendered useless by a wider field. The rules committee legalized the forward pass instead. Though it was underutilized for years, this proved to be one of the most important rule changes in the establishment of the modern game.[104] Another rule change banned "mass momentum" plays (many of which, like the infamous "flying wedge", were sometimes literally deadly).
Modernization and innovation (1906–1930)
A 1906 St. Louis Post-Dispatch photograph of Brad Robinson, who threw the first legal forward pass and was the sport's first triple threatAs a result of the 1905–1906 reforms, mass formation plays became illegal and forward passes legal. Bradbury Robinson, playing for visionary coach Eddie Cochems at Saint Louis University, threw the first legal pass in a September 5, 1906, game against Carroll College at Waukesha. Other important changes, formally adopted in 1910, were the requirements that at least seven offensive players be on the line of scrimmage at the time of the snap, that there be no pushing or pulling, and that interlocking interference (arms linked or hands on belts and uniforms) was not allowed. These changes greatly reduced the potential for collision injuries.[105] Several coaches emerged who took advantage of these sweeping changes. Amos Alonzo Stagg introduced such innovations as the huddle, the tackling dummy, and the pre-snap shift.[106] Other coaches, such as Pop Warner and Knute Rockne, introduced new strategies that still remain part of the game.Besides these coaching innovations, several rules changes during the first third of the 20th century had a profound impact on the game, mostly in opening up the passing game. In 1914, the first roughing-the-passer penalty was implemented. In 1918, the rules on eligible receivers were loosened to allow eligible players to catch the ball anywhere on the field—previously strict rules were in place allowing passes to only certain areas of the field.[107] Scoring rules also changed during this time: field goals were lowered to three points in 1909[11] and touchdowns raised to six points in 1912.[108]Star players that emerged in the early 20th century include Jim Thorpe, Red Grange, and Bronko Nagurski; these three made the transition to the fledgling NFL and helped turn it into a successful league. Sportswriter Grantland Rice helped popularize the sport with his poetic descriptions of games and colorful nicknames for the game's biggest players, including Notre Dame's "Four Horsemen" backfield and Fordham University's linemen, known as the "Seven Blocks of Granite".[109]In 1907 at Champaign, Illinois Chicago and Illinois played in the first game to have a halftime show featuring a marching band.[110] Chicago won 42–6. On November 25, 1911 Kansas played at Missouri in the first homecoming football game.[111] The game was "broadcast" play-by-play over telegraph to at least 1,000 fans in Lawrence, Kansas.[112] It ended in a 3–3 tie. The game between West Virginia and Pittsburgh on October 8, 1921, saw the first live radio broadcast of a college football game when Harold W. Arlin announced that year's Backyard Brawl played at Forbes Field on KDKA. Pitt won 21–13.[113] On October 28, 1922, Princeton and Chicago played the first game to be nationally broadcast on radio. Princeton won 21–18 in a hotly contested game which had Princeton dubbed the "Team of Destiny".[114]
Rise of the SouthOne publication claims "The first scouting done in the South was in 1905, when Dan McGugin and Captain Innis Brown, of Vanderbilt went to Atlanta to see Sewanee play Georgia Tech."[115] Fuzzy Woodruff claims Davidson was the first in the south to throw a legal forward pass in 1906. The following season saw Vanderbilt execute a double pass play to set up the touchdown that beat Sewanee in a meeting of the unbeaten for the SIAA championship. Grantland Rice cited this event as the greatest thrill he ever witnessed in his years of watching sports.[116] Vanderbilt coach Dan McGugin in Spalding's Football Guide's summation of the season in the SIAA wrote "The standing. First, Vanderbilt; second, Sewanee, a might good second;" and that Aubrey Lanier "came near winning the Vanderbilt game by his brilliant dashes after receiving punts."[117] Bob Blake threw the final pass to center Stein Stone, catching it near the goal amongst defenders. Honus Craig then ran in the winning touchdown.
Heisman shiftUtilizing the "jump shift" offense, John Heisman's Georgia Tech Golden Tornado won 222 to 0 over Cumberland on October 7, 1916, at Grant Field in the most lopsided victory in college football history.[118] Tech went on a 33-game winning streak during this period. The 1917 team was the first national champion from the South, led by a powerful backfield. It also had the first two players from the Deep South selected first-team All-American in Walker Carpenter and Everett Strupper. Pop Warner's Pittsburgh Panthers were also undefeated, but declined a challenge by Heisman to a game. When Heisman left Tech after 1919, his shift was still employed by protégé William Alexander.
Notable intersectional games
Tom Davies runs against undefeated and unscored upon Georgia Tech in the 1918 game at Forbes FieldIn 1906, Vanderbilt defeated Carlisle 4 to 0, the result of a Bob Blake field goal.[119][120] In 1907 Vanderbilt fought Navy to a 6 to 6 tie. In 1910 Vanderbilt held defending national champion Yale to a scoreless tie.[120]Helping Georgia Tech's claim to a title in 1917, the Auburn Tigers held undefeated, Chic Harley-led Big Ten champion Ohio State to a scoreless tie the week before Georgia Tech beat the Tigers 68 to 7. The next season, with many players gone due to World War I, a game was finally scheduled at Forbes Field with Pittsburgh. The Panthers, led by freshman Tom Davies, defeated Georgia Tech 32 to 0. Tech center Bum Day was the first player on a Southern team ever selected first-team All-American by Walter Camp.1917 saw the rise of another Southern team in Centre of Danville, Kentucky. In 1921 Bo McMillin-led Centre upset defending national champion Harvard 6 to 0 in what is widely considered one of the greatest upsets in college football history. The next year Vanderbilt fought Michigan to a scoreless tie at the inaugural game at Dudley Field (now Vanderbilt Stadium), the first stadium in the South made exclusively for college football. Michigan coach Fielding Yost and Vanderbilt coach Dan McGugin were brothers-in-law, and the latter the protégé of the former. The game featured the season's two best defenses and included a goal line stand by Vanderbilt to preserve the tie. Its result was "a great surprise to the sporting world".[121] Commodore fans celebrated by throwing some 3,000 seat cushions onto the field. The game features prominently in Vanderbilt's history.[122] That same year, Alabama upset Penn 9 to 7.[123]Vanderbilt's line coach then was Wallace Wade, who coached Alabama to the South's first Rose Bowl victory in 1925. This game is commonly referred to as "the game that changed the south".[124] Wade followed up the next season with an undefeated record and Rose Bowl tie. Georgia's 1927 "dream and wonder team" defeated Yale for the first time. Georgia Tech, led by Heisman protégé William Alexander, gave the dream and wonder team its only loss, and the next year were national and Rose Bowl champions. The Rose Bowl included Roy Riegels' wrong-way run. On October 12, 1929, Yale lost to Georgia in Sanford Stadium in its first trip to the south. Wade's Alabama again won a national championship and Rose Bowl in 1930.
Coaches of the era
Glenn "Pop" WarnerGlenn "Pop" Warner coached at several schools throughout his career, including the University of Georgia, Cornell University, University of Pittsburgh, Stanford University, Iowa State University, and Temple University.[125] One of his most famous stints was at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where he coached Jim Thorpe, who went on to become the first president of the National Football League, an Olympic Gold Medalist, and is widely considered one of the best overall athletes in history.[126][127] Warner wrote one of the first important books of football strategy, Football for Coaches and Players, published in 1927.[128] Though the shift was invented by Stagg, Warner's single wing and double wing formations greatly improved upon it; for almost 40 years, these were among the most important formations in football. As part of his single and double wing formations, Warner was one of the first coaches to effectively utilize the forward pass. Among his other innovations are modern blocking schemes, the three-point stance, and the reverse play.[125] The youth football league, Pop Warner Little Scholars, was named in his honor.
Knute RockneKnute Rockne rose to prominence in 1913 as an end for the University of Notre Dame, then a largely unknown Midwestern Catholic school. When Army scheduled Notre Dame as a warm-up game, they thought little of the small school. Rockne and quarterback Gus Dorais made innovative use of the forward pass, still at that point a relatively unused weapon, to defeat Army 35–13 and helped establish the school as a national power. Rockne returned to coach the team in 1918, and devised the powerful Notre Dame Box offense, based on Warner's single wing. He is credited with being the first major coach to emphasize offense over defense. Rockne is also credited with popularizing and perfecting the forward pass, a seldom used play at the time.[129] The 1924 team featured the Four Horsemen backfield. In 1927, his complex shifts led directly to a rule change whereby all offensive players had to stop for a full second before the ball could be snapped. Rather than simply a regional team, Rockne's "Fighting Irish" became famous for barnstorming and played any team at any location. It was during Rockne's tenure that the annual Notre Dame-University of Southern California rivalry began. He led his team to an impressive 105–12–5 record before his premature death in a plane crash in 1931. He was so famous at that point that his funeral was broadcast nationally on radio.[125][130]
From a regional to a national sport (1930–1958)
Don Hutson in 1940In the early 1930s, the college game continued to grow, particularly in the South, bolstered by fierce rivalries such as the "South's Oldest Rivalry", between Virginia and North Carolina and the "Deep South's Oldest Rivalry", between Georgia and Auburn. Although before the mid-1920s most national powers came from the Northeast or the Midwest, the trend changed when several teams from the South and the West Coast achieved national success. Wallace William Wade's 1925 Alabama team won the 1926 Rose Bowl after receiving its first national title and William Alexander's 1928 Georgia Tech team defeated California in the 1929 Rose Bowl. College football quickly became the most popular spectator sport in the South.[131]Several major modern college football conferences rose to prominence during this time period. The Southwest Athletic Conference had been founded in 1915. Consisting mostly of schools from Texas, the conference saw back-to-back national champions with Texas Christian University (TCU) in 1938 and Texas A&M in 1939.[132][133] The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC), a precursor to the Pac-12 Conference (Pac-12), had its own back-to-back champion in the University of Southern California which was awarded the title in 1931 and 1932.[132] The Southeastern Conference (SEC) formed in 1932 and consisted mostly of schools in the Deep South.[134] As in previous decades, the Big Ten continued to dominate in the 1930s and 1940s, with Minnesota winning 5 titles between 1934 and 1941, and Michigan (1933, 1947, and 1948) and Ohio State (1942) also winning titles.[132][135]As it grew beyond its regional affiliations in the 1930s, college football garnered increased national attention. Four new bowl games were created: the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, the Sun Bowl in 1935, and the Cotton Bowl in 1937. In lieu of an actual national championship, these bowl games, along with the earlier Rose Bowl, provided a way to match up teams from distant regions of the country that did not otherwise play. In 1936, the Associated Press began its weekly poll of prominent sports writers, ranking all of the nation's college football teams. Since there was no national championship game, the final version of the AP poll was used to determine who was crowned the National Champion of college football.[136]The 1930s saw growth in the passing game. Though some coaches, such as General Robert Neyland at Tennessee, continued to eschew its use, several rules changes to the game had a profound effect on teams' ability to throw the ball. In 1934, the rules committee removed two major penalties—a loss of five yards for a second incomplete pass in any series of downs and a loss of possession for an incomplete pass in the end zone—and shrunk the circumference of the ball, making it easier to grip and throw. Players who became famous for taking advantage of the easier passing game included Alabama end Don Hutson and TCU passer "Slingin" Sammy Baugh.[137]In 1935, New York City's Downtown Athletic Club awarded the first Heisman Trophy to University of Chicago halfback Jay Berwanger, who was also the first ever NFL Draft pick in 1936. The trophy was designed by sculptor Frank Eliscu and modeled after New York University player Ed Smith. The trophy recognizes the nation's "most outstanding" college football player and has become one of the most coveted awards in all of American sports.[138]During World War II, college football players enlisted in the armed forces, some playing in Europe during the war. As most of these players had eligibility left on their college careers, some of them returned to college at West Point, bringing Army back-to-back national titles in 1944 and 1945 under coach Red Blaik. Doc Blanchard (known as "Mr. Inside") and Glenn Davis (known as "Mr. Outside") both won the Heisman Trophy, in 1945 and 1946. On the coaching staff of those 1944–1946 Army teams was future Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi.[135][139]The 1950s saw the rise of yet more dynasties and power programs. Oklahoma, under coach Bud Wilkinson, won three national titles (1950, 1955, 1956) and all ten Big Eight Conference championships in the decade while building a record 47-game winning streak. Woody Hayes led Ohio State to two national titles, in 1954 and 1957, and won three Big Ten titles. The Michigan State Spartans were known as the "football factory" during the 1950s, where coaches Clarence Munn and Duffy Daugherty led the Spartans to two national titles and two Big Ten titles after joining the Big Ten athletically in 1953. Wilkinson and Hayes, along with Robert Neyland of Tennessee, oversaw a revival of the running game in the 1950s. Passing numbers dropped from an average of 18.9 attempts in 1951 to 13.6 attempts in 1955, while teams averaged just shy of 50 running plays per game. Nine out of ten Heisman Trophy winners in the 1950s were runners. Notre Dame, one of the biggest passing teams of the decade, saw a substantial decline in success; the 1950s were the only decade between 1920 and 1990 when the team did not win at least a share of the national title. Paul Hornung, Notre Dame quarterback, did, however, win the Heisman in 1956, becoming the only player from a losing team ever to do so.[140][141]The 1956 Sugar Bowl also gained international attention when Georgia's pro-segregationist Gov. Griffin publicly threatened Georgia Tech and its President Blake Van Leer over allowing the first African American player to play in a collegiate bowl game in the south.[142]
Modern college football (since 1958)
The Virginia Cavaliers (orange and blue home uniforms) playing Penn State Nittany Lions (all-white away uniforms) in 2012 at Scott StadiumFollowing the enormous success of the 1958 NFL Championship Game, college football no longer enjoyed the same popularity as the NFL, at least on a national level. While both games benefited from the advent of television, since the late 1950s, the NFL has become a nationally popular sport while college football has maintained strong regional ties.[143][144][145]As professional football became a national television phenomenon, college football did as well. In the 1950s, Notre Dame, which had a large national following, formed its own network to broadcast its games, but by and large the sport still retained a mostly regional following. In 1952, the NCAA claimed all television broadcasting rights for the games of its member institutions, and it alone negotiated television rights. This situation continued until 1984, when several schools brought a suit under the Sherman Antitrust Act; the Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA and schools are now free to negotiate their own television deals. ABC Sports began broadcasting a national Game of the Week in 1966, bringing key matchups and rivalries to a national audience for the first time.[146]New formations and play sets continued to be developed. Emory Bellard, an assistant coach under Darrell Royal at the University of Texas, developed a three-back option style offense known as the wishbone. The wishbone is a run-heavy offense that depends on the quarterback making last second decisions on when and to whom to hand or pitch the ball to. Royal went on to teach the offense to other coaches, including Bear Bryant at Alabama, Chuck Fairbanks at Oklahoma and Pepper Rodgers at UCLA; who all adapted and developed it to their own tastes.[147] The strategic opposite of the wishbone is the spread offense, developed by professional and college coaches throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Though some schools play a run-based version of the spread, its most common use is as a passing offense designed to "spread" the field both horizontally and vertically.[148] Some teams have managed to adapt with the times to keep winning consistently. In the rankings of the most victorious programs, Michigan, Ohio State, and Alabama ranked first, second, and third in total wins.
Growth of bowl games
See also: Bowl game
Growth of bowl
games 1930–2022[149]
Year # of games
1930 1
1940 5
1950 8
1960 8
1970 8
1980 15
1990 19
2000 25
2010 35
2022 42 (Plus CFP national championship game)[150]In 1940, for the highest level of college football, there were only five bowl games (Rose, Orange, Sugar, Sun, and Cotton). By 1950, three more had joined that number and in 1970, there were still only eight major college bowl games. The number grew to eleven in 1976. At the birth of cable television and cable sports networks like ESPN, there were fifteen bowls in 1980. With more national venues and increased available revenue, the bowls saw an explosive growth throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In the thirty years from 1950 to 1980, seven bowl games were added to the schedule. From 1980 to 2008, an additional 20 bowl games were added to the schedule.[149][151] Some have criticized this growth, claiming that the increased number of games has diluted the significance of playing in a bowl game. Yet others have countered that the increased number of games has increased exposure and revenue for a greater number of schools, and see it as a positive development.[152] Teams participating in bowl games also get to practice up to four hours per day or 20 hours per week until their bowl game concludes.[153] There is no limit on the number of practices during the bowl season, so teams that play later in the season (usually ones with more wins) get more opportunity to practice than ones that play earlier. This bowl practice period can be compared to the spring practice schedule when teams can have 15 on-field practice sessions.[154] Many teams that play late in the bowl season use the first few practices for evaluation and development of younger players while resting the starters.[155]
Determination of national champion
Main article: Bowl Championship Series
See also: NCAA Division I Football Championship
See also: NJCAA National Football ChampionshipCurrently, the NCAA Division I football teams are divided into two divisions - the "football bowl subdivision" (FBS) and the "football championship subdivision"(FCS). As indicated by the name, the FBS teams are eligible to play in post-season bowls. The FCS teams, Division II, Division III, National Junior College teams play in sanctioned tournaments to determine their annual champions. There is not now, and never has been, an NCAA-sanctioned tournament to determine the champion of the top-level football teams.With the growth of bowl games, it became difficult to determine a national champion in a fair and equitable manner. As conferences became contractually bound to certain bowl games (a situation known as a tie-in), match-ups that guaranteed a consensus national champion became increasingly rare.
Bowl CoalitionIn 1992, seven conferences and independent Notre Dame formed the Bowl Coalition, which attempted to arrange an annual No.1 versus No.2 matchup based on the final AP poll standings. The Coalition lasted for three years; however, several scheduling issues prevented much success; tie-ins still took precedence in several cases. For example, the Big Eight and SEC champions could never meet, since they were contractually bound to different bowl games. The coalition also excluded the Rose Bowl, arguably the most prestigious game in the nation, and two major conferences—the Pac-10 and Big Ten—meaning that it had limited success.
Bowl AllianceIn 1995, the Coalition was replaced by the Bowl Alliance, which reduced the number of bowl games to host a national championship game to three—the Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange Bowls—and the participating conferences to five—the ACC, SEC, Southwest, Big Eight, and Big East. It was agreed that the No.1 and No.2 ranked teams gave up their prior bowl tie-ins and were guaranteed to meet in the national championship game, which rotated between the three participating bowls. The system still did not include the Big Ten, Pac-10, or the Rose Bowl, and thus still lacked the legitimacy of a true national championship.[151][156] However, one positive side effect is that if there were three teams at the end of the season vying for a national title, but one of them was a Pac-10/Big Ten team bound to the Rose Bowl, then there would be no difficulty in deciding which teams to place in the Bowl Alliance "national championship" bowl; if the Pac-10 / Big Ten team won the Rose Bowl and finished with the same record as whichever team won the other bowl game, they could have a share of the national title. This happened in the final year of the Bowl Alliance, with Michigan winning the 1998 Rose Bowl and Nebraska winning the 1998 Orange Bowl. Without the Pac-10/Big Ten team bound to a bowl game, it would be difficult to decide which two teams should play for the national title.
Bowl Championship Series
The BCS National Championship trophy on display at Florida State University; the 2013 championship game marked the end of the BCS era.In 1998, a new system was put into place called the Bowl Championship Series. For the first time, it included all major conferences (ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10, and SEC) and four major bowl games (Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta). The champions of these six conferences, along with two "at-large" selections, were invited to play in the four bowl games. Each year, one of the four bowl games served as a national championship game. Also, a complex system of human polls, computer rankings, and strength of schedule calculations was instituted to rank schools. Based on this ranking system, the No.1 and No.2 teams met each year in the national championship game. Traditional tie-ins were maintained for schools and bowls not part of the national championship. For example, in years when not a part of the national championship, the Rose Bowl still hosted the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions.[156]The system continued to change, as the formula for ranking teams was tweaked from year to year. At-large teams could be chosen from any of the Division I-A conferences, though only one selection—Utah in 2005—came from a BCS non-AQ conference. Starting with the 2006 season, a fifth game—simply called the BCS National Championship Game—was added to the schedule, to be played at the site of one of the four BCS bowl games on a rotating basis, one week after the regular bowl game. This opened up the BCS to two additional at-large teams. Also, rules were changed to add the champions of five additional conferences (Conference USA [C-USA], the Mid-American Conference [MAC], the Mountain West Conference [MW], the Sun Belt Conference and the Western Athletic Conference [WAC]), provided that said champion ranked in the top twelve in the final BCS rankings, or was within the top 16 of the BCS rankings and ranked higher than the champion of at least one of the BCS Automatic Qualifying (AQ) conferences.[156] Several times since this rule change was implemented, schools from non-AQ conferences have played in BCS bowl games. In 2009, Boise State played TCU in the Fiesta Bowl, the first time two schools from non-AQ conferences played each other in a BCS bowl game. The last team from the non-AQ ranks to reach a BCS bowl game in the BCS era was Northern Illinois in 2012, which played in (and lost) the 2013 Orange Bowl.
College Football Playoff
Main article: College Football PlayoffThe longtime resistance to a playoff system at the FBS level finally ended with the creation of the College Football Playoff (CFP) beginning with the 2014 season. The CFP is a Plus-One system, a concept that became popular as a BCS alternative following controversies in 2003 and 2004. The CFP is a four-team tournament whose participants are chosen and seeded by a 13-member selection committee. The semifinals are hosted by two of a group of traditional bowl games known as the New Year's Six, with semifinal hosting rotating annually among three pairs of games in the following order: Rose/Sugar, Orange/Cotton, and Fiesta/Peach. The two semifinal winners then advance to the College Football Playoff National Championship, whose host is determined by open offerding several years in advance.
The 10 FBS conferences are formally and popularly divided into two groups: Power Five – Five of the six AQ conferences of the BCS era, specifically the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC. Each champion of these conferences is assured of a spot in a New Year's Six bowl, though not necessarily in a semifinal game. Notre Dame remains a football independent, but is counted among the Power Five because of its full but non-football ACC membership, including a football scheduling alliance with that conference. In the 2020 season, Notre Dame played as a full-time member of the conference due to the effects that COVID-19 had on the college football season, causing many conferences to play conference-only regular seasons. It has its own arrangement for access to the New Year's Six games should it meet certain standards.
Group of Five – The remaining five FBS conferences – American, C-USA, MAC, MW, and Sun Belt. The other three current FBS independents, Army, UConn, and UMass, are also considered to be part of this group. One conference champion from this group receives a spot in a New Year's Six game. In the first seven seasons of the CFP, the Group of Five did not place a team in a semifinal. In 2021, Cincinnati, then a member of The American, qualified for the Playoff, becoming the first Group of 5 team to qualify. Of the nine Group of Five teams selected for New Year's Six bowls, four have won their games.Official rules and notable rule distinctions
See also: American football rules
A night game between Harvard and Brown on September 25, 2009Although rules for the high school, college, and NFL games are generally consistent, there are several minor differences. Before 2023, a single NCAA Football Rules Committee determined the playing rules for Division I (both Bowl and Championship Subdivisions), II, and III games (the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) is a separate organization, but uses the NCAA rules). As part of an NCAA initiative to give each division more autonomy over its governance, separate rules committees have been established for each NCAA division. A pass is ruled complete if one of the receiver's feet is inbounds at the time of the catch. In the NFL both feet must be inbounds.[157]
A player is considered down when any part of his body other than the feet or hands touches the ground or when the ball carrier is tackled or otherwise falls and loses possession of the ball as he contacts the ground with any part of his body, with the sole exception of the holder for field goal and extra point attempts. In the NFL a player is active until he is tackled or forced down by a member of the opposing team (down by contact).
Before the 2023 season, the clock stopped after the offense completed a first down and began again—assuming it is following a play in which the clock would not normally stop—once the referee declared the ball ready for play. Starting in 2023, this will only be the case in the last two minutes of a half in NCAA Divisions I and II. NCAA Division III is still using the pre-2023 rule; the NAIA has not announced whether it will adopt this change. In the NFL the clock does not explicitly stop for a first down.
Overtime was introduced in 1996, eliminating most ties except in the regular season. Since 2021, during each of the first two overtime periods, each team is given one possession from its opponent's 25-yard line with no game clock. The play clock remains in use, and each team is allowed one timeout per period. Any team that scores a touchdown in double overtime must attempt a two-point conversion. Beginning with triple overtime, each team takes possession at the opponent's 3-yard line and can only score by conversion. A coin toss determines which team will have possession first at the start of each overtime period. Play continues until one team leads the other at the end of a period. [In the NFL overtime is decided by a modified sudden-death period of 10 minutes in regular-season games (no overtime in preseason up to 1973 & since 2021) and 15 minutes in playoff games, and regular-season games can still end in a tie if neither team scores.[158] Overtime for regular-season games in the NFL began with the 1974 season; the overtime period for all games was 15 minutes until it was shortened for non-playoff games effective in 2017. In the postseason, if the teams are still tied, teams will play multiple overtime periods until either team scores.]
A tie game is still possible, per NCAA Rule 3-3-3 (c) and (d). If a game is suspended because of inclement weather while tied, typically in the second half or at the end of regulation, and the game is unable to be continued, the game ends in a tie. Similar to baseball, if one team has scored in its possession and the other team has not completed its possession, the score during the overtime can be wiped out and the game ruled a tie. Some conferences may enforce a curfew for the safety of the players. If, because of numerous overtimes or weather, the game reaches the time-certain finish imposed by the curfew tied, the game is ruled a tie.
Extra point tries are attempted from the three-yard line. Kicked tries count as one point. Teams can also go for "the two-point conversion" which is when a team will line up at the three-yard line and try to score. If they are successful, they receive two points, if they are not, then they receive zero points. Starting with the 2015 season, the NFL uses the 15-yard line as the line of scrimmage for placekick attempts, but the two-yard line for two-point attempts. The two-point conversion was not implemented in the NFL until 1994, but it had been previously used in the old American Football League (AFL) before it merged with the NFL in 1970.
The defensive team may score two points on a point-after touchdown attempt by returning a blocked kick, fumble, or interception into the opposition's end zone. In addition, if the defensive team gains possession, but then moves backwards into the end zone and is stopped, a one-point safety will be awarded to the offense, although, unlike a real safety, the offense kicks off, opposed to the team charged with the safety. This college rule was added in 1988. The NFL, which previously treated the ball as dead during a conversion attempt—meaning that the attempt ended when the defending team gained possession of the football—adopted the college rule in 2015.
The two-minute warning is not used in college football, except in rare cases where the scoreboard clock has malfunctioned and is not being used.
There is an option to use instant replay review of officiating decisions. Division I FBS schools use replay in virtually all games; replay is rarely used in lower division games. Every play is subject to booth review with coaches only having one challenge. In the NFL, only scoring plays, turnovers, the final 2:00 of each half and all overtime periods are reviewed, and coaches are issued two challenges (with the option for a 3rd if the first two are successful).
Since the 2012 season, the ball is placed on the 25-yard line following a touchback on either a kickoff or a free kick following a safety. The NFL adopted this rule in 2018. In all other touchback situations at all levels of the game, the ball is placed on the 20.
Among other rule changes in 2007, kickoffs were moved from the 35-yard line back five yards to the 30-yard line, matching a change that the NFL had made in 1994. Some coaches and officials questioned this rule change as it could lead to more injuries to the players as there will likely be more kickoff returns.[159] The rationale for the rule change was to help reduce dead time in the game.[160] The NFL returned its kickoff location to the 35-yard line effective in 2011; college football did not do so until 2012.
Several changes were made to college rules in 2011, all of which differ from NFL practice:[161]
If a player is penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct for actions that occurred during a play ending in a touchdown by that team, but before the goal line was crossed, the touchdown will be nullified. In the NFL, the same foul would result in a penalty on the conversion attempt or ensuing kickoff, at the option of the non-penalized team.
If a team is penalized in the final minute of a half and the penalty causes the clock to stop, the opposing team now has the right to have 10 seconds run off the clock in addition to the yardage penalty. The NFL has a similar rule in the final minute of the half, but it applies only to specified violations against the offensive team. The new NCAA rule applies to penalties on both sides of the ball.
Players lined up outside the tackle box—more specifically, those lined up more than 7 yards from the center—will now be allowed to block below the waist only if they are blocking straight ahead or toward the nearest sideline.
On placekicks, offensive linemen now can not be engaged by at least three defensive players. They risk a 5-yard penalty upon violation.
In 2018, the NCAA made a further change to touchback rules that the NFL adopted in 2023; a fair catch on a kickoff or a free kick following a safety that takes place between the receiving team's goal line and 25-yard lines is treated as a touchback, with the ball placed at the 25.
Yards lost on quarterback sacks are included in individual rushing yardage under NCAA rules. In the NFL, yards lost on sacks are included in team passing yardage, but are not included in individual passing statistics.OrganizationCollege teams mostly play other similarly sized schools through the NCAA's divisional system. Division I generally consists of the major collegiate athletic powers with larger budgets, more elaborate facilities, and (with the exception of a few conferences such as the Pioneer Football League) more athletic scholarships. Division II primarily consists of smaller public and private institutions that offer fewer scholarships than those in Division I. Division III institutions also field teams, but do not offer any scholarships.Football teams in Division I are further divided into the Bowl Subdivision (consisting of the largest programs) and the Championship Subdivision. The Bowl Subdivision has historically not used an organized tournament to determine its champion, and instead teams compete in post-season bowl games. That changed with the debut of the four-team College Football Playoff at the end of the 2014 season.Teams in each of these four divisions are further divided into various regional conferences.Several organizations operate college football programs outside the jurisdiction of the NCAA: The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics has jurisdiction over more than 80 college football teams, mostly in the Midwest.
The National Junior College Athletic Association has jurisdiction over two-year institutions, except in California.
The California Community College Athletic Association governs sports, including football, at that state's two-year institutions. CCCAA members compete for their own championships and do not participate in the NJCAA.
Club football, a sport in which student clubs run the teams instead of the colleges themselves, is overseen by two organizations: the National Club Football Association and the Intercollegiate Club Football Federation. The two competing sanctioning bodies have some overlap, and several clubs are members of both organizations.
As of the current 2023 season, 16 schools play sprint football, played under standard NCAA rules but with a requirement that all players must weigh less than the average college student (that threshold is set, as of 2023, at 178 pounds (81 kg), with the added requirement of a minimum body fat content of 5%). Eight schools, all in the northeastern quadrant of the U.S., play in the Collegiate Sprint Football League, which has operated since 1934. The Midwest Sprint Football League started play in 2022 with six members, all in the Midwest and Upper South, and added two members in that region in 2023.A college that fields a team in the NCAA is not restricted from fielding teams in club or sprint football, and several colleges field two teams, a varsity (NCAA) squad and a club or sprint squad (no schools, as of 2023, field both club and sprint teams at the same time).
Coaching
Main article: Head coach § College football
National championships College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS – Overview of systems for determining national champions at the highest level of college football from 1869 to present.
College Football Playoff – Four-team playoff for determining national champions at the highest level of college football beginning in 2014. After a vote by the College Football Playoff's Board of Managers, the Playoff will be expanded to 12 teams in 2024.[162]
Bowl Championship Series – The primary method of determining the national champion at the highest level of college football from 1998 to 2013; preceded by the Bowl Alliance (1995–1997) and the Bowl Coalition (1992–1994).
NCAA Division I Football Championship[163] – Playoff for determining the national champion at the second highest level of college football, Division I FCS, from 1978 to present.
NCAA Division I FCS Consensus Mid-Major Football National Championship – Awarded by poll from 2001 to 2007 for a subset of the second-highest level of play in college football, FCS.
NCAA Division II Football Championship – Playoff for determining the national champion at the third highest level of college football from 1973 to present.
NCAA Division III Football Championship – Playoff for determining the national champion at the fourth highest level of college football from 1973 to present.
NAIA National Football Championship - Playoff for determining the national champions of college football governed by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.
NJCAA National Football Championship – Playoff for determining the national champions of college football governed by the National Junior College Athletic Association.
CSFL Championship – Champions of the Collegiate Sprint Football League, a conference that plays the weight-restricted variant of sprint football.
MSFL Championship — Launched in 2022 as the championship for the Midwest Sprint Football League, another sprint football league.Team maps Map of Division I (A) FBS
Map of Division I (A) FBS
Map of Division I (AA) FCS
Map of Division I (AA) FCS
Map of NCAA Division II
Map of NCAA Division II
Map of NCAA Division III
Map of NCAA Division III
Map of NAIA
Map of NAIA
Map of NJCAA
Map of NJCAA
Map of CCCAA
Map of CCCAAPlayoff gamesStarted in the 2014 season, four Division I FBS teams are selected at the end of regular season to compete in a playoff for the FBS national championship. The inaugural champion was Ohio State University.[164] The College Football Playoff replaced the Bowl Championship Series, which had been used as a selection method to determine the national championship game participants since in the 1998 season. The Michigan Wolverines won the most recent playoff 34-13 over the Washington Huskies in the 2024 College Football Playoff.At the Division I FCS level, the teams participate in a 24-team playoff (most recently expanded from 20 teams in 2013) to determine the national championship. Under the current playoff structure, the top eight teams are all seeded, and receive a bye week in the first round. The highest seed receives automatic home field advantage. Starting in 2013, non-seeded teams can only host a playoff game if both teams involved are unseeded; in such a matchup, the schools must offer for the right to host the game. Selection for the playoffs is determined by a selection committee, although usually a team must have an 8–4 record to even be considered. Losses to an FBS team count against their playoff eligibility, while wins against a Division II opponent do not count towards playoff consideration. Thus, only Division I wins (whether FBS, FCS, or FCS non-scholarship) are considered for playoff selection. The Division I National Championship game is held in Frisco, Texas.Division II and Division III of the NCAA also participate in their own respective playoffs, crowning national champions at the end of the season. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics also holds a playoff.
Bowl games
Main articles: Bowl game and List of college bowl gamesUnlike other college football divisions and most other sports—collegiate or professional—the Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly known as Division I-A college football, has historically not employed a playoff system to determine a champion. Instead, it has a series of postseason "bowl games". The annual National Champion in the Football Bowl Subdivision is then instead traditionally determined by a vote of sports writers and other non-players.This system has been challenged often, beginning with an NCAA committee proposal in 1979 to have a four-team playoff following the bowl games.[165] However, little headway was made in instituting a playoff tournament until 2014, given the entrenched vested economic interests in the various bowls. Although the NCAA publishes lists of claimed FBS-level national champions in its official publications, it has never recognized an official FBS national championship; this policy continues even after the establishment of the College Football Playoff (which is not directly run by the NCAA) in 2014. As a result, the official Division I National Champion is the winner of the Football Championship Subdivision, as it is the highest level of football with an NCAA-administered championship tournament. (This also means that FBS student-athletes are the only NCAA athletes who are ineligible for the Elite 90 Award, an academic award presented to the upper class player with the highest grade-point average among the teams that advance to the championship final site.)The first bowl game was the 1902 Rose Bowl, played between Michigan and Stanford; Michigan won 49–0. It ended when Stanford requested and Michigan agreed to end it with 8 minutes on the clock. That game was so lopsided that the game was not played annually until 1916, when the Tournament of Roses decided to reattempt the postseason game. The term "bowl" originates from the shape of the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California, which was built in 1923 and resembled the Yale Bowl, built in 1915. This is where the name came into use, as it became known as the Rose Bowl Game. Other games came along and used the term "bowl", whether the stadium was shaped like a bowl or not.At the Division I FBS level, teams must earn the right to be bowl eligible by winning at least 6 games during the season (teams that play 13 games in a season, which is allowed for Hawaii and any of its home opponents, must win 7 games). They are then invited to a bowl game based on their conference ranking and the tie-ins that the conference has to each bowl game. For the 2009 season, there were 34 bowl games, so 68 of the 120 Division I FBS teams were invited to play at a bowl. These games are played from mid-December to early January and most of the later bowl games are typically considered more prestigious.After the Bowl Championship Series, additional all-star bowl games round out the post-season schedule through the beginning of February.
Division I FBS National Championship Games

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Main articles: Bowl Championship Series and College Football PlayoffPartly as a compromise between both bowl game and playoff supporters, the NCAA created the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) in 1998 in order to create a definitive national championship game for college football. The series included the four most prominent bowl games (Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl), while the national championship game rotated each year between one of these venues.[166][167] The BCS system was slightly adjusted in 2006, as the NCAA added a fifth game to the series, called the National Championship Game. This allowed the four other BCS bowls to use their normal selection process to select the teams in their games while the top two teams in the BCS rankings would play in the new National Championship Game.The BCS selection committee used a complicated, and often controversial, computer system to rank all Division I-FBS teams and the top two teams at the end of the season played for the national championship.[168] This computer system, which factored in newspaper polls, online polls, coaches' polls, strength of schedule, and various other factors of a team's season, led to much dispute over whether the two best teams in the country were being selected to play in the National Championship Game.The BCS ended after the 2013 season and, since the 2014 season, the FBS national champion has been determined[169] by a four-team tournament known as the College Football Playoff (CFP). A selection committee of college football experts decides the participating teams. Six major bowl games known as the New Year's Six (NY6)—the Rose, Sugar, Cotton, Orange, Peach, and Fiesta Bowls—rotate on a three-year cycle as semifinal games, with the winners advancing to the College Football Playoff National Championship.[170] This arrangement was contractually locked in until the 2026 season, but an agreement was reached on CFP expansion to 12 teams effective with the 2024 season.[171]In the new CFP format, no conferences will receive automatic offers. Playoff berths will be awarded to the top six conference champions in the CFP rankings, plus the top six remaining teams (which may include other conference champions). The top four conference champions receive first-round byes. All first-round games will be played at the home field of the higher seed. The winners of these games advance to meet the top four seeds in the quarterfinals. The NY6 games will host the quarterfinals and semifinals, rotating so that each bowl game will host two quarterfinals and one semifinal in a three-year cycle. The CFP National Championship will continue to be held at a site determined by open offerding several years in advance.[172]
ControversyCollege football is a controversial institution within American higher education, where the amount of money involved—what people will pay for the entertainment provided—is a corrupting factor within universities that they are usually ill-equipped to deal with.[173][174] According to William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University of Maryland System and co-director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, "We've reached a point where big-time intercollegiate athletics is undermining the integrity of our institutions, diverting presidents and institutions from their main purpose."[175] Football coaches often make more than the presidents of the universities which employ them.[176] Athletes are alleged to receive preferential treatment both in academics and when they run afoul of the law.[177] Although in theory football is an extra-curricular activity engaged in as a sideline by students, it is widely believed to turn a substantial profit, from which the athletes receive no direct benefit. There has been serious discussion about making student-athletes university employees to allow them to be paid.[178][179][180][181] In reality, the majority of major collegiate football programs operated at a financial loss in 2014.[182]There had been discussions on changing rules that prohibited compensation for the use of a player's name, image, and likeness (NIL), but change did not start to come until the mid-2010s. This reform first took place in the NAIA, which initially allowed all student-athletes at its member schools to receive NIL compensation in 2014,[183] and beginning in 2020 specifically allowed these individuals to reference their athletic participation in their endorsement deals.[184] The NCAA passed its own NIL reform, very similar to the NAIA's most recent reform, in July 2021, after its hand was forced by multiple states that had passed legislation allowing NIL compensation, most notably California.[185][186]On June 3 of 2021, "The NCAA's Board of Directors adopts a temporary rule change that opens the door for NIL activity, instructing schools to set their own policy for what should be allowed with minimal guidelines" (Murphy 2021). On July 1 of 2021, the new rules set in and student athletes could start signing endorsements using their name, image and likeness. "The NCAA has asked Congress for help in creating a federal NIL law. While several federal options have been proposed, it's becoming increasingly likely that state laws will start to go into effect before a nationwide change is made. There are 28 states with NIL laws already in place and multiple others that are actively pursuing legislation" (Murphy 2021).
College football outside the United States
See also: List of college football games played outside the United States and College football in IrelandCanadian football, which parallels American football, is played by university teams in Canada under the auspices of U Sports. (Unlike in the United States, no junior colleges play football in Canada, and the sanctioning body for junior college athletics in Canada, CCAA, does not sanction the sport.) However, amateur football outside of colleges is played in Canada, such as in the Canadian Junior Football League. Organized competition in American football also exists at the collegiate level in Mexico (ONEFA), the UK (British Universities American Football League), Japan (Japan American Football Association, Koshien Bowl), and South Korea (Korea American Football Association).
InjuriesAccording to 2017 study on brains of deceased gridiron football players, 99% of tested brains of NFL players, 88% of CFL players, 64% of semi-professional players, 91% of college football players, and 21% of high school football players had various stages of CTE.[187] The study noted it has limitations due to "selection bias" in that the brains donated are from families who suspected CTE, but "The fact that we were able to gather so many instances of a disease that was previously considered quite rare, in eight years, speaks volumes."[187]Other common injuries include: injuries of legs, arms, and lower I FBS Heisman Trophy
Maxwell Award
Walter Camp Award
Outland Trophy
Associated Press Player of the Year
Johnny Rodgers Award
Fred Biletnikoff Award
Lou Groza Award
Lombardi Award
Bronko Nagurski Trophy
Dick Butkus Award
Jim Thorpe Award
Doak Walker Award
Campbell Trophy
Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award
Home Depot Award
Ray Guy Award
John Mackey Award
Burlsworth Trophy
Jet Award
Paul Hornung Award
Jon Cornish Trophy
Patrick Mannelly AwardDivision I FCS Walter Payton Award
Buck Buchanan Award
Jerry Rice AwardSee also iconCollege football portal Concussions in American football
College athletics in the United States
College athletics
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College basketball
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College ice hockey
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Homosexuality in American football
List of sports attendance figures
Sports injuryAnn Arbor is a city in and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, United States.[7] The 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851, making it the fifth-largest city in Michigan.[8] It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Washtenaw County. Ann Arbor is also included in the Greater Detroit Combined Statistical Area and the Great Lakes megalopolis, the most populated and largest megalopolis in North America.Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan. The university significantly shapes Ann Arbor's economy as it employs about 30,000 workers, including about 12,000 in its medical center. The city's economy is also centered on high technology, with several companies drawn to the area by the university's research and development infrastructure.[9]Ann Arbor was founded in 1824 by John Allen and Elisha Rumsey.[10][11] It was named after the wives of the village's founders, both named Ann, and the stands of bur oak trees they found at the site of the town.[12] The city's population grew at a rapid rate in the early to mid-20th century.
History
Main article: History of Ann Arbor, Michigan
See also: History of the University of Michigan
Before founding as Ann ArborThe lands of present-day Ann Arbor were part of Massachusetts's western claim after the French and Indian War (1754–1763), bounded by the latitudes of Massachusetts Bay Colony's original charter, to which it was entitled by its interpretation of its original sea-to-sea grant from The British Crown. Massachusetts ceded the claim to the federal government as part of the Northwest Territory after April 19, 1785.[13][14]In about 1774, the Potawatomi founded two villages in the area of what is now Ann Arbor.[15]
19th centuryAnn Arbor was founded in 1824 by land speculators John Allen and Elisha Walker Rumsey. On May 25, 1824, the town plat was registered with Wayne County as the Village of Annarbour, the earliest known use of the town's name.[16][17] Allen and Rumsey decided to name it for their wives, both named Ann, and for the stands of bur oak in the 640 acres (260 ha) of land they purchased for $800 from the federal government at $1.25 per acre.[12] The local Ojibwa named the settlement kaw-goosh-kaw-nick, after the sound of Allen's sawmill.[18]Ann Arbor became the seat of Washtenaw County in 1827[19] and was incorporated as a village in 1833.[20] The Ann Arbor Land Company, a group of speculators, set aside 40 acres (16 ha) of undeveloped land and offered it to the state of Michigan as the site of the state capitol, but lost the offer to Lansing. In 1837, the property was accepted instead as the site of the University of Michigan.[21]
Main Street in Ann Arbor c. 1908Since the university's establishment in the city in 1837, the histories of the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor have been closely linked.[22] The town became a regional transportation hub in 1839 with the arrival of the Michigan Central Railroad, and a north–south railway connecting Ann Arbor to Toledo and other markets to the south was established in 1878.[23] Throughout the 1840s and the 1850s settlers continued to come to Ann Arbor. While the earlier settlers were primarily of British ancestry, the newer settlers also consisted of Germans, Irish,[24] and Black people.[25] In 1851, Ann Arbor was chartered as a city,[26] though the city showed a drop in population during the Depression of 1873.[23] It was not until the early 1880s that Ann Arbor again saw robust growth,[27] with new immigrants from Greece, Italy, Russia, and Poland.
20th centuryAnn Arbor saw increased growth in manufacturing, particularly in milling.[28] Ann Arbor's Jewish community also grew after the turn of the 20th century, and its first and oldest synagogue, Beth Israel Congregation, was established in 1916.[29]In 1960, Ann Arbor voters approved a $2.3 million bond issue to build the current city hall, which was designed by architect Alden B. Dow. The City Hall opened in 1963. In 1995, the building was renamed the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building in honor of the longtime city administrator who championed the building's construction.[30]
Ann Arbor station in 1975During the 1960s and 1970s, the city gained a reputation as an important center for liberal politics. Ann Arbor also became a locus for left-wing activism and anti-Vietnam War movement, as well as the student movement. The first major meetings of the national left-wing campus group Students for a Democratic Society took place in Ann Arbor in 1960; in 1965, the city was home to the first U.S. teach-in against the Vietnam War.[31] During the ensuing 15 years, many countercultural and New Left enterprises sprang up and developed large constituencies within the city.[32] These influences washed into municipal politics during the early and mid-1970s when three members of the Human Rights Party (HRP) won city council seats on the strength of the student vote. During their time on the council, HRP representatives fought for measures including pioneering antidiscrimination ordinances, measures decriminalizing marijuana possession, and a rent-control ordinance;[33] many of these progressive organizations remain in effect today in modified form.Two religious-conservative institutions were created in Ann Arbor; the Word of God (established in 1967), a charismatic inter-denominational movement;[29] and the Thomas More Law Center (established in 1999).[34]Since 1998, Ann Arbor is also the home office of the Anthroposophical Society in the United States, an organization dedicated to supporting the community of those interested in the inner path of schooling known as anthroposophy, developed by Rudolf Steiner.Following a 1956 vote, the city of East Ann Arbor merged with Ann Arbor to encompass the eastern sections of the city.[35]
21st centuryIn the past several decades, Ann Arbor has grappled with the effects of sharply rising land values, gentrification, and urban sprawl stretching into outlying countryside.[36] On November 4, 2003, voters approved a greenbelt plan under which the city government bought development rights on agricultural parcels of land adjacent to Ann Arbor to preserve them from sprawling development.[37] Since then, a vociferous local debate has hinged on how and whether to accommodate and guide development within city limits.[38] Ann Arbor consistently ranks in the "top places to live" lists published by various mainstream media outlets every year. In 2008, it was ranked by CNNMoney.com 27th out of 100 "America's best small cities".[39] And in 2010, Forbes listed Ann Arbor as one of the most liveable cities in the United States.[40]In 2016, the city changed mayoral terms from two years to four.[41] Until 2017, City Council held annual elections in which half of the seats (one from each ward) were elected to 2-year terms. These elections were staggered, with each ward having one of its seats up for election in odd years and its other seat up for election in even years.[42] Beginning in 2018 the city council has had staggered elections to 4-year terms in even years. This means that half of the members (one from each ward) are elected in presidential election years, while the other half are elected in mid-term election years.[42] To facilitate this change in scheduling, the 2017 election elected members to terms that lasted 3-years.[42]
Ann Arbor pedestrianized Main SreetIn 2020, partly as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the city government opened several downtown streets to pedestrians, limiting their use by motor vehicles to emergency vehicles during summertime weekends. In addition to providing a large pedestrian mall, these changes allow restaurants to use more of the sidewalks and part of the street for outdoor seating.[43] These changes were popular enough that in 2021 the city council extended the dates from March to November, continuing the schedule of cordoning off cars from Thursday evening until Monday of Michigan Central Campus Historic District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
Location University of Michigan campus, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Area 85 acres (34 ha)
Built 1840
Architectural style Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals
Late Victorian
Art Deco
NRHP reference No. 78001514[46]
Added to NRHP June 15, 1978Ann Arbor is located along the Huron River, which flows southeast through the city on its way to Lake Erie. It is the central core of the Ann Arbor, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area, which consists of the whole of Washtenaw County, but is also a part of the Metro Detroit Combined Statistical Area designated by the U.S. Census Bureau.[47] While it borders only Townships, the built-up nature of the sections of Pittsfield and Ypsilanti townships between Ann Arbor and the city of Ypsilanti make the two effectively a single urban area.[48][49]
Huron River National Water Trail in Ann Arbor
LandscapeThe landscape of Ann Arbor consists of hills and valleys, with the terrain becoming steeper near the Huron River. The elevation ranges from about 750 feet (230 m) along the Huron River to 1,015 feet (309 m) on the city's west side, near the intersection of Maple Road and Pauline Blvd.[50] Ann Arbor Municipal Airport, which is south of the city at 42°13.38′N 83°44.74′W, has an elevation of 839 feet (256 m).[51]Ann Arbor is nicknamed "Tree Town," both due to its name and to the dense forestation of its parks and residential areas. The city contains more than 50,000 trees along its streets and an equal number in parks.[52] In recent years, the emerald ash borer has destroyed many of the city's approximately 10,500 ash trees.[53] The city contains 157 municipal parks ranging from small neighborhood green spots to large recreation areas. Several large city parks and a university park border sections of the Huron River.[54] Fuller Recreation Area, near the University Hospital complex, contains sports fields, pedestrian and bike paths, and swimming pools. The Nichols Arboretum, owned by the University of Michigan, is a 123-acre (50 ha) arboretum that contains hundreds of plant and tree species. It is on the city's east side, near the university's Central Campus.[55] Located across the Huron River just beyond the university's North Campus is the university's Matthaei Botanical Gardens, which contains 300 acres of gardens and a large tropical conservatory as well as a wildflower garden specializing in the vegetation of the southern Great Lakes Region.
Saint Thomas the Apostle Church, Ann Arbor
Bethlehem United Church of Christ
CityscapeThe cityscape of Ann Arbor is heavily influenced by the University of Michigan, with 22% of downtown and 9.4% of the total land owned by the university.[56][57]
DowntownThe downtown Central Campus contains some of the oldest extant structures in the city — including the President's House, built in 1840 — and separates the South University District from the other three downtown commercial districts.[58][59] These other three districts, Kerrytown, State Street, and Main Street are contiguous near the northwestern corner of the university.[60]Major landmarks in downtown Ann Arbor include the Michigan Theater, The Diag, and Tower Plaza, Ann Arbor's tallest building. Downtown is also home to several Fairy Doors and other public art installations.Downtown Ann Arbor is a frequent host of many large events, including the award-winning Ann Arbor Art Fairs. These events are often accompanied by the conversion of many downtown streets to pedestrian malls. In 2021 the city council launched a social district downtown, allowing visitors to carry alcoholic beverages between different businesses in the district.[61]
Other areasThree commercial areas south of downtown include the areas near I-94 and Ann Arbor-Saline Road, Briarwood Mall, and the South Industrial area. Other commercial areas include the Arborland/Washtenaw Avenue and Packard Road merchants on the east side, the Plymouth Road area in the northeast, and the Westgate/West Stadium areas on the west side.[62] Downtown contains a mix of 19th- and early-20th-century structures and modern-style buildings, as well as a farmers' market in the Kerrytown district.[63] The city's commercial districts are composed mostly of two- to four-story structures, although downtown and the area near Briarwood Mall contain a small number of high-rise buildings.[64]Ann Arbor's residential neighborhoods contain architectural styles ranging from classic 19th- and early 20th-century designs to ranch-style houses. Among these homes are a number of kit houses built in the early 20th century. Contemporary-style houses are farther from the downtown district.[62] Surrounding the University of Michigan campus are houses and apartment complexes occupied primarily by student renters. Tower Plaza, a 26-story condominium building located between the University of Michigan campus and downtown, is the tallest building in Ann Arbor.[65] The 19th-century buildings and streetscape of the Old West Side neighborhood have been preserved virtually intact; in 1972, the district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is further protected by city ordinances and a nonprofit preservation group.[66]
Climate
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Climate chart (explanation)
J

F

M

A

M

J

J

A

S

O

N

2.4
35
20

2.7
46
27

3.3
60
38

3.4
71
48

3.7
80
58

3.6
83
62

3.7
81
61

3.5
74
53

2.8
61
42

3.1
48
33
Average max. and min. temperatures in °F
█ Precipitation totals in inches
Metric conversionAnn Arbor has a typically Midwestern humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa), which is influenced by the Great Lakes. There are four distinct seasons: winters are cold and snowy, with average highs around 34 °F (1 °C). Summers are warm to hot and humid, with average highs around 81 °F (27 °C) and with slightly more precipitation. Spring and autumn are transitional between the two. The area experiences lake effect weather, primarily in the form of increased cloudiness during late fall and early winter.[67] The monthly daily average temperature in July is 72.6 °F (22.6 °C), while the same figure for January is 24.5 °F (−4.2 °C). Temperatures reach or exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on 10 days,[68] and drop to or below 0 °F (−18 °C) on 4.6 nights.[68] Precipitation tends to be the heaviest during the summer months, but most frequent during winter. Snowfall, which normally occurs from November to April but occasionally starts in October, averages 58 inches (147 cm) per season. The lowest recorded temperature was −23 °F (−31 °C) on February 11, 1885, and the highest recorded temperature was 105 °F (41 °C) on July 24, 1934.[68]
Climate data for Ann Arbor, Michigan (UMich, 1991–2020 normals, extremes 1881–present)
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Record high °F (°C) 72
(22) 68
(20) 85
(29) 88
(31) 95
(35) 103
(39) 105
(41) 104
(40) 99
(37) 91
(33) 78
(26) 67
(19) 105
(41)
Mean maximum °F (°C) 51.7
(10.9) 53.7
(12.1) 68.2
(20.1) 78.0
(25.6) 86.4
(30.2) 91.7
(33.2) 92.7
(33.7) 91.4
(33.0) 88.7
(31.5) 80.5
(26.9) 65.5
(18.6) 54.3
(12.4) 94.3
(34.6)
Mean daily maximum °F (°C) 31.9
(−0.1) 35.4
(1.9) 46.2
(7.9) 59.7
(15.4) 71.4
(21.9) 80.1
(26.7) 83.7
(28.7) 81.7
(27.6) 75.1
(23.9) 62.2
(16.8) 48.0
(8.9) 36.3
(2.4) 59.3
(15.2)
Daily mean °F (°C) 24.0
(−4.4) 26.5
(−3.1) 35.7
(2.1) 47.6
(8.7) 59.0
(15.0) 68.0
(20.0) 71.9
(22.2) 70.3
(21.3) 63.3
(17.4) 51.4
(10.8) 39.2
(4.0) 29.2
(−1.6) 48.8
(9.3)
Mean daily minimum °F (°C) 16.2
(−8.8) 17.7
(−7.9) 25.2
(−3.8) 35.5
(1.9) 46.6
(8.1) 55.9
(13.3) 60.1
(15.6) 58.8
(14.9) 51.6
(10.9) 40.7
(4.8) 30.5
(−0.8) 22.1
(−5.5) 38.4
(3.6)
Mean minimum °F (°C) −1.5
(−18.6) 1.1
(−17.2) 8.5
(−13.1) 22.8
(−5.1) 33.9
(1.1) 43.7
(6.5) 50.3
(10.2) 49.5
(9.7) 38.4
(3.6) 28.6
(−1.9) 17.2
(−8.2) 6.2
(−14.3) −5.6
(−20.9)
Record low °F (°C) −22
(−30) −23
(−31) −8
(−22) 7
(−14) 20
(−7) 35
(2) 37
(3) 39
(4) 27
(−3) 19
(−7) −3
(−19) −20
(−29) −23
(−31)
Average precipitation inches (mm) 2.96
(75) 2.51
(64) 2.82
(72) 3.44
(87) 3.84
(98) 3.91
(99) 3.52
(89) 3.52
(89) 3.18
(81) 2.99
(76) 2.82
(72) 2.75
(70) 38.26
(972)
Average snowfall inches (cm) 18.3
(46) 15.3
(39) 8.3
(21) 2.6
(6.6) 0.0
(0.0) 0.0
(0.0) 0.0
(0.0) 0.0
(0.0) 0.0
(0.0) 0.1
(0.25) 4.1
(10) 12.7
(32) 61.4
(156)
Average precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in) 18.3 14.4 14.3 14.4 14.7 12.4 11.7 11.2 10.6 13.3 13.5 16.9 165.7
Average snowy days (≥ 0.1 in) 15.2 12.1 7.5 2.8 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 4.9 11.5 54.5
Source: NOAA[69][70]
Demographics
Racial composition 2020[71] 2010[72] 1990[73] 1970[73] 1940[73]
White 67.6% 73.0% 82.0% 91% 95.5%
—Non-Hispanic 65.9% 70.4% 80.4% - -
Black or African American 6.8% 7.7% 9.0% 6.7% 4.1%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 5.5% 4.1% 2.6% 1.3%[note 1] -
Asian 15.7% 14.4% 7.7% 1.5% 0.3%
Historical population Census Pop. Note %±
1860 5,097 —
1870 7,363 44.5%
1880 8,061 9.5%
1890 9,431 17.0%
1900 14,509 53.8%
1910 14,817 2.1%
1920 19,516 31.7%
1930 26,944 38.1%
1940 29,815 10.7%
1950 48,251 61.8%
1960 67,340 39.6%
1970 100,035 48.6%
1980 107,969 7.9%
1990 109,592 1.5%
2000 114,024 4.0%
2010 113,934 −0.1%
2020 123,851 8.7%
2021 (est.) 121,536 [4] −1.9%
Before 1860[74]
1900–2000[75]
U.S. Census Bureau[76][77]As of the 2020 U.S. Census, there were 123,851 people and 49,948 households residing in the city.[71] The population density was 4,435.9 inhabitants per square mile (1,712.7/km2),[8] making it less densely populated than Detroit proper and its inner-ring suburbs like Oak Park and Ferndale, but more densely populated than outer-ring suburbs like Livonia and Troy.[78] The racial makeup of the city was 67.6% White, 6.8% Black, 0.2% Native American, 15.7% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 1.8% from other races, and 7.9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race made up 5.5% of the population.[71] Ann Arbor has a small population of Arab Americans, including students as well as local Lebanese and Palestinians.[79]
The Ann Arbor Unitarian Universalist Church was designed by Donaldson & Meier and built in 1881-2 by the Walker Brothers. The buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It currently houses the architecture firm of Hobbs and Black.As of the 2010 U.S. Census, there were 113,934 people, 20,502 families, and 47,060 households residing in the city.[80] The population density was 4,093.9 inhabitants per square mile (1,580.7/km2).[81] The racial makeup of the city was 73.0% White (70.4% non-Hispanic White), 7.7% Black, 0.3% Native American, 14.4% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 1.0% from other races, and 3.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race made up 4.1% of the population.[82]In 2013, Ann Arbor had the second-largest community of Japanese citizens in the state of Michigan, at 1,541; this figure trailed only that of Novi, which had 2,666 Japanese nationals.[83]In 2010, out of 47,060 households, 43.6% were family households, 20.1% had individuals under the age of 18 living in them, and 17.0% had individuals over age 65 living in them. Of the 20,502 family households, 19.2% included children under age 18, 34.2% were husband-wife families (estimates did not include same-sex married couples), and 7.1% had a female householder with no husband present. The average household size was 2.17 people, and the average family size was 2.85 people. The median age was 27.8; 14.4% of the population was under age 18, and 9.3% was age 65 or older.[82] By the 2022 American Community Survey, the percentage of married couple households was 33.8%, while male householders with no spouse present (family households) were 26.1%, and female householders with no spouse present (family households) were 30.4%.[84]According to the 2012–2016 American Community Survey estimates, the median household income was $57,697, and the median family income was $95,528.[85] Males over age 25 and with earnings had a median income of $51,682, versus $39,203 for females.[86] The per capita income for the city was $37,158.[81] Nearly a quarter (23.4%) of people and 6.7% of families had incomes below the poverty level.[87]
EconomyThe University of Michigan shapes Ann Arbor's economy significantly. It employs about 30,000 workers, including about 12,000 in the medical center.[88] Other employers are drawn to the area by the university's research and development money, and by its graduates. High tech, health services and biotechnology are other major components of the city's economy; numerous medical offices, laboratories, and associated companies are located in the city. Automobile manufacturers, such as General Motors and Visteon, also employ residents.[88]
Atrium of a shopping arcade, with green and yellow banners hanging overhead with the words "Nickels Arcade"
Nickels Arcade interior, looking towards the eastHigh tech companies have located in the area since the 1930s, when International Radio Corporation introduced the first mass-produced AC/DC radio (the Kadette, in 1931) as well as the first pocket radio (the Kadette Jr., in 1933).[89] The Argus camera company, originally a subsidiary of International Radio, manufactured cameras in Ann Arbor from 1936 to the 1960s. Current firms include Arbor Networks (provider of Internet traffic engineering and security systems), Arbortext (provider of XML-based publishing software), JSTOR (the digital scholarly journal archive), MediaSpan (provider of software and online services for the media industries), Truven Health Analytics, and ProQuest, which includes UMI.[90] Ann Arbor Terminals manufactured a video-display terminal called the Ann Arbor Ambassador during the 1980s.[91] Barracuda Networks, which provides networking, security, and storage products based on network appliances and cloud services, opened an engineering office in Ann Arbor in 2008 on Depot St.[92] and currently occupies the building previously used as the Borders headquarters on Maynard Street.[93] Duo Security, a cloud-based access security provider protecting thousands of organizations worldwide through two-factor authentication, is headquartered in Ann Arbor.[94] It was formerly a unicorn and continues to be headquartered in Ann Arbor after its acquisition by Cisco Systems.[95] In November 2021, semiconductor test equipment company KLA Corporation opened a new North American headquarters in Ann Arbor.[96]
Weinmann Block, located at 219-223 East Washington Street, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983
Germania Building Complex, located at 119-123 West Washington Street and 209-211 Ashley Street, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983Websites and online media companies in or near the city include All Media Guide, the Weather Underground, and Zattoo. Ann Arbor is the home to Internet2 and the Merit Network, a not-for-profit research and education computer network. Both are located in the South State Commons 2 building on South State Street, which once housed the Michigan Information Technology Center Foundation.[97] The city is also home to a secondary office of Google's AdWords program—the company's primary revenue stream.[98] The recent surge in companies operating in Ann Arbor has led to a decrease in its office and flex space vacancy rates. As of December 31, 2012, the total market vacancy rate for office and flex space is 11.80%, a 1.40% decrease in vacancy from one year previous, and the lowest overall vacancy level since 2003. The office vacancy rate decreased to 10.65% in 2012 from 12.08% in 2011, while the flex vacancy rate decreased slightly more, with a drop from 16.50% to 15.02%.[99]As of 2022, Ann Arbor is home to more than twenty video game and XR studios of varying sizes.[100] The city plays host to a regional chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) which hosts monthly meetups, presentations, and educational events.[101]Pfizer, once the city's second-largest employer, operated a large pharmaceutical research facility on the northeast side of Ann Arbor. On January 22, 2007, Pfizer announced it would close operations in Ann Arbor by the end of 2008.[102] The facility was previously operated by Warner-Lambert and, before that, Parke-Davis. In December 2008, the University of Michigan Board of Regents approved the purchase of the facilities, and the university anticipates hiring 2,000 researchers and staff during the next 10 years.[103] It is now known as North Campus Research Complex. The city is the home of other research and engineering centers, including those of Lotus Engineering, General Dynamics and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Other research centers sited in the city are the United States Environmental Protection Agency's National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory[104] and the Toyota Technical Center.[105] The city is also home to National Sanitation Foundation International (NSF International), the nonprofit non-governmental organization that develops generally accepted standards for a variety of public health related industries and subject areas.[106]
Nickels Arcade was the only remaining example in Michigan of a free-standing commercial arcade building of a type that was popularized by the Cleveland Arcade. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987Borders Books, started in Ann Arbor, was opened by brothers Tom and Louis Borders in 1971 with a stock of used books. The Borders chain was based in the city, as was its flagship store until it closed in September 2011.[107] Domino's Pizza's headquarters is near Ann Arbor on Domino's Farms, a 271-acre (110 ha) Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired complex just northeast of the city.[108] Another Ann Arbor-based company is Zingerman's Delicatessen, which serves sandwiches and has developed businesses under a variety of brand names. Zingerman's has grown into a family of companies which offers a variety of products (bake shop, mail order, creamery, coffee) and services (business education).[109] Flint Ink Corp., another Ann Arbor-based company, was the world's largest privately held ink manufacturer until it was acquired by Stuttgart-based XSYS Print Solutions in October 2005.[110] Avfuel, a global supplier of aviation fuels and services, is also headquartered in Ann Arbor.[111]The controversial detective and private security firm, Pinkerton is headquartered in Ann Arbor, being located on 101 N Main St.[112]Many cooperative enterprises were founded in the city; among those that remain are the People's Food Co-op and the Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan, a student housing cooperative founded in 1937.[113] There are also three cohousing communities—Sunward, Great Oak, and Touchstone—located immediately to the west of the city limits.[114]
Culture
Main article: Culture of Ann Arbor, Michigan
Michigan Theater is the current home of the annual Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Ann Arbor Symphony, and the Ann Arbor Concert BandSeveral performing arts groups and facilities are on the University of Michigan's campus, as are museums dedicated to art, archaeology, and natural history and sciences. Founded in 1879, the University Musical Society is an independent performing arts organization that presents over 60 events each year, bringing international artists in music, dance, and theater. Since 2001 Shakespeare in the Arb has presented one play by Shakespeare each June, in a large park near downtown.[115] Regional and local performing arts groups not associated with the university include the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre, the Arbor Opera Theater, the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, the Ann Arbor Ballet Theater, the Ann Arbor Civic Ballet (established in 1954 as Michigan's first chartered ballet company),[116] The Ark, and Performance Network Theatre.[117] Another unique piece of artistic expression in Ann Arbor is the fairy doors. These small portals are examples of installation art and can be found throughout the downtown area.[118]The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum is located in a renovated and expanded historic downtown fire station. Multiple art galleries exist in the city, notably in the downtown area and around the University of Michigan campus. Aside from a large restaurant scene in the Main Street, South State Street, and South University Avenue areas, Ann Arbor ranks first among U.S. cities in the number of booksellers and books sold per capita.[119] The Ann Arbor District Library maintains four branch outlets in addition to its main downtown building. The city is also home to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.[120]Several annual events—many of them centered on performing and visual arts—draw visitors to Ann Arbor. One such event is the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, a set of four concurrent juried fairs held on downtown streets. Scheduled on Thursday through Sunday of the third week of July, the fairs draw upward of half a million visitors.[121] Another is the Ann Arbor Film Festival, held during the third week of March, which receives more than 2,500 submissions annually from more than 40 countries and serves as one of a handful of Academy Award–qualifying festivals in the United States.[122]Ann Arbor has a long history of openness to marijuana, given Ann Arbor's decriminalization of cannabis, the large number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city (one dispensary, called People's Co-op, was directly across the street from Michigan Stadium until zoning forced it to move one mile to the west), the large number of pro-marijuana residents, and the annual Hash Bash: an event that is held on the first Saturday of April. Until (at least) the successful passage of Michigan's medical marijuana law, the event had arguably strayed from its initial intent, although for years, a number of attendees have received serious legal responses due to marijuana use on University of Michigan property, which does not fall under the city's progressive and compassionate ticketing program.[123]Ann Arbor is a major center for college sports, most notably at the University of Michigan. Several well-known college sports facilities exist in the city, including Michigan Stadium, the largest American football stadium in the world and the third-largest stadium of any kind in the world.[124] Michigan Stadium has a capacity of 107,601, with the final "extra" seat said to be reserved for and in honor of former athletic director and Hall of Fame football coach Fitz Crisler.[125] The stadium was completed in 1927 and cost more than $950,000 to build. The stadium is colloquially known as "The Big House" due to its status as the largest American football stadium.[126] Crisler Center and Yost Ice Arena play host to the school's basketball (both men's and women's) and ice hockey teams, respectively.[127] Concordia University, a member of the NAIA, also fields sports teams.[128]
A fairy door at Red Shoes, 332 South AshleyAnn Arbor is represented in the NPSL by semi-pro soccer team AFC Ann Arbor, a club founded in 2014 who call themselves The Mighty Oak.A person from Ann Arbor is called an "Ann Arborite", and many long-time residents call themselves "townies". The city itself is often called "A²" ("A-squared") or "A2" ("A two") or "AA", "The Deuce" (mainly by Chicagoans), and "Tree Town".[129] With tongue-in-cheek reference to the city's liberal political leanings, some occasionally refer to Ann Arbor as "The People's Republic of Ann Arbor"[130] or "25 square miles surrounded by reality",[131] the latter phrase being adapted from Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus's description of Madison, Wisconsin. In A Prairie Home Companion broadcast from Ann Arbor, Garrison Keillor described Ann Arbor as "a city where people discuss socialism, but only in the fanciest restaurants." Ann Arbor sometimes appears on citation indexes as an author, instead of a location, often with the academic degree MI, a misunderstanding of the abbreviation for Michigan.[132]
Parks and plazas
Main article: List of Parks and plazas in Ann Arbor, MichiganThe Ann Arbor department of Parks and Recreation manages over 160 parks within the city limits, such as Buhr Park.[133] In addition, the University of Michigan operates several public green spaces, such as The Diag and Nichols Arboretum, and the county operates County Farm Park. Several other green spaces around Ann Arbor are privately owned or owned by government agencies such as Ann Arbor Public Schools.The Federal building includes a public plaza at the corner of Fifth Ave. and Liberty St.
Government and politics
See also: List of mayors of Ann Arbor, Michigan
Washtenaw County CourthouseAs the county seat of Washtenaw County, the Washtenaw County Trial Court (22nd Circuit Court) is located in Ann Arbor at the Washtenaw County Courthouse on Main Street. Seven judges serve on the court.[134] The 15th Michigan district court, which serves only the city itself, is located within the Ann Arbor Justice Center, immediately next to city hall. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan and Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit are also located in downtown Ann Arbor, at the federal building on Liberty County Administration Building
Government
Current Mayor Christopher TaylorAnn Arbor has a council-manager form of government, with 11 voting members: the mayor and 10 city council members. Each of the city's five wards are represented by two council members, with the mayor elected at-large during midterm years. Half of the council members are elected in midterm years, with the other in general election years.[139] The mayor is the presiding officer of the city council and has the power to appoint all council committee members as well as board and commission members, with the approval of the city council. The current mayor of Ann Arbor is Christopher Taylor, a Democrat who was elected as mayor in 2014.[140] Day-to-day city operations are managed by a city administrator chosen by the city council.[141]
First National Bank Building at 201-205 South Main Street. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982
PoliticsProgressive politics have been particularly strong in municipal government since the 1960s. Voters approved charter amendments that have lessened the penalties for possession of marijuana (1974),[142] and that aim to protect access to abortion in the city should it ever become illegal in the State of Michigan (1990).[143] In 1974, Kathy Kozachenko's victory in an Ann Arbor city-council race made her the country's first openly homosexual candidate to win public office.[144] In 1975, Ann Arbor became the first U.S. city to use instant-runoff voting for a mayoral race. Adopted through a ballot initiative sponsored by the local Human Rights Party, which feared a splintering of the liberal vote, the process was repealed in 1976 after use in only one election.[145] As of April 2021, Democrats hold the mayorship and all ten council seats.[146]
Abortion
Main article: Abortion in MichiganAnti-abortion protesters were outnumbered ten-to-one by abortion-rights counterprotesters in 2017.[147] In 2019, The Diag hosted a Stop the Bans rally. In 2022 in the shadow of the Dobbs decision, the diag once again became a rallying point for abortion rights protests, drawing thousands of protesters, including US Rep. Debbie Dingell Senator Debbie Stabenow, and Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist.[148][149]
George Floyd protests
Main article: George Floyd protestsDuring the protests against police brutality sparked by the Murder of George Floyd, several representatives of the Ann Arbor Police Department joined demonstrators.[150] Other attendees included Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh, Rep. Debbie Dingell, state Rep. Yousef Rabhi, and state Sen. Jeff Irwin.[151][152]
Local politicsAnn Arbor residents have generally support both taxation and progressive causes locally. In 1974, a city survey found that a ⅔ majority of residents supported a city income tax.[153]Ann Arbor has two major political factions.[154] In 2020, after the city council voted 7–4 to fire city administrator Howard Lazarus, several of the council members who voted to fire him lost their elections.[155][156] In April 2021, the city council voted to strip Jeff Hayner of his committee assignments response to his use of homophobic and racist slurs, followed in June by a vote to ask him to resign.[157] Hayner's ally on council, Elizabeth Nelson, defended Hayner, saying he "spoke the phonetic sounds without euphemism."[158][159] Hayner did not run for re-election in 2022 and Nelson lost her primary to Dharma Akmon in a series of elections that gave the mayor's faction 11-0 control of city council.[160][161][162]A major source of this local divide is differences in views on the city's growth.[163] In 2018, two council members sued the city over a council decision to sell a city-owned property downtown to a housing developer.[164] Later that year, the city narrowly passed a proposal to keep that space as city owned property in perpetuity.[165] In 2020, the city council enacted a resolution sponsored by then council members Anne Bannister and Jeff Hayner to form an advisory body for developing the roof of the parking structure into a city park.[166] By late 2022, this advisory board had sent council a request to direct staff to evaluate the site for use for food truck rallies and other events.[167] In April 2023, city staff responded to this request with a memorandum stating in part that "this site is not well-suited for use as a food truck rally or food truck installation and that it will require significant capital investment to bring the site up to a standard that would be safe, convenient, and attractive as a community event space." [168] The following city council meeting included public comments deriding the lack of progress from this advisory and secondary education
Main article: Ann Arbor Public SchoolsPublic schools are part of the Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) district. AAPS has one of the country's leading music programs. In September 2008, 16,539 students had been enrolled in the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Notable schools include Pioneer, Huron, Skyline, and Community high schools, and Ann Arbor Open School.[170] The district has a preschool center with both free and tuition-based programs for preschoolers in the district.[171] The University High School, a "demonstration school" with teachers drawn from the University of Michigan's education program, was part of the school system from 1924 to 1968.[172]Ann Arbor is home to several private schools,[173] including Emerson School, the Father Gabriel Richard High School, Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor (a Prek-12 Waldorf school), Clonlara School, Michigan Islamic Academy, and Greenhills School, a prep school. The city is also home to several charter schools such as Central Academy (Michigan) (PreK-12) of the Global Educational Excellence (GEE) charter school company,[174] Washtenaw Technical Middle College, and Honey Creek Community School.
Higher educationThe University of Michigan dominates the city of Ann Arbor, providing the city with its distinctive college-town character.[175] University buildings are located in the center of the city and the campus is directly adjacent to the State Street and South University downtown areas.Other local colleges and universities include Concordia University Ann Arbor, a Lutheran liberal-arts institution, and Cleary University, a private business school. Washtenaw Community College is located in neighboring Ann Arbor Township. In 2000, the Ave Maria School of Law, a Roman Catholic law school established by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, opened in northeastern Ann Arbor, but the school moved to Ave Maria, Florida in 2009,[176] and the Thomas M. Cooley Law School acquired the former Ave Maria buildings for use as a branch campus.[177][178][179]
Media
Ann Arbor News buildingThe Ann Arbor News, owned by the Michigan-based Booth Newspapers chain, was the major newspaper serving Ann Arbor and the rest of Washtenaw County. The newspaper ended its 174-year daily print run in 2009, due to economic difficulties and began producing two printed editions a week under the name AnnArbor.com,[180] It resumed using its former name in 2013. It also produces a daily digital edition named Mlive.com. Another Ann Arbor-based publication that has ceased production was the Ann Arbor Paper, a free monthly.[181] Ann Arbor has been said to be the first significant city to lose its only daily paper.[182] The Ann Arbor Chronicle, an online newspaper, covered local news, including meetings of the library board, county commission, and DDA until September 3, 2014.[183]Current publications in the city include the Ann Arbor Journal (A2 Journal), a weekly community newspaper;[184] the Ann Arbor Observer, a free monthly local magazine; and Current, a free entertainment-focused alt-weekly.[185] The Ann Arbor Business Review covers local business in the area. Car and Driver[186] magazine and Automobile Magazine[187] are also based in Ann Arbor. The University of Michigan is served by many student publications, including the independent Michigan Daily student newspaper, which reports on local, state, and regional issues in addition to campus news.[188]
Michigan Radio Reception Area in 2012Four major AM radio stations based in or near Ann Arbor are WAAM 1600, a conservative news and talk station; WLBY 1290, a business news and talk station; WDEO 990, Catholic radio; and WTKA 1050, which is primarily a sports station.[189] The city's FM stations include NPR affiliate WUOM 91.7; country station WWWW 102.9; and adult-alternative station WQKL 107.1. Freeform station WCBN-FM 88.3 is a local community radio/college radio station operated by the students of the University of Michigan featuring noncommercial, eclectic music and public-affairs programming.[189] The city is also served by public and commercial radio broadcasters in Ypsilanti, the Lansing/Jackson area, Detroit, Windsor, and Toledo.[190]Ann Arbor is part of the Detroit television market. WPXD channel 31, the owned-and-operated Detroit outlet of the ION Television network, is licensed to the city. Until its sign-off on August 31, 2017, WHTV channel 18, a MyNetworkTV-affiliated station for the Lansing market, was broadcast from a transmitter in Lyndon Township, west of Ann Arbor. Community Television Network (CTN) is a city-provided cable television channel with production facilities open to city residents and nonprofit organizations.[191] Detroit and Toledo-area radio and television stations also serve Ann Arbor, and stations from Lansing and Windsor, Ontario, can be seen in parts of the area.[190]
Environment and services
Barton Dam
Argo DamThe University of Michigan Medical Center, the only teaching hospital in the city, took the number 1 slot in U.S. News & World Report for best hospital in the state of Michigan, as of 2015.[192] The University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) includes University Hospital, C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and Women's Hospital in its core complex. UMHS also operates out-patient clinics and facilities throughout the city. The area's other major medical centers include a large facility operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs in Ann Arbor,[193] and Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital in nearby Superior Township.[194]The city provides sewage disposal and water supply services, with water coming from the Huron River and groundwater sources. There are two water-treatment plants, one main and three outlying reservoirs, four pump stations, and two water towers. These facilities serve the city, which is divided into five water districts. The city's water department also operates four dams along the Huron River—Argo, Barton, Geddes, and Superior—of which Barton and Superior provide hydroelectric power.[195][196] The city also offers waste management services, with Recycle Ann Arbor handling recycling service.[197] Other utilities are provided by private entities. Electrical power and gas are provided by DTE Energy. AT&T Inc. is the primary wired telephone service provider for the area. Cable TV service is primarily provided by Comcast.[198]A plume of the industrial solvent dioxane is migrating under the city from the contaminated Gelman Sciences, Inc. property on the westside of Ann Arbor. It is currently detected at 0.039 ppb.[199] The Gelman plume is a potential threat to one of the City of Ann Arbor's drinking water sources, the Huron River, which flows through downtown Ann Arbor.
CrimeIn 2015, Ann Arbor was ranked 11th safest among cities in Michigan with a population of over 50,000.[200] It ranked safer than cities such as Royal Oak, Livonia, Canton and Clinton Township. The level of most crimes in Ann Arbor has fallen significantly in the past 20 years. In 1995 there were 294 aggravated assaults, 132 robberies and 43 rapes while in 2015 there were 128 aggravated assaults, 42 robberies and 58 rapes (under the revised definition).[201][202]Ann Arbor's crime rate was below the national average in 2000. The violent crime rate was further below the national average than the property crime rate; the two rates were 48% and 11% lower than the U.S. average, Arbor is considered one of the US's most walkable cities, with one sixth of Ann Arborites walking to work according to the 2020 census.[205][206] Over 80,000 people commute into Ann Arbor each day from surrounding areas.[207]
Non-motorized transportationAnn Arbor has made efforts to reverse the trend of car-dependent development. In 2019, 36% of trips in Ann Arbor were taken by walking, biking or transit.[208] In 2020, the city introduced a Healthy Streets program to encourage non-motorized transportation.[209] The Washtenaw county Border-to-Border Trail connects Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti, mostly along the Huron river, for pedestrians, bicycles and other non-motorized transportation.[210][211] In 2017, Spin scooters started providing a scooter share program in Ann Arbor, expanding this to include dockless e-bikes in 2023.[212][213][214]
WalkabilityAnn Arbor has a gold designation by the Walk Friendly Communities program.[206] Since 2011, the city's property taxes have included a provision for sidewalk maintenance and expansions, expanding the sidewalk network, filling sidewalk gaps, and repairing existing sidewalks.[215] The city has created a sidewalk gap dashboard, which showed 143 miles of sidewalk gaps in May 2022.[216] The downtown was ranked in 2016 is the most walkable neighborhood in mid-sized cities in the Midwest.[217] However, the outlying parts of the city and the township districts between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti still contain markedly unwalkable areas.[218]
BicycleBetween 2019 and 2022 Ann Arbor's Downtown Development Authority built four two-way protected bikeways downtown.[219] Early studies have shown a significant increase in bicycle use downtown since the construction of these bikeways.[220][221] In 2023, the city reported over 900 bicycle parking spaces downtown, though this is still a small portion compared to the over 8,000 car parking spots for cars.[222][223]
Public transit
An AATA bus in front of the Blake Transit CenterThe Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority (AAATA), which brands itself as "TheRide", operates public bus services throughout the city and nearby Ypsilanti. The AATA operates the Blake Transit Center on Fourth Ave. in downtown Ann Arbor, and the Ypsilanti Transit Center. A separate zero-fare bus service operates within and between the University of Michigan campuses. Since April 2012, the "AirRide" connects to Detroit Metro Airport a dozen times a day.[224]
Intercity busesGreyhound Lines provides intercity bus service.[225] The Michigan Flyer, a service operated by Indian Trails, cooperates with AAATA for their AirRide and additionally offers bus service to East Lansing.[226] Megabus has direct service to Chicago, Illinois, while a bus service is provided by Amtrak for rail passengers making connections to services in East Lansing and Toledo, Ohio.
Railroads
Michigan Central Depot, Ann ArborThe city was a major rail hub, notably for freight traffic between Toledo and ports north of Chicago, Illinois, from 1878 to 1982; however, the Ann Arbor Railroad also provided passenger service from 1878 to 1950, going northwest to Frankfort and Elberta on Lake Michigan and southeast to Toledo. (In Elberta connections to ferries across the Lake could be made.)[227][228] The city was served by the Michigan Central Railroad starting in 1837. The Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti Street Railway, Michigan's first interurban, served the city from 1891 to 1929.[229]Amtrak, which provides service to the city at the Ann Arbor Train Station, operates the Wolverine train between Chicago and Pontiac, via Detroit. The present-day train station neighbors the city's old Michigan Central Depot, which was renovated as a restaurant in 1970.[230]
AirportsAnn Arbor Municipal Airport is a small, city-run general aviation airport located south of I-94. Detroit Metropolitan Airport, the area's large international airport, is about 25 miles (40 km) east of the city, in Romulus.[231] Willow Run Airport east of the city near Ypsilanti serves freight, corporate, and general aviation clients.[232]
Roads and highwaysThe streets in downtown Ann Arbor conform to a grid pattern, though this pattern is less common in the surrounding areas. Major roads branch out from the downtown district like spokes on a wheel to the highways surrounding the city. The city is belted by three freeways: I-94, which runs along the southern and western portion of the city; U.S. Highway 23 (US 23), which primarily runs along the eastern edge of Ann Arbor; and M-14, which runs along the northern edge of the city. Other nearby highways include US 12 (Michigan Ave.), M-17 (Washtenaw Ave.), and M-153 (Ford Rd.). Several of the major surface arteries lead to the I-94/M-14 interchange in the west, US 23 in the east, and the city's southern areas.[233]
Sister citiesAnn Arbor has seven sister cities:[234][235] Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (since 1965) The schools in Ann Arbor and Tübingen have regular exchanges.[236]
Belize City, Belize (since 1967)
Hikone, Shiga, Japan (since 1969) The schools in Ann Arbor and Hikone have regular exchanges.[237][238]
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada (since 1983)
Juigalpa, Chontales, Nicaragua (since 1986)
Dakar, Senegal (since 1997)
Remedios, Cuba (since 2003)See also Ann Arbor staging
Ardis Publishing
List of people from Ann Arbor
Metro Detroit
Iggy PopThe Michigan Wolverines football team represents the University of Michigan in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision level. Michigan has the most all-time wins in college football history.[3][4] The team is known for its distinctive winged helmet, its fight song, its record-breaking attendance figures at Michigan Stadium,[5] and its many rivalries, particularly its annual, regular season-ending game against Ohio State, known simply as "The Game," once voted as ESPN's best sports rivalry.[6]Michigan began competing in intercollegiate football in 1879. The Wolverines joined the Big Ten Conference at its inception in 1896, and other than a hiatus from 1907 to 1916, have been members since. Michigan has won or shared 45 league titles, and since the inception of the AP Poll in 1936, has finished in the top 10 a total of 39 times. The Wolverines claim 12 national championships, including 3 (1948, 1997, 2023) from the major wire-service: AP Poll and/or Coaches' Poll.[7]From 1900 to 1989, Michigan was led by a series of nine head coaches, each of whom has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame either as a player or as a coach. Fielding H. Yost became Michigan's head coach in 1901 and guided his "Point-a-Minute" squads to a streak of 56 games without a defeat, spanning from his arrival until the season finale in 1905, including a victory in the 1902 Rose Bowl, the first college football bowl game ever played. Fritz Crisler brought his winged helmet from Princeton University in 1938 and led the 1947 Wolverines to a national title and Michigan's second Rose Bowl win. Bo Schembechler coached the team for 21 seasons (1969–1989) in which he won 13 Big Ten titles and 194 games, a program record. The first decade of his tenure was underscored by a fierce competition with his former mentor, Woody Hayes, whose Ohio State Buckeyes squared off against Schembechler's Wolverines in a stretch of the Michigan–Ohio State rivalry dubbed the "Ten-Year War".Following Schembechler's retirement, the program was coached by two of his former assistants, Gary Moeller and then Lloyd Carr, who maintained the program's overall success over the next 18 years, Carr winning a national championship in 1997. However, the program's fortunes declined under the next two coaches, Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke, who were both fired after relatively short tenures. Following Hoke's dismissal, Michigan hired Jim Harbaugh on December 30, 2014.[8] Harbaugh is a former quarterback for the team, having played for Michigan from 1982 to 1986 under Schembechler. Harbaugh led the Wolverines to three consecutive Big Ten titles and College Football Playoff appearances during his final three years as head coach, from 2021 to 2023. His final team, the 2023 Michigan Wolverines won the program's first national championship since 1997, and first undisputed national championship since 1948 after beating Washington in the 2024 National Championship Game. Following the championship victory, Harbaugh left Michigan to return to coaching in the National Football League (NFL). Currently, the head coach position is held by Sherrone Moore, who had been on Harbaugh's coaching staff since 2018, and had been an offensive coordinator since 2021. He was the acting head coach for four games during the national championship-winning 2023 season. He won them all, including games against ranked opponents Penn State and Ohio State. The Wolverines promoted Moore on January 26, 2024, two days after Harbaugh's departure.[9][10]The Michigan Wolverines have featured 88 players that have garnered consensus selection to the College Football All-America Team. Three Wolverines have won the Heisman Trophy: Tom Harmon in 1940, Desmond Howard in 1991, and Charles Woodson in 1997. Gerald Ford, who later became the 38th president of the United States, started at center and was voted most valuable player by his teammates on the 1934 team.
History
See also: List of Michigan Wolverines football seasons

It has been suggested that portions of this section be split out into another article titled History of Michigan Wolverines football. (Discuss) (September 2019)
Early history (1879–1900)
Main article: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the early years
The 1879 squad, the first team fielded by the universityOn May 30, 1879, Michigan played its first intercollegiate football game against Racine College at White Stocking Park in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune called it "the first rugby-football game to be played west of the Alleghenies."[11] Midway through "the first 'inning',"[12] Irving Kane Pond scored the first touchdown for Michigan.[13][14] According to Will Perry's history of Michigan football, the crowd responded to Pond's plays with cheers of "Pond Forever."[11] In 1881, Michigan played against Harvard in Boston. The game that marked the birth of intersectional football.[15] On their way to a game in Chicago in 1887, Michigan players stopped in South Bend, Indiana and introduced football to students at the University of Notre Dame. A November 23 contest marked the inception of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program and the beginning of the Michigan–Notre Dame rivalry.[16] In 1894, Michigan defeated Cornell, which was the "first time in collegiate football history that a western school defeated an established power from the east."[17]
The 1898 Michigan Wolverines, the first Michigan team to win a conference titleIn 1896, the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives—then commonly known as the Western Conference and later as the Big Ten Conference—was formed by the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin, Northwestern University, and Purdue University.[18] The first Western Conference football season was played in 1896, with Michigan going 9–1, but losing out on the inaugural Western Conference title with a loss to the Chicago Maroons to end the season.[19][20] By 1898 Amos Alonzo Stagg was fast at work at turning the University of Chicago football program into a powerhouse. Before the final game of the 1898 season, Chicago was 9–1–1 and Michigan was 9–0; a game between the two teams in Chicago decided the third Western Conference championship. Michigan won, 12–11, capturing the program's first conference championship in a game that inspired "The Victors", which later became the school's fight song.[21] Michigan went 8–2 and 7–2–1 in 1899 and 1900, results that were considered unsatisfactory relative to the 10–0 season of 1898.[22]
Yost era (1901–1928)
Main article: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the Yost era
Fielding Yost in 1902.After the 1900 season, Charles A. Baird, Michigan's first athletic director, wrote to Fielding H. Yost, "Our people are greatly roused up over the defeats of the past two years", and gave Yost an offer to come to Michigan to coach the football team.[23] The New York Times reported that Michigan's margin of victory was "one of the most remarkable ever made in the history of football in the important colleges."[24] At the end of the season, Michigan participated in the inaugural Rose Bowl.[25] Michigan dominated the game so thoroughly that Stanford's captain requested the game be called with eight minutes remaining. Neil Snow scored five touchdowns in the game, which is still the all-time Rose Bowl record.[26] The next year, 1902, Michigan outscored its opponents 644 to 12 and finished the season 11–0. In 1903, Michigan played a game against Minnesota that started the rivalry for the Little Brown Jug, the oldest rivalry trophy in college football.[27] The game marked the only time from 1901 to 1904 that Michigan failed to win.[22] Michigan finished the season at 11–0–1. In 1904, Michigan once again went undefeated at 10–0 while recording one of the most lopsided defeats in college football history, a 130–0 defeat of the West Virginia Mountaineers.[20]From 1901 through 1904, Michigan didn't lose a single game.[22] The streak was finally halted at the end of the 1905 season by Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago Maroons, a team that went on to win two Big 9 (as the Western Conference was now being called with the addition of Iowa and Indiana) titles in the next three years.[19] The game, dubbed "The First Greatest Game of the Century,"[28] broke Michigan's 56-game unbeaten streak and marked the end of the "Point-a-Minute" years. The 1905 Michigan team had outscored opponents 495–0 in its first 12 games. 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. Michigan tied for another Big 9 title in 1906 before opting to go independent for the 1907 season.[20] The independent years were not as kind to Yost as his years in the Big 9. Michigan suffered one loss in 1907.[22] In 1908, Michigan got battered by Penn (a team that went 11–0–1 that year) in a game in which Michigan center Germany Schulz took such a battering as to have to be dragged off the field.[29] In 1909, Michigan suffered its first loss to Notre Dame, leading Yost to refuse to schedule another game against Notre Dame; the schools did not play again until 1942.[20] In 1910, Michigan played their only undefeated season of the independent years, going 3–0–3.[22] Overall from 1907 to 1916, Michigan lost at least one game every year (with the exception of 1910).[22]
Benny Friedman in 1929.Michigan rejoined the Big 9 in 1917, after which it was called the Big Ten. Yost immediately got back to work. In 1918, Michigan played the first game against Stagg's Chicago Maroons since Chicago ended Michigan's winning streak in 1905.[20] Michigan defeated the Maroons, 18–0, on the way to a 5–0 record.[20][22] The next three years were lean, with Michigan going 3–4, 5–2, and 5–1–1, in 1919, 1920, and 1921.[22] However, in 1922 Michigan managed to spoil the "Dedication Day" for Ohio Stadium, defeating the Buckeyes 19–0.[20] Legend has it that the rotunda at Ohio Stadium is painted with maize flowers on a blue background due to the outcome of the 1922 dedication game.[30] Michigan went 5–0–1 in 1922, capturing a Big Ten title.[19][22] In 1923, Michigan went 8–0, winning another conference championship.[19][22] The 1924 Wolverines, coached by George Little, saw their 20-game unbeaten streak end at the hands of Red Grange.[20] After the 1924 season, Little left Michigan to accept the head coach and athletic director positions at Wisconsin, returning athletic director Yost to the head coaching position.[31] Although the 1925 and 1926 seasons did not include a conference title, they were memorable due to the presence of the famous "Benny-to-Bennie" combination, a reference to Benny Friedman and Bennie Oosterbaan. The two helped popularize passing the ball in an era when running held dominance. Oosterbaan became a three-time All-American and was selected for the All-Time All-American team in 1951,[32] while Friedman went on to have a Hall of Fame NFL career.[33] Also during 1926, Michigan was retroactively awarded national titles for the 1901 and 1902 seasons via the Houlgate System, the first national titles awarded to the program. Other major selectors (such as the National Championship Foundation and Jeff Sagarin) later retroactively awarded Michigan with titles in the 1903, 1904, 1918, 1923, 1925, and 1926 seasons.[34] Michigan claims titles in the 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1918, and 1923 seasons.[35]Yost stepped aside in 1926 to focus on being Michigan's athletic director, a post he had held since 1921, thus ending the greatest period of success in the history of Michigan football.[36] Under Yost, Michigan posted a 165–29–10 record, winning ten conference championships and six national championships.[19][20][35] One of his main actions as athletic director was to oversee the construction of Michigan Stadium. Michigan began playing football games in Michigan Stadium in the fall of 1927. At the time Michigan Stadium had a capacity of 72,000, although Yost envisioned eventually expanding the stadium to a capacity well beyond 100,000.[37] Michigan Stadium was formally dedicated during a game against the Ohio State Buckeyes that season to the tune of a 21–0 victory.[38] Tad Wieman became Michigan's head coach in 1927. That year, Michigan posted a modest 6–2 record.[22] However, the team ended 1928 with a losing 3–4–1 record and Wieman was fired.[39][40]
Kipke years (1929–1937)
Main article: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the Kipke years
Future U.S. president Gerald Ford during practice as a center on Wolverines football team, 1933In 1929, Harry Kipke, a former player under Yost, took over as head coach.[41] From 1930 to 1933, Kipke returned Michigan to prominence. During that stretch, Michigan won the Big Ten title every year and the national championship in 1932 and 1933.[19][35] In 1932, quarterback and future College Football Hall of Famer Harry Newman was a unanimous first-team All-American, and the recipient of the Douglas Fairbanks Trophy as Outstanding College Player of the Year (predecessor of the Heisman Trophy), and the Helms Athletic Foundation Player of the Year Award, the Chicago Tribune Silver Football trophy as the Most Valuable Player in the Big Ten Conference.[42] During this span Kipke's teams only lost one game, to Ohio State.[20][22] After 1933, however, Kipke's teams compiled a 12–22 record from 1934 to 1937.[22] The 1934 Michigan team only won one game, against Georgia Tech in a controversial contest. Georgia Tech coach and athletic director W. A. "Bill" Alexander refused to allow his team to take the field if Willis Ward, an African-American player for Michigan, stepped on the field. Michigan conceded, and the incident reportedly caused Michigan player Gerald R. Ford to consider quitting the team.[43] Overall, Kipke posted a 49–26–4 record at Michigan, winning four conference championships and two national championships.[19][22][35]
Crisler years (1938–1947)
Main article: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the Crisler years
Fritz Crisler in 1948.In 1938, Michigan hired Fritz Crisler as Kipke's successor.[44] Crisler had been head coach of the Princeton Tigers and reportedly wasn't excited to leave Princeton.[44] Michigan invited him to name his price, and Crisler demanded what he thought would be unacceptable: the position of athletic director when Yost stepped down and the highest salary in college football.[45] Michigan accepted, and Crisler became the new head coach of the Michigan football program.[44]Upon arriving at Michigan, Crisler introduced the winged football helmet, ostensibly to help his players find the receivers down field.[46] Whatever the reasoning, the winged helmet has since become one of the iconic marks of Michigan football.[47] Michigan debuted the winged helmet in a game against Michigan State in 1938.[48] Two years later in 1940, Tom Harmon led the Wolverines to a 7–1 record on his way to winning the Heisman Trophy.[22][49] Harmon ended the season by scoring three rushing touchdowns, two passing touchdowns, four extra points, intercepting three passes, and punting three times for an average of 50 yards in a game against the Ohio State Buckeyes.[50] The 1943 season included a No. 1 (Notre Dame) vs. No. 2 (Michigan) match-up against Notre Dame, a game the Wolverines lost 35–12.[20] Michigan ended the season at 8–1, winning Crisler's first Big Ten championship.[19][22]Crisler had reversed the misfortune of the end of the Kipke era and returned Michigan to one and two-loss seasons. From 1938 to 1944, Michigan posted a 48–11–2 record,[51] although the period lacked a national title and only contained one conference title.[22] Yet, Crisler's biggest mark on the game of football was made in 1945, when Michigan faced a loaded Army squad that featured two Heisman trophy winners, Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis. Crisler didn't feel that his Michigan team could match up with Army, so he opted to take advantage of a 1941 NCAA rule that allowed players to enter or leave at any point during the game.[45] Crisler divided his team into "offensive" and "defensive" specialists, an act that earned him the nickname "the father of two-platoon football."[52] Michigan still lost the game with Army 28–7,[20] but Crisler's use of two-platoon football shaped the way the game was played in the future. Eventually, Crisler's use of the platoon system propelled his team to a conference championship and a national title in 1947, his final season.[19][20][35] The 1947 team, nicknamed the "Mad Magicians" due to their use of two-platoon football, capped their season with a 49–0 victory over the USC Trojans in the 1948 Rose Bowl.[20] Crisler finished with a 116–32–9 record at Michigan, winning two conference titles and one national title.[19][22][35][51]
Oosterbaan years (1948–1958)
Main article: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the Oosterbaan years
Bennie OosterbaanCrisler continued as athletic director while Bennie Oosterbaan, the same Bennie that had electrified the world while making connections with Benny Friedman 20 years earlier, took over the football program.[53] Things started off well for Oosterbaan in 1948 with the Wolverines earning a quality mid-season victory over No. 3 Northwestern.[20][53] Michigan finished the season undefeated at 9–0, thus winning another national championship.[22][35] Initially, Oosterbaan continued Crisler's tradition of on-field success, winning conference titles each year from 1948 to 1950 and the national title in 1948.[19][35] The 1950 season ended in interesting fashion, with Michigan and Ohio State combining for 45 punts in a game that came to be known as the "Snow Bowl." Michigan won the game 9–3, winning the Big Ten conference and sending the Wolverines off to the 1951 Rose Bowl.[19][20] Subsequently, Michigan's football team began to decline under Oosterbaan. From 1951 to 1958, Michigan compiled a record of 42–26–2, a far cry from the success under Crisler and Yost.[22] Perhaps more importantly, Oosterbaan posted a 2–5–1 record against Michigan State and a 3–5 record against Ohio State over the same time period.[20] Under mounting pressure, Oosterbaan stepped down after 1958.[53]
Elliott years (1959–1968)
Main article: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the Elliott yearsIn place of Oosterbaan stepped Bump Elliott, a former Michigan player of Crisler's.[54] Elliott continued many of the struggles that began under Oosterbaan, posting a 51–42–2 record from 1959 through 1968 (including a 2–7–1 record against Michigan State and a 3–7 record against Ohio State).[22] Michigan's only Big Ten title under Elliott came in 1964, a season that included a win over Oregon State in the 1965 Rose Bowl.[19][20] Following a 50-14 drubbing at the hands of Ohio State in 1968,[20] Elliott resigned.
Schembechler era (1969–1989)
Bo Schembechler in 1975.It only took 15 minutes for Don Canham to be sold on Bo Schembechler, resulting in Schembechler becoming the 15th coach in Michigan football history.[55] At the time, Schembechler's employer, the Miami RedHawks, could have thrown more money at Schembechler, but Canham managed to sell Schembechler on Michigan's tradition and prestige.[56] Schembechler's first team got off to a moderate start, losing to rival Michigan State and entering the Ohio State game with a 7–2 record.[22] Ohio State, coached by icon Woody Hayes, entered the game at 8–0 and poised to repeat as national champions.[57] The 1969 Ohio State team was hailed by some as being the "greatest college football team ever assembled" and came into the game favored by 17 points over Michigan.[58] Michigan shocked the Buckeyes, winning 24–12, going to the Rose Bowl, and launching The Ten Year War between Hayes and Schembechler.[20] From 1969 to 1978, one of either Ohio State or Michigan won at least a share of the Big Ten title and represented the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl every season.[19] In 1970 Schembechler failed to repeat on the magic of 1969, that year losing to Ohio State 20–9 and finishing at 9–1.[20] However, in 1971, Schembechler led Michigan to an undefeated regular season, only to lose to the Stanford Indians in the Rose Bowl to finish at 11–1.[22] From 1972 to 1975, Michigan failed to win a game against Ohio State (powered by phenom running back Archie Griffin).[20] However, Michigan did tie Ohio State in 1973, only missing out on the Rose Bowl due to a controversial vote that sent Ohio State to the Rose Bowl and left Michigan at home.[20] Another notable event occurred during the 1975 season, with the first of Michigan's record streak of games with more than 100,000 people in attendance occurring during a game against the Purdue Boilermakers.
Rick Leach, who played quarterback for Michigan from 1975 through 1978.From 1976 to 1978, Michigan asserted its own dominance of the rivalry, beating Ohio State, going to the Rose Bowl, and posting a 10–2 record every year.[20][22] After the 1978 season, Woody Hayes was fired for punching an opposing player during the 1978 Gator Bowl, thus ending The Ten Year War.[59] Michigan had a slight edge in the war, with Schembechler going 5–4–1 against Hayes. However, while Schembechler successfully placed great emphasis on the rivalry, Michigan's bowl performances were sub-par. Michigan failed to win their last game of the season every year during The Ten Year War.[20] The only year in which Michigan didn't lose its last game of the season was the 1973 tie against Ohio State.[20] After the end of the Ten Year War, Michigan's regular season performance declined, but its post season performance improved. The 1979 season included a memorable game against Indiana that ended with a touchdown pass from John Wangler to Anthony Carter with six seconds left in the game.[60] Michigan went 8–4 on the season, losing to North Carolina in the 1979 Gator Bowl.[20][22] In 1980, Michigan went 10–2 and got their first win in the Rose Bowl under Schembechler, a 23–6 win over Washington.[20][22] Michigan went 9–3 in 1981 to get Schembechler's second bowl win in the 1981 Bluebonnet Bowl.[20][22] In 1982, Michigan won the Big Ten championship while being led by three-time All-American wide receiver Anthony Carter.[19][61] Michigan fell to UCLA Bruins in the 1983 Rose Bowl.[20] Without Anthony Carter, the Wolverines did not win the Big Ten title in 1983, going 9–3.[22] In 1984, the Wolverines suffered their worst season under Schembechler, going 6–6 with a loss to national champion BYU in the 1984 Holiday Bowl.[20][22]Michigan needed to reverse its fortunes in 1985, and they began doing so with new quarterback Jim Harbaugh.[62] Harbaugh led the Wolverines to a 5–0 record, propelling them to a No. 2 ranking heading into a game with the No. 1 Iowa Hawkeyes.[63] Michigan lost 12–10,[20] but did not lose another game the rest of the season to finish at 10–1–1 with a victory over Tom Osborne's Nebraska Cornhuskers in the 1986 Fiesta Bowl.[22] In 1986 Michigan won the Big Ten at 11–2, suffering a loss to the Arizona State Sun Devils in the 1987 Rose Bowl.[20][22] The departure of Harbaugh after 1986 once again left Michigan on tough times, by Michigan standards, as Schembechler's team stumbled to an 8–4 record in 1987.[22] However, Michigan bounced back again in 1988 and 1989, winning the Big Ten title outright both years at 9–2–1 and 10–2 with trips to Rose Bowl.[19][22] From 1981 through 1989, Michigan went 80–27–2, winning four Big Ten titles and going to a bowl game every year (with another Rose Bowl win obtained against USC Trojans after the 1988 season).[20] Bo Schembechler retired after the 1989 season, handing the job over to his offensive coordinator Gary Moeller.[64] Under Schembechler, Michigan posted a 194–48–5 record[65] (11–9–1 against Ohio State), and won 13 Big Ten championships.[65]
Moeller years (1990–1994)
Coach MoellerGary Moeller took over from Schembechler for the 1990 season, becoming the 16th head coach in Michigan football history.[66] Moeller inherited a talented squad that had just played in the 1990 Rose Bowl, including wide receiver Desmond Howard. Moeller led Michigan to a 9–3 record in his first season,[22] tying for the Big Ten championship but losing out on a Rose Bowl offer to Iowa.[19][20] The next two years, Moeller's teams won the conference outright, setting marks of 10–2 and 9–0–3.[19][22] In 1991, Desmond Howard had a memorable season that propelled him to win the Heisman Trophy, the award given to college football's most outstanding player.[67] The 1992 team, led by quarterback Elvis Grbac, posted a 9–0–3 record,[22] defeating Washington in the 1993 Rose Bowl.[20] Moeller led Michigan to 8–4 records in both 1993 and 1994.[22] The 1994 season was marked by an early-season loss to Colorado that included a Hail Mary pass from Kordell Stewart to Michael Westbrook to end the game, leading to the game being dubbed "The Miracle at Michigan."[68] Moeller was forced out after the 1994 season when intoxicated at a Southfield, MI restaurant in an incident in which Moeller was caught on tape throwing a punch in a police station. According to his lawyers, Moeller was fired, but allowed to publicly save face by resigning.[69][70][71][72][73]
Carr years (1995–2007)Michigan's athletic director appointed Lloyd Carr, an assistant at Michigan since 1980, as interim head coach for the 1995 season.[74] However, after an 8–2 start, Michigan dropped the interim tag from Carr's title and named him its 17th head coach.[75] Michigan finished his first season at 9–4.[22][76] Carr had similar success in his second season, going 8–4 and earning a trip to the 1997 Outback Bowl.[22] Carr returned a strong squad for the 1997 season, led by cornerback and punt returner Charles Woodson.[77] Michigan went undefeated in 1997.[20][22] Overall, the Michigan defense only allowed 9.5 points per game and ended the season ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll, giving Michigan its first national championship since 1948 with a victory in the 1998 Rose Bowl.[78][79][20][35] For his efforts, Woodson won the Heisman Trophy and was selected 4th overall in the 1998 NFL Draft by the Oakland Raiders.[80]With Tom Brady as quarterback,[81] Michigan went 10–3 and repeated as Big Ten champions in 1998, but in 1999 Michigan lost out on the conference championship at 10–2 to the Wisconsin Badgers.[19][22] Drew Henson led Michigan to a 9–3 record and a tie for the Big Ten championship in 2000.[19][22] Ohio State, Michigan's chief rival, fired their coach John Cooper,[82] who was 2–10–1 against Michigan while at Ohio State, after the 2000 season and replaced him with Jim Tressel.[83][84] Tressel immediately ushered in a new era in the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry, upsetting the Wolverines 26–20 in 2001.[85] This came on the heels of another last-second loss in which Michigan State defeated Michigan with a pass in the last second of the game in a controversial finish that led to the game being referred to as "Clockgate."[86] Despite these setbacks, Michigan's 2001 squad, led by John Navarre, went 8–4 with an appearance in the 2002 Florida Citrus Bowl.[87][20][22] Again under Navarre in 2002, Michigan compiled a 10–3 record,[88] but included another loss to Ohio State, who went on to win the national championship.[89][20][22] Carr got over the hump against Tressel in 2003 as John Navarre and Doak Walker Award winner Chris Perry led the Wolverines to a 10–3 record,[90] a Big Ten championship, and an appearance in the 2004 Rose Bowl.[19][20][22]
2006 Michigan Wolverines huddle during a game against the Central Michigan Chippewas.For the 2004 season, Carr turned to highly rated recruit Chad Henne to lead the Wolverines at quarterback.[91] Michigan went 9–3 in 2004[92] to tie for another Big Ten championship and earn a trip to the 2005 Rose Bowl, but the season again included a loss to Ohio State,[93] who only went 8–4 on the season.[19][20][22]In 2005, Michigan struggled to make a bowl game, only going 7–5, with the season capped with another loss to Ohio State.[20][22] Expectations were tempered going into the 2006 season; however, a 47–21 blowout of No. 2 Notre Dame and an 11–0 start propelled Michigan to the No. 2 rankings going into "The Game" with No. 1 Ohio State.[94] The 2006 Ohio State-Michigan game was hailed by the media as the "Game of the Century." The day before the game, Bo Schembechler died, leading Ohio State to honor him with a moment of silence, one of the few Michigan Men to be so honored in Ohio Stadium.[95] The game itself was a back-and-forth affair, with Ohio State winning 42–39 for the right to play in the 2007 BCS National Championship Game.[20] Michigan lost to USC in the 2007 Rose Bowl, ending the season at 11–2.[20][22]Going into 2007, Michigan had high expectations.[96] Standout players Chad Henne, Mike Hart, and Jake Long all opted to return for their senior seasons for one last crack at Ohio State and a chance at a national championship, causing Michigan to be ranked fifth in the preseason polls.[97] However, Michigan's struggles against the spread offense reared its ugly head again as the Wolverines shockingly lose the opener to the Appalachian State Mountaineers.[98][99][20] The game marked the first win by a Division I-AA team over a team ranked in the Associated Press Poll.[100] The next week, Michigan was blown out by Oregon.[101][20] Despite the early rough start, Michigan won their next eight games and went into the Ohio State game with a chance to win the Big Ten championship.[20] However, Michigan once again fell to the Buckeyes, this time 14–3.[102][20] After the game, Lloyd Carr announced that he would retire as Michigan head coach after the bowl game.[103] In the 2008 Capital One Bowl, Carr's final game, Michigan defeated the defending national champion Florida Gators, led by Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, 41–35.[104] Carr's accomplishments at Michigan included a 122–40 record, five Big Ten championships, and one national championship.[19][20][35]
Rodriguez years (2008–2010)
Rich Rodriguez at Michigan in 2008.Following Carr's retirement, Michigan launched a national coaching search that ultimately saw Rich Rodriguez lured away from his alma mater, West Virginia.[105] Rodriguez's arrival marked the beginning of major upheaval in the Michigan football program. Rodriguez, a proponent of the spread offense, installed it in place of the pro-style offense that had been used by Carr. The offseason saw significant attrition in Michigan's roster. The expected starting quarterback Ryan Mallett departed the program, stating that he would be unable to fit in a spread offense. Starting wide receivers Mario Manningham and Adrian Arrington both decided to forgo their senior seasons and enter the NFL Draft.[106] Michigan lost a good deal of its depth and, when the 2008 season began, was forced to start players with very little playing experience. The 2008 season was disappointing for Michigan, finishing at 3–9 and suffering its first losing campaign since 1967. Michigan also missed a bowl game invitation for the first time since 1974.The week before the 2009 season began, the Detroit Free Press accused the team of violating the NCAA's practice time limits.[107] While the NCAA conducted investigations, Michigan won its first four games, including a last second victory against its rival Notre Dame. The season ended in disappointment, however, as Michigan went 1–7 in its last eight games and missed a bowl for the second straight season.Rodriguez's final season began with new hope in the program, as Robinson was named the starting quarterback over Forcier. Robinson led the Wolverines to a 5–0 start, but after a defeat to Michigan State at home, the Wolverines finished the season 2–5 over their last seven games. Michigan did, however, qualify for a bowl game with a 7–5 record, and clinched its bowl berth in dramatic fashion against Illinois, with Michigan winning 67–65 in three overtime periods. The game was the highest combined scoring game in Michigan history, and saw Michigan's defense give up the most points in its history.[108] Michigan was invited to the Gator Bowl to face Mississippi State, losing 52–14. The Michigan defense set new school records as the worst defense in Michigan history. In the middle of the season, the NCAA announced its penalties against Michigan for the practice time violations. The program was placed on three of years probation and docked 130 practice hours, which was twice the amount Michigan had exceeded.[109]Rodriguez was fired following the bowl game, with athletic director Dave Brandon citing Rodriguez's failure to meet expectations as the main reason for his dismissal.[110][111] Rodriguez left the program winless against rivals Michigan State and Ohio State and compiled a 15–22 record, the worst record of any head coach in Michigan history.[112]
Hoke years (2011–2014)
Coach HokeOn January 11, 2011, Michigan announced the hiring of new head coach Brady Hoke.[113][114] He became the 19th head coach in Michigan football history.[115] Hoke had previously been the head coach at his alma mater Ball State and then San Diego State after serving as an assistant at Michigan under Lloyd Carr from 1995 to 2002.[116] In his first season, Hoke led the Wolverines to 11 wins, beating rival Notre Dame with a spectacular comeback in Michigan's first night game at Michigan Stadium. Despite losing to Iowa and Michigan State, the Wolverines finished with a 10–2 regular season record with their first win over Ohio State in eight years. The Wolverines received an invitation to the Sugar Bowl in which they defeated Virginia Tech, 23–20, in overtime. This was the program's first bowl win since the season of 2007.In Hoke's second season, the Wolverines dropped their season opener to eventual national champions, Alabama in Dallas, Texas. U-M won the next two games at home in non-conference bouts against Air Force and UMass. Michigan then traveled to face eventual national runner-up Notre Dame. They fell to the Fighting Irish by a 13–6 final. After back-to-back wins over Purdue and Illinois, they defeated in-state rival Michigan State for the first time since 2007. The win was the 900th in program history, becoming the first program to reach the milestone. U-M finished the season with wins over Minnesota, Northwestern and Iowa as well as losses to Nebraska and Ohio State to finish the regular season. Michigan was selected to participate in the Outback Bowl, where they fell to South Carolina by a 33–28 score.In the 2013 campaign, Michigan finished with a 7–6 record, including a 3–5 record in Big Ten play and a loss to Kansas State in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl 31–14.[117] On December 2, 2014, Hoke was fired as the head coach after four seasons following a 5–7 record in 2014.[118][119] This marked only the third season since 1975 in which Michigan missed a bowl game.[120] Hoke compiled a 31–20 record, including an 18–14 record in Big Ten play.[121]
Harbaugh years (2015–2023)
Coach HarbaughOn December 30, 2014, the University of Michigan announced the hiring of Jim Harbaugh as the team's 20th head coach.[122][123] Harbaugh, who was starting quarterback in the mid-1980s under Bo Schembechler, had most recently served as head coach of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers.[124] He also led an impressive turnaround of Stanford football program as the Cardinal's head coach.[125] When he was hired, Harbaugh signed a seven-year contract worth $7 million annually excluding incentives.[126] In his first season in 2015, Harbaugh led Michigan to a 10–3 record, including a 41–7 win over the Florida Gators in the 2016 Citrus Bowl.[127]The 2016 Wolverines won their first nine games of the season, including wins over then 8th-ranked Wisconsin and rival Michigan State, and reached number two in the College Football Playoff rankings. The team then lost at Iowa and again at Ohio State two weeks later. The season ended with a 33–32 loss to Florida State in the Orange Bowl on December 30, resulting in a second straight 10–3 record. Jabrill Peppers, who played linebacker and defensive back as well as special teams and offense, was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, finishing fifth.[128] The team lost many key players on the offensive and defensive side of the ball prior to Harbaugh's third season. The Wolverines went 8–4 in the regular season losing to their main rivals, Michigan State and Ohio State, and lost to South Carolina in the Outback Bowl, becoming the only team in the Big Ten Conference to lose its bowl game in the 2017–2018 bowl season and dropping the record on the year to 8–5.[129]Harbaugh's fourth season in 2018 started with a loss to rival Notre Dame, followed by ten consecutive wins. Wins over ranked Big Ten opponents Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Penn State, all of whom beat Michigan the previous year, led to the team rallying around referring to the season as a "revenge tour."[130] The Wolverines rose to fourth in the College Football Playoff rankings, but the "revenge tour" came to an abrupt end when they were upset by rival Ohio State by a lopsided score of 62–39 to end the regular season. Ohio State's 62 points set a record for points against Michigan during regulation. A blowout loss to Florida in the Peach Bowl ended the season, and they finished at 10–3 for the third time in Harbaugh's four years. During Harbaugh's fifth season in 2019, the Wolverines lost to Wisconsin 35–14 and to Penn State 28–21, both on the road. Michigan went on to beat rivals Notre Dame 45–14 and Michigan State 44–10, but once again lost to then No. 1 ranked Ohio State by a score of 56–27 to end the regular season. Michigan later lost to Alabama 16–35 in the Citrus Bowl to end the season with a record of 9–4.For the 2020 season, COVID-19 precautions delayed the start of Big Ten play. The Wolverines started with a dominating 49–24 win against Minnesota. However, in a highly physical game against Michigan State, the Wolverines incurred many player injuries and narrowly lost 27–24. The next week, Michigan lost to Indiana 38–21. Michigan had beaten Indiana in the previous 24 matchups, not having lost to the Hoosiers since the 1987 season.[131] On November 14, 2020, Michigan hosted Wisconsin and suffered its largest halftime deficit at home since Michigan Stadium opened in 1927 (28–0), as well as its largest home loss (49–11) since 1935.[132][133] It was also Harbaugh's first loss at Michigan Stadium to a team other than Michigan State or Ohio State. On November 28, 2020, Michigan hosted Penn State and, for the first time in Michigan football history, lost to a team that was 0–5 or worse.[134] Michigan was winless at home during the 2020 season, marking the first time in program history that Michigan did not win any games at home.[135] The final three scheduled games of the season, against Maryland, Ohio State, and Iowa, were canceled due to COVID-19 concerns. Michigan did not play in a postseason bowl game for the first time under Harbaugh. On January 8, 2021, the Michigan administration and Jim Harbaugh agreed to a contract extension through 2025.[136]The Wolverines started the 2021 season unranked, but quickly found their footing to surge into the rankings. They won their first seven games, which included blowout wins against Washington and Wisconsin. The team rose to number six in the polls before a top-ten showdown with eighth ranked rival Michigan State. Michigan narrowly lost to their instate rival, but rebounded with wins against Indiana, Penn State, and Maryland in their subsequent three games to set up a winner-take-all for the Big Ten East division against arch-rival Ohio State. In a top-five showdown, Michigan used a dominant second half performance to rout Ohio State 42–27, giving the Wolverines their first win against the Buckeyes since 2011, and a berth to their first-ever Big Ten Championship Game. In the Big Ten Championship Game against Big Ten West champions Iowa, the second-ranked Wolverines dominated the Hawkeyes 42–3 to win their outright first Big Ten Championship since 2003. As the second seed in the College Football Playoff, the Wolverines lost the semifinal Orange Bowl to the eventual national champions Georgia Bulldogs 34–11 to finish the season 12–2. Michigan was ranked third in the final AP and Coaches Poll rankings of the season. Defensive end Aidan Hutchinson finished runner-up in voting for the Heisman Trophy.[137] Michigan began the 2022 season ranked eighth.[138] They won a top-10 showdown against then 6-0 #10 Penn State 41-17[139] and beat Michigan State 29–7.[140] The Wolverines defeated then 11-0 #2 Ohio State 45–23 in Columbus, marking their first win there since 2000 and the first time Harbaugh's Michigan beat both Michigan State and Ohio State in the same season. Michigan's perfect 12–0 regular season earned them their second straight Big Ten East Division championship and appearance in the Big Ten Championship Game.[141] Michigan would defeat the West Division champions Purdue 43–22 to repeats as conference champions and head back to the College Football Playoff.[142] In the semifinal Fiesta Bowl, Michigan lost to TCU, 51–45, to finish the season 13–1. Michigan's 13 wins set a school record for most wins in a single season and it was again ranked third in the final AP and Coaches Poll rankings of the season. This marked the first time since 1947 and 1948 that Michigan finished consecutive seasons ranked in the top three.[143] Running back Blake Corum finished seventh in voting for the Heisman Trophy.[144]The 2023 season started with the university-imposed three-game suspension of Harbaugh for recruiting violations during the COVID-19 dead period.[145] The NCAA also opened an investigation into allegations regarding a Michigan sign-stealing operation against other teams.[146][147] The ensuing controversy led to the firing of linebackers coach Chris Partridge and a commissioner-imposed suspension of coach Harbaugh for the final three games of the 2023 regular season.[148][149] Despite the punishments, the Wolverines continued to win games, including a record-setting 1,000th win against Maryland and a third straight victory over rival Ohio State.[150][151][152] After completing his suspension, Harbaugh coached Michigan to a 26–0 win over #16 Iowa in the 2023 Big Ten Championship Game.[153] Michigan was then ranked #1 in both major polls and by the College Football Playoff Committee, securing a playoff game for the third straight year, this time facing number #4 Alabama. Harbaugh coached Michigan to a 27–20 victory over Alabama in the Rose Bowl, improving their record to 14–0 on the season.[154] Harbaugh then coached Michigan to a 34–13 victory over Washington in the College Football Playoff National Championship, setting a single-season program record of 15 wins during the season.[155] On January 24, 2024, Harbaugh accepted an offer to become the head coach of the NFL's Los Angeles Chargers.[156] In his nine-season tenure at Michigan, Harbaugh compiled an 89–25 record, winning three Big Ten championships and one national championship.
Hiring of Sherrone Moore (2024)
Moore in 2021On January 26, 2024, Michigan named Sherrone Moore as its head coach. He is the first African American to serve as the head coach of the Michigan football team on a non-interim basis.[157]
Conference affiliations Independent (1879–1891)
Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the Northwest (1892–1893)
Independent (1894–1895)
Western Conference (1896–1906)
Independent (1907–1916)
Big Ten Conference (1917–present)
Big Nine Conference (1946–1949)
Big Ten Conference (1917–1945, 1950–present)Bowl gamesMichigan has played in 52 bowl games in its history, compiling a record of 23–29. Before missing a bowl game in 2008, Michigan had made a bowl game 33 years in a row. From the 1921 to 1945 seasons, the Big Ten Conference did not allow its teams to participate in bowls. From the 1946 to 1974 seasons, only a conference champion or a surrogate representative was allowed to attend a bowl, the Rose Bowl, and no team could go two years in a row until the 1972 Rose Bowl, with the exception of Minnesota in 1961 and 1962.
Michigan defeated Stanford 49–0 in the first ever Rose Bowl on January 1, 1902
Date Bowl Opponent Result
January 1, 1902 Rose Bowl Stanford W 49–0
January 1, 1948 Rose Bowl USC W 49–0
January 1, 1951 Rose Bowl California W 14–6
January 1, 1965 Rose Bowl Oregon State W 34–7
January 1, 1970 Rose Bowl USC L 3–10
January 1, 1972 Rose Bowl Stanford L 12–13
January 1, 1976 Orange Bowl Oklahoma L 6–14
January 1, 1977 Rose Bowl USC L 6–14
January 2, 1978 Rose Bowl Washington L 20–27
January 1, 1979 Rose Bowl USC L 10–17
December 28, 1979 Gator Bowl North Carolina L 15–17
January 1, 1981 Rose Bowl Washington W 23–6
December 31, 1981 Bluebonnet Bowl UCLA W 33–14
January 1, 1983 Rose Bowl UCLA L 14–24
January 2, 1984 Sugar Bowl Auburn L 7–9
December 21, 1984 Holiday Bowl BYU L 17–24
January 1, 1986 Fiesta Bowl Nebraska W 27–23
January 1, 1987 Rose Bowl Arizona State L 15–22
January 2, 1988 Hall of Fame Bowl Alabama W 28–24
January 2, 1989 Rose Bowl USC W 22–14
January 1, 1990 Rose Bowl USC L 10–17
January 1, 1991 Gator Bowl Ole Miss W 35–3
January 1, 1992 Rose Bowl Washington L 14–34
January 1, 1993 Rose Bowl Washington W 38–31
January 1, 1994 Hall of Fame Bowl NC State W 42–7
December 30, 1994 Holiday Bowl Colorado State W 24–14
December 28, 1995 Alamo Bowl Texas A&M L 20–22
January 1, 1997 Outback Bowl Alabama L 14–17
January 1, 1998 Rose Bowl Washington State W 21–16
January 1, 1999 Citrus Bowl Arkansas W 45–31
January 1, 2000 Orange Bowl Alabama W 35–34 (OT)
January 1, 2001 Citrus Bowl Auburn W 31–28
January 1, 2002 Citrus Bowl Tennessee L 17–45
January 1, 2003 Outback Bowl Florida W 38–30
January 1, 2004 Rose Bowl USC L 14–28
January 1, 2005 Rose Bowl Texas L 37–38
December 28, 2005 Alamo Bowl Nebraska L 28–32
January 1, 2007 Rose Bowl USC L 18–32
January 1, 2008 Capital One Bowl Florida W 41–35
January 1, 2011 Gator Bowl Mississippi State L 14–52
January 3, 2012 Sugar Bowl Virginia Tech W 23–20 OT
January 1, 2013 Outback Bowl South Carolina L 28–33
December 28, 2013 Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl Kansas State L 14–31
January 1, 2016 Citrus Bowl Florida W 41–7
December 30, 2016 Orange Bowl † Florida State L 32–33
January 1, 2018 Outback Bowl South Carolina L 19–26
December 29, 2018 Peach Bowl † Florida L 15–41
January 1, 2020 Citrus Bowl Alabama L 16–35
December 31, 2021 Orange Bowl (CFP Semifinal) † Georgia L 11–34
December 31, 2022 Fiesta Bowl (CFP Semifinal) † TCU L 45–51
January 1, 2024 Rose Bowl (CFP Semifinal) † Alabama W 27–20OT
January 8, 2024 CFP National Championship Washington W 34–13
Total 52 bowl games 23–29 1,218–1,155† New Year's Six bowl gameBowl record by gameBowl # W L %
Alamo Bowl 2 0 2 .000
Bluebonnet Bowl 1 1 0 1.000
Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl 1 0 1 .000
Citrus Bowl (Capital One Bowl) 6 4 2 .667
Fiesta Bowl 2 1 1 .500
Gator Bowl 3 1 2 .333
Holiday Bowl 2 1 1 .500
Outback Bowl (Hall of Fame Bowl) 6 3 3 .500
Orange Bowl 4 1 3 .250
Peach Bowl 1 0 1 .000
Rose Bowl 21 9 12 .428
Sugar Bowl 2 1 1 .500
Venues
Washtenaw County Fairgrounds (1883–1892)
Main article: Washtenaw County FairgroundsIn the early days of Michigan football, Michigan played smaller home games at the Washtenaw County Fairgrounds with larger games being held in Detroit at the Detroit Athletic Club.[158] The Fairgrounds were originally located at the southeast intersection of Hill and Forest, but in 1890 moved to what is now called Burns Park.[158]
Regents Field (1893–1905)
Main article: Regents Field
Regents Field just before kickoff during the 1904 game between Michigan and ChicagoIn 1890, the Board of Regents authorized $3,000 ($78,947.37 in 2014 dollars) for the purchase of a parcel of land along South State Street.[159] In 1891 a further $4,500 ($118,421.05 in 2014 dollars) was authorized "for the purpose of fitting up the athletic field."[159] Michigan began play on Regents Field in 1893, with capacity being expanded to over 15,000 by the end of the field's use.[159]
Ferry Field (1906–1926)
Main article: Ferry FieldBy 1902 Regents Field had grown inadequate for the uses of the football team as a result of the sport's increasing popularity.[160] Thanks to donations from Dexter M. Ferry, work began on planning the next home stadium for the Michigan football team. Powered by a $30,000 donation from Ferry, Ferry Field was constructed with a maximum temporary capacity of 18,000 for the 1906 season.[160] Ferry Field was expanded to a capacity of 21,000 in 1914 and 42,000 in 1921.[160] However, attendance was often over-capacity with crowds of 48,000 cramming into the small stadium.[160] This prompted athletic director Fielding Yost to contemplate the construction of a much larger stadium.
Michigan Stadium (1927–present)
Main article: Michigan Stadium
Michigan Stadium on September 17, 2011Fielding H. Yost anticipated massive crowds as college football's popularity increased and wished to build a stadium with a capacity of at least 80,000.[37] Ultimately, the final plans authorized the construction of a stadium with a capacity of 72,000 with footings to be set in place to expand it beyond 100,000 later.[37] Michigan Stadium was dedicated in 1927 during a game against the Ohio State Buckeyes, drawing an over-capacity crowd of 84,401.[161] After World War II, crowd sizes increased, prompting another stadium expansion to a capacity of 93,894 in 1949.[161] Michigan Stadium cracked the 100,000 mark by expanding to 101,001 in 1955.[161] Michigan Stadium temporarily lost the title of "largest stadium" to Neyland Stadium of the Tennessee Volunteers in 1996, but recaptured the title in 1998 with another expansion to 107,501.[162] In 2007, the Board of Regents authorized a $226 million renovation to add a new press box, 83 luxury boxes, and 3,200 club seats.[163] For the 2011 season, lights were installed at Michigan Stadium at the cost of $1.8 million.[164] This allowed Michigan to play its first night game at home against Notre Dame in 2011.[165] Michigan Stadium underwent a renovation for the 2023–2024 season, installing new screens and LED stadium lighting with color-changing fixtures.[166]
Rivalries
Ohio State
Main article: Michigan–Ohio State football rivalryMichigan and Ohio State first played each other in 1897. The rivalry was particularly enhanced during The Ten Year War, a period in which Ohio State was coached by Woody Hayes and Michigan was coached by Bo Schembechler. Overall, the Buckeyes and Wolverines football programs have combined for 20 national titles, 84 conference titles, and 10 Heisman Trophy winners. Michigan holds a 61–51–6 advantage through the 2023 season.[167]
Michigan State
Main article: Michigan–Michigan State football rivalryMichigan and Michigan State first played each other in 1898. Since Michigan State joined the Big Ten Conference in 1953, the two schools have competed annually for the Paul Bunyan – Governor of Michigan Trophy. The winner retains possession of the trophy until the next year's game. Michigan leads the trophy series 40–28–2. Michigan is the holder of the trophy following a 2023 win over the Spartans, 49–0. Michigan holds a 73–38–5 advantage through the 2023 season.[168]
Minnesota
Main article: Little Brown Jug (college football trophy)Michigan plays Minnesota for the Little Brown Jug trophy. The Little Brown Jug is the most regularly exchanged rivalry trophy in college football, the oldest trophy game in FBS college football, and the second oldest rivalry trophy overall.[169] Through the 2023 season, Michigan leads the overall series 77–25–3.[170]
Notre Dame
Main article: Michigan–Notre Dame football rivalryMichigan and Notre Dame began playing each other in 1887 in Notre Dame's first football game.[171] The rivalry is notable due to the historical success of the football programs. Through the end of the 2017 season, Michigan is ranked No. 1 in wins and all-time winning percentage while Notre Dame is No. 2 in both categories.[172] Michigan claims 12 national championships, while Notre Dame claims 12 national championships.[173] Michigan and Notre Dame have played in 42 contests, with Michigan holding a 25–17–1 advantage through the 2019 season.[174]
Northwestern
Main article: George Jewett TrophyMichigan and Northwestern first played each other in 1892. In 2021, the two universities announced the creation of a new rivalry trophy to be awarded to the game's winner, the George Jewett Trophy. The trophy honors George Jewett, the first African-American player in Big Ten Conference history, who played for both schools. The game is the first FBS rivalry game named for an African-American player.[175] Michigan holds a 59–15–2 advantage in the all-time series through the 2021 championshipsMichigan has been selected 19 times as national champions by NCAA-designated major selectors, including 3 (1948, 1997, 2023) from the major wire-service: AP Poll and/or Coaches' Poll.[7] Michigan claims 12 (1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1918, 1923, 1932, 1933, 1947, 1948, 1997, and 2023) of these championships.[177][178] Before 1926, there were generally no contemporaneous selectors.[179]
Year Coach Selector Record Bowl Final AP Final Coaches
1901 Fielding H. Yost Billingsley,[180] Helms, Houlgate, NCF[181] 11–0 Won Rose
1902 Billingsley, Helms, Houlgate, NCF, Parke Davis[181] 11–0
1903 Billingsley,[180] NCF[181] 11–0–1
1904 10–0
1918 Billingsley, NCF[181] 5–0
1923 8–0
1932 Harry G. Kipke Dickinson, Parke Davis[181] 8–0
1933 Berryman (QPRS), Billingsley, Boand, CFRA, Dickinson, Helms, Houlgate, NCF, Parke Davis, Poling, Sagarin[181] 7–0–1
1947 Fritz Crisler Berryman (QPRS), Billingsley, Boand, CFRA, DeVold, Dunkel, Helms, Houlgate, Litkenhous, NCF, Poling, Sagarin,[181] Special post-bowl Associated Press poll[182][a] 10–0 Won Rose No. 2[182]
1948 Bennie Oosterbaan AP, Berryman (QPRS), Billingsley, CFRA, DeVold, Dunkel, Helms, Houlgate, Litkenhous, NCF, Poling, Sagarin, Williamson[181] 9–0 No. 1
1997 Lloyd Carr AP, Billingsley, FWAA, NCF, NFF, Sporting News[181] 12–0 Won Rose No. 1 No. 2
2023 Jim Harbaugh AP,[183] CCR,[184] College Football Playoff,[185] CFRA,[186] CM,[187] NFF,[188] MCFR,[189] SR,[190] USAT(Coaches Poll)[191] 15–0 Won Rose (CFP Semifinal)
Won CFP National Championship Game No. 1 No. 1 Not an NCAA-designated major selector.Michigan has also been selected an additional seven times by various NCAA-designated "major selectors", in 1910,[192] 1925, 1926, 1964, 1973, 1976,[193] and 1985.
Conference championshipsMichigan has won 45 conference championships, 19 outright and 26 shared.
Year Coach Overall record Big Ten record
1898 Gustave Ferbert 10–0 3–0
1901† Fielding H. Yost 11–0 4–0
1902 5–0
1903† 11–0–1 3–0–1
1904† 10–0 2–0
1906† 4–1 1–0
1918† 5–0 2–0
1922† 6–0–1 4–0
1923† 8–0
1925 7–1 5–1
1926† 5–0
1930† Harry Kipke 8–0–1
1931† 8–1–1 5–1
1932† 8–0 6–0
1933† 7–0–1 5–0–1
1943† Fritz Crisler 8–1 6–0
1947 10–0 6–0
1948 Bennie Oosterbaan 9–0 6–0
1949† 6–2–1 4–1–1
1950 6–3–1 4–1–1
1964 Bump Elliott 9–1 6–1
1969† Bo Schembechler 8–3
1971 11–1 8–0
1972† 10–1 7–1
1973† 10–0–1 7–0–1
1974† 10–1 7–1
1976† 10–2
1977†
1978†
1980 8–0
1982 8–4 8–1
1986† 11–2 7–1
1988 9–2–1 7–0–1
1989 10–2 8–0
1990† Gary Moeller 9–3 6–2
1991 10–2 8–0
1992 9–0–3 6–0–2
1997 Lloyd Carr 12–0 8–0
1998† 10–3 7–1
2000† 9–3 6–2
2003 10–3 7–1
2004† 9–3 7–1
2021 Jim Harbaugh 12–2 8–1
2022 13–1 9–0
2023 15–0 9–0† Co-champions
Division championshipsMichigan has won four division titles.[194][195]
Year Division Coach Opponent CG result
2018† Big Ten – East Jim Harbaugh N/A; lost tiebreaker to Ohio State
2021† Iowa W 42–3
2022 Purdue W 43–22
2023 Iowa W 26–0† Co-champions
Program records and achievements
Team records Most wins in college football history (1,004)[196]
Most winning seasons of any program (122)[197]
Most undefeated seasons of any program currently competing in Division I FBS (24)
Most appearances in the final AP Poll (62)[198]
More conference titles in the Big Ten than any other program with a single conference (45)
First team in college or professional football to win 1,000 games (defeated Maryland 31–24 on November 18, 2023)Head coaching history and current staff
Main article: List of Michigan Wolverines head football coaches
Personnel
Coaching staff
Michigan Wolverines
Name Position Consecutive season(s) at Michigan in current position Previous position
Sherrone Moore Head coach 1st Michigan – Offensive coordinator / offensive line (2021-2023)
Kirk Campbell Offensive coordinator / Quarterbacks 1st Michigan – Quarterbacks (2023)
Don Martindale Defensive coordinator 1st New York Giants – Defensive coordinator (2022–2023)
Tony Alford Running backs 1st Ohio State – Assistant head coach / running backs (2015–2023)
Ronald Bellamy Wide receivers 3rd Michigan – Safeties (2021)
Grant Newsome Offensive line 1st Michigan – Tight ends (2022–2023)
Steve Casula Tight ends 1st UMass – Offensive coordinator / quarterbacks (2022–2023)
LaMar Morgan Defensive backs 1st Louisiana – Defensive coordinator / defensive backs (2022–2023)
Brian Jean-Mary Linebackers 1st Tennessee - Linebackers (2021–2023)
Lou Esposito Defensive line 1st Western Michigan – Defensive coordinator / defensive line (2017–2023)
J.B. Brown Special teams coordinator 1st Michigan – Special teams analyst (2021–2023)
Justin Tress Director of strength & conditioning 1st Michigan – Associate director of strength & conditioning awards and honors
See also: Michigan Wolverines football statistical leaders
National award winners
Players Heisman Trophy 1940: Tom Harmon
1991: Desmond Howard
1997: Charles Woodson Maxwell Award 1940: Tom Harmon
1991: Desmond Howard Walter Camp Award 1991: Desmond Howard
1997: Charles Woodson Chic Harley Award 1964: Bob Timberlake
1986: Jim Harbaugh
1991: Desmond Howard
1997: Charles Woodson Dick Butkus Award 1991: Erick Anderson Jack Lambert Trophy 1991: Erick Anderson Paul Warfield Trophy 1991: Desmond Howard
2004: Braylon Edwards Jim Parker Trophy 1991: Greg Skrepenak
2000: Steve Hutchinson
2007: Jake Long Sammy Baugh Trophy 1992: Elvis Grbac Jack Tatum Trophy 1997: Charles Woodson Jim Thorpe Award 1997: Charles Woodson Chuck Bednarik Award 1997: Charles Woodson Bronko Nagurski Trophy 1997: Charles Woodson Doak Walker Award 2003: Chris Perry Jim Brown Trophy 2003: Chris Perry Fred Biletnikoff Award 2004: Braylon Edwards Rimington Trophy 2004: David Baas
2011: David Molk
2022: Olusegun Oluwatimi Lombardi Award 2006: LaMarr Woodley
2021: Aidan Hutchinson Ted Hendricks Award 2006: LaMarr Woodley
2021: Aidan Hutchinson Ozzie Newsome Award 2015: Jake Butt John Mackey Award 2016: Jake Butt Lott IMPACT Trophy 2016: Jabrill Peppers
2021: Aidan Hutchinson
2023: Junior Colson Paul Hornung Award 2016: Jabrill Peppers Lou Groza Award 2021: Jake Moody Joe Moore Award 2021: Offensive line
2022: Offensive line Outland Trophy 2022: Olusegun OluwatimiCoaches AFCA Coach of the Year 1947: Fritz Crisler
1948: Bennie Oosterbaan
1969: Bo Schembechler
1997: Lloyd Carr Paul "Bear" Bryant Award 1997: Lloyd Carr Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year 1969: Bo Schembechler Walter Camp Coach of the Year Award 1969: Bo Schembechler
1997: Lloyd Carr Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award 1977: Bo Schembechler
2007: Lloyd Carr Associated Press Coach of the Year 2021: Jim Harbaugh Sporting News Coach of the Year 1985: Bo Schembechler Woody Hayes Trophy 1985: Bo Schembechler
1997: Lloyd Carr George Munger Award 1989: Bo Schembechler
1997: Lloyd Carr
2011: Brady Hoke Broyles Award 1997: Jim Herrmann
2021: Josh Gattis AFCA Assistant Coach of the Year 2001: Fred JacksonHeisman Trophy votingTwenty-nine Heisman Trophy candidates have played at Michigan. Three have won the award: 1939: Tom Harmon, 2nd
1940: Tom Harmon, 1st
1941: Bob Westfall, 8th
1943: Bill Daley, 7th
1947: Bob Chappuis, 2nd
1955: Ron Kramer, 8th
1956: Ron Kramer, 6th
1964: Bob Timberlake, 4th
1968: Ron Johnson, 6th
1974: Dennis Franklin, 8th
1975: Gordon Bell, 8th
1976: Rob Lytle, 3rd
1977: Rick Leach, 8th
1978: Rick Leach, 3rd
1980: Anthony Carter, 10th
1981: Anthony Carter, 7th
1982: Anthony Carter, 4th
1986: Jim Harbaugh, 3rd
1991: Desmond Howard, 1st
1993: Tyrone Wheatley, 8th
1994: Tyrone Wheatley, 12th
1995: Tim Biakabutuka, 8th
1997: Charles Woodson, 1st
2003: Chris Perry, 4th
2004: Braylon Edwards, 10th
2006: Mike Hart, 5th
2010: Denard Robinson, 6th
2016: Jabrill Peppers, 5th
2021: Aidan Hutchinson, 2nd
2022: Blake Corum, 7th
2023: Blake Corum, 9th
2023: J. J. McCarthy, 10thAll-Americans
Main article: List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americans
Team and conference MVPMichigan Most Valuable Player Award (1926–1959), Louis B. Hyde Memorial Award (1960–1994),[200] Bo Schembechler Award (1995–present); winners of the Chicago Tribune Silver Football as the Big Ten's MVP also noted:[201] 1926: Benny Friedman (also Big Ten MVP)
1927: Bennie Oosterbaan
1928: Otto Pommerening
1929: James Simrall
1930: Jack Wheeler
1931: Bill Hewitt
1932: Harry Newman (also Big Ten MVP)
1933: Herman Everhardus
1934: Gerald Ford
1935: William Renner
1936: Matt Patanelli
1937: Ralph Heikkinen
1938: Ralph Heikkinen
1939: Tom Harmon
1940: Tom Harmon (also Big Ten MVP)
1941: Reuben Kelto
1942: Albert Wistert
1943: Bob Wiese
1944: Don Lund
1945: Harold Watts
1946: Bob Chappuis
1947: Bump Elliott (also Big Ten MVP)
1948: Dominic Tomasi
1949: Dick Kempthorn
1950: Don Dufek
1951: Don Peterson
1952: Ted Topor
1953: Tony Branoff
1954: Fred Baer
1955: Terry Barr
1956: Dick Hill
1957: Jim Pace (also Big Ten MVP)
1958: Bob Ptacek
1959: Tony Rio
1960: Dennis Fitzgerald
1961: John Walker
1962: Dave Raimey
1963: Tom Keating
1964: Bob Timberlake (also Big Ten MVP)
1965: Bill Yearby
1966: Jack Clancy
1967: Ron Johnson
1968: Ron Johnson (also Big Ten MVP)
1969: Jim Mandich
1970: Henry Hill and Don Moorhead
1971: Billy Taylor
1972: Randy Logan
1973: Paul Seal
1974: Steve Strinko
1975: Gordon Bell
1976: Rob Lytle (also Big Ten MVP)
1977: Russell Davis
1978: Rick Leach (also Big Ten MVP)
1979: Ron Simpkins
1980: Anthony Carter
1981: Butch Woolfolk
1982: Anthony Carter (also Big Ten MVP)
1983: Steve Smith
1984: Mike Mallory
1985: Mike Hammerstein
1986: Jim Harbaugh (also Big Ten MVP)
1987: Jamie Morris
1988: Mark Messner
1989: Tony Boles
1990: Tripp Welborne
1991: Desmond Howard (also Big Ten MVP)
1992: Chris Hutchinson
1993: Buster Stanley
1994: Todd Collins
1995: Tim Biakabutuka
1996: Rod Payne
1997: Charles Woodson (also Big Ten MVP)
1998: Tai Streets
1999: Tom Brady
2000: Anthony Thomas
2001: Marquise Walker
2002: B. J. Askew
2003: Chris Perry (also Big Ten MVP)
2004: Braylon Edwards (also Big Ten MVP)
2005: Jason Avant
2006: David Harris and Mike Hart
2007: Mike Hart
2008: Brandon Graham
2009: Brandon Graham (also Big Ten MVP)
2010: Denard Robinson (also Big Ten MVP)
2011: Denard Robinson
2012: Jordan Kovacs
2013: Jeremy Gallon
2014: Jake Ryan
2015: Jehu Chesson
2016: Jabrill Peppers
2017: Maurice Hurst Jr.
2018: Chase Winovich
2019: Shea Patterson
2020: No award presented
2021: Aidan Hutchinson (also Big Ten MVP)
2022: Blake Corum (also Big Ten MVP)
2023: J. J. McCarthyBig Ten Conference honors Player of the Year 1982: Anthony Carter
1986: Jim Harbaugh Graham–George Offensive Player of the Year 1990: Jon Vaughn (coaches)
1991: Desmond Howard
1992: Tyrone Wheatley
2003: Chris Perry
2004: Braylon Edwards
2010: Denard Robinson Griese–Brees Quarterback of the Year 2023: J. J. McCarthy Ameche–Dayne Running Back of the Year 2022: Blake Corum
2023: Blake Corum Rimington–Pace Offensive Lineman of the Year 1991: Greg Skrepenak
1998: Jon Jansen
2000: Steve Hutchinson
2004: David Baas
2006: Jake Long
2007: Jake Long
2011: David Molk
2012: Taylor Lewan
2013: Taylor Lewan Kwalick–Clark Tight End of the Year 2013: Devin Funchess
2015: Jake Butt
2016: Jake Butt Nagurski–Woodson Defensive Player of the Year 1997: Charles Woodson
2001: Larry Foote
2006: LaMarr Woodley
2016: Jabrill Peppers
2018: Devin Bush
2021: Aidan Hutchinson Smith–Brown Defensive Lineman of the Year 1985: Mike Hammerstein
1988: Mark Messner
1992: Chris Hutchinson
2006: LaMarr Woodley
2021: Aidan Hutchinson
2022: Mike Morris Thompson–Randle El Freshman of the Year 1995: Charles Woodson (coaches)
1997: Anthony Thomas (coaches and media)
2003: Steve Breaston (coaches)
2004: Mike Hart (coaches and media)
2015: Jabrill Peppers (coaches and media) Dave McClain / Hayes–Schembechler Coach of the Year 1972: Bo Schembechler (media)
1976: Bo Schembechler (media)
1980: Bo Schembechler (media)
1982: Bo Schembechler (coaches)
1985: Bo Schembechler (media and coaches)
1989: Bo Schembechler (coaches)
1991: Gary Moeller (media and coaches)
1992: Gary Moeller (media)
2011: Brady Hoke (media and coaches)
2022: Jim Harbaugh (media and coaches) Tatum–Woodson Defensive Back of the Year 2016: Jourdan Lewis Butkus–Fitzgerald Linebacker of the Year 2016: Jabrill Peppers
2018: Devin Bush Bakken–Andersen Kicker of the Year 2021: Jake Moody
2022: Jake Moody Eddleman–Fields Punter of the Year 2012: Will Hagerup
2018: Will Hart Rodgers–Dwight Return Specialist of the Year 2016: Jabrill PeppersRetired numbers
Main article: List of NCAA football retired numbersThe following jersey numbers have been retired by the program:[202]
from left to right: Francis Wistert, Gerald Ford, and Tom Harmon, some of the players who have had their numbers retired by Michigan
Michigan Wolverines retired numbers
No. Player Pos. Tenure No. Ret.
11 Francis Wistert T 1931–1933 1949
Albert Wistert T 1940–1942
Alvin Wistert T 1947–1949
21 Desmond Howard WR 1989–1991 2015
47 Bennie Oosterbaan E 1925–1927 1927
48 Gerald Ford C 1932–1934 1994
87 Ron Kramer E 1954–1956 1956
98 Tom Harmon HB 1938–1940 1940Beginning in 2011, previously retired numbers of "Michigan Football Legends" were assigned to and worn by players selected by the head coach. The Legends program was discontinued in July 2015, and the numbers again permanently retired.[203][204]
Hall of Fame inductees
College Football Hall of Fame
See also: College Football Hall of FameMichigan inductees into the College Football Hall of Fame as of 2024.[205]
= Inducted primarily due to contributions at different university
Name Position Inducted
Albert Benbrook G 1971
Dave Brown S 2007
Lloyd Carr Coach 2011
Anthony Carter WR 2001
Bob Chappuis HB 1988
Fritz Crisler Coach 1954
Tom Curtis S 2005
Dan Dierdorf T 2000
Bump Elliott HB 1989
Jumbo Elliott T 2020
Pete Elliott QB 1994
Benny Friedman QB 1951
Tom Harmon HB 1954
Willie Heston C 1954
Elroy Hirsch HB 1974
Desmond Howard WR 2010
Steve Hutchinson G 2024
Ron Johnson RB 1992
Harry Kipke HB 1958
Ron Kramer E 1978
George Little Coach 1955
Rob Lytle RB 2015

Name Position Inducted
Jim Mandich TE 2004
Johnny Maulbetsch FB 1973
Reggie McKenzie G 2002
Mark Messner DT 2022
Bill Morley HB 1971
David M. Nelson Coach 1987
Harry Newman QB 1975
Bennie Oosterbaan E 1954
Merv Pregulman T 1982
Tubby Raymond Coach 2003
Bo Schembechler Coach 1993
Germany Schulz C 1951
Neil Snow E 1978
Ernie Vick C 1983
Tad Wieman Coach 1956
Bob Westfall FB 1987
Francis Wistert T 1967
Albert Wistert T 1968
Alvin Wistert T 1981
Charles Woodson CB 2018
Fielding H. Yost Coach 1951Pro Football Hall of FameMichigan inductees to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as of 2021.[206]
Name Position Inducted
George Allen Coach 2002
Dan Dierdorf T 1996
Len Ford DE 1976
Benny Friedman QB 2005
Bill Hewitt E 1971
Elroy Hirsch HB/E 1968
Steve Hutchinson G 2020
Ty Law CB 2019