1896

Good luck, Al.

Sponsor Note: I can't get Matt Demorest of HomeSure Lending to sit down for a beer recently because rates recently dropped to the lowest they've been since 2015-'16. If you bought or financed your house in the last year or so, for some reason Matt would rather personally handling whether a refinance now can save you some coin than listen to me be mopey about football and hockey.

He also stepped up to buy us some new equipment and cover the hosting (and host) costs for Sap and I to launch our new podcast, The Teams (first episode here) where we cover one historical Michigan football season per episode. In the process we had to go through a lot of historical teams. Since I have to do the research anyway, I figured I would turn it into some offseason #content you can flip through while Matt is working on your loan.

A Tournament of Great Michigan Football Teams Past

Mostly I wanted a way to have something about all these teams in the blog history. I went with an NCAA basketball-style tournament to keep it interesting as we go. I'll take a few games per episode, pit two great teams against each other, and eulogize the loser. The seeding went like a committee might: more wins, big wins, big postseason wins etc. count, and national champs are treated like conference champs. Since football's gotten harder to win over the years, further back in time means weaker SOS, relegating Bo teams from the Big 2 Little 8 Era to low majors, etc.

M tourney.JPG

We'll start today with the play-in round.

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16th Seed Game 1: 1885 vs. 1895

Worthy though they were, Horace G. Prettyman's squad would have gaped at the advancements in the game and Michigan's program just a decade later. Backed by hundreds of dollars raised from the students themselves, and organized by a man who would do more than anyone else to build a premier athletics program at the University of Michigan, the 1895 team would steamroll their forebears, then everyone would go down to Hangsterfer's Saloon (a Mongolian BBQ today) for drinks and songs. 1895 wins 42-2.

The 1895s advance to take on Charles Woodson and the 1997 team. Maybe they can get Prettyman back?

[After THE JUMP: About the 1885 team, and a few more like this]