1908 Michigan Wolverines football team
Case at Michigan
|
1 |
2 |
Total |
| Case |
0 |
6 |
6 |
| • Michigan
|
4 |
12 |
16 |
|
Michigan at Michigan Agricultural
|
|
Kentucky State at Michigan
|
|
Penn at Michigan
|
1 |
2 |
Total |
| • Penn
|
6 |
23 |
29 |
| Michigan |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Michigan at Syracuse
|
1 |
2 |
Total |
| Michigan |
4 |
0 |
4 |
| • Syracuse
|
16 |
12 |
28 |
|
The 1908 Michigan Wolverines football team represented the University of Michigan in the 1908 college football season. The team's head coach was Fielding H. Yost in his eighth year at Michigan. The team compiled a 5–2–1 record, outscored opponents 128 to 81, and held five of seven opponents to six points or less. After opening the season with a 5–0–1 record, and allowing an average of four points per game, the Wolverines lost badly in back-to-back games against the 1908 national champion Penn Quakers (29–0) and Syracuse (28–4).
Team captain and center Germany Schulz was academically ineligible for the first three games of the season, but his performance in the Penn game, withstanding the attack of multiple Penn players focused on knocking him out of the game, was told and re-told by sports writers for decades after the 1908 season had ended. In 1951, Schulz was selected as the greatest center in football history in a poll conducted by the National Football Foundation and became one of the initial inductees into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Right halfback Dave Allerdice, who also handled punting and place-kicking responsibilities for Michigan, was the team's leading scorer with 64 points (exactly half of the team's total), despite missing the final game of the season with a broken collarbone. Allerdice also led the 1909 team in scoring and was a first-team All-American that year. Fullback Sam Davison scored six touchdowns in the team's November 1908 victory over Kentucky State. Davison's total is tied for second in Michigan history for the most touchdowns in a game, trailing Albert Herrnstein's seven touchdowns against the Michigan Aggies in 1902.
Team captain Germany Schulz missed the first three games of the season, because he had "three conditions in the engineering course, more than a player can carry and continue his athletic relations". Though "every effort" had been made for two weeks to have the "conditions" removed, those efforts had failed. The eligibility board met and concluded that Schulz could not play until he removed at least two of the conditions. Schulz ultimately had his eligibility restored in late October and was greeted with "cheers from the bleachers" when he appeared in his first practice on October 22, 1907.
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