The University of Michigan (known as Michigan or U of M for short) sports teams are known as the Michigan Wolverines. The men's American football team is one of 22 varsity sports teams at Michigan that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I and in the Big Ten Conference. Michigan began competing in intercollegiate football in 1879.[1] Michigan is credited with teaching the game to students at University of Notre Dame in 1887 and have a longstanding rivalry with their Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team. The two sports programs continue to have the most well known and famous fight songs. However, Notre Dame is not a member of the Big Ten and does not play Michigan every season. Michigan is involved in a rivalry with the Minnesota Golden Gophers football team. This is the oldest college football rivalry game contesting a trophy, the Little Brown Jug.[2][3] Michigan also has a rivalry with the Michigan State Spartans football that contests the Paul Bunyan Trophy.[4] However, Michigan's most fierce football rival is with the Ohio State Buckeyes football team. The two have played a season-ending game almost every year since 1935.
The Michigan football program has won more conference championships than any football program in any football conference. Michigan holds Division I-A records for most wins, most winning seasons, best winning percentage,[5] and most undefeated seasons. For a program to succeed at this level, its athletes must succeed individually. Thus, Michigan's program has produced numerous elite athletes who have established high standards of performance. In college football, the programs that have produced the most All-American American football players are Notre Dame, Michigan, and Ohio State.[6] In football, offensive performances have been tracked statistically much longer than defensive ones.[7] Thus, there are extensive records that document high achievement on offense by Michigan athletes. This list documents the records according to the publicly available University statistical archives.
There are three controversies with this list. The archives only include statistics since 1949. Thus, many statistical achievements are ignored. There are two additional biases that give more weight to recent athletic excellence. In 1972, the NCAA allowed freshmen to participate in college football competition.[8] In addition, college football season have lengthened significantly since Michigan began playing football. Michigan played just three games in 1887.[9] By 1927, the season had lengthened to eight games,[10] and by 1967, the Michigan team was playing 10 games a season.[11] The 2009 Michigan Wolverines football team will play 12 regular-season games and a bowl game if they achieve six wins.
When freshmen were ineligible to play and seasons were as short as 7 or 8 games, players could not play more than 25 games in their entire career. Now, a thirteen-game season is common for modern Michigan football teams and a player may be eligible to play over 50 games in his career. Single-season records and career records are naturally held by more recent players who have been eligible to play more games in a season and who have been eligible to play more seasons. There are several controversies among the lists below resulting from these biases. The most prominent of these include the fact that no Michigan receiver has surpassed Jack Clancy's single-season receptions and single-season yardage records in a 10-game period similar to Clancy's 1966 season. Also controversial is the history of Dick Rifenburg, whose career ended at Michigan in 1948 and whose statistics are not included in the publicly-available statistical archive despite the fact that his 16 career and 8 single-season touchdowns were school records until 1980.[12]
In addition to these biases, football has changed. Originally, football had no passing until 1906 when the rules committee (including Amos Alonzo Stagg) took action to lessen onfield deaths. Passing did not really become popular until the 1930s when both the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the National Football League adopted standardized football sizes.[13]
Below are top-25 lists of Michigan Wolverines football receptions, rushing and passing since 1949. The lists include single-game, single-season and career records for each of three statistics: yardage, number (receptions, rushes or passes) , and touchdowns.
Passing
Yardage
Completions
Touchdowns
Rushing
Mike Hart is prominent among Michigan's rushing leaders.
This table omits the first 70 years of Michigan football when rushing was prevalent. Willie Heston continues to be the career rushing touchdowns leader with 71.[14]
Rushes
Yards
Touchdowns
Receiving
This table omits the first 70 years of Michigan football when rushing was prevalent. Willie Heston continues to be the career rushing touchdowns leader with 71.[15]
Receptions
Yards
Touchdowns
References
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Michigan Wolverines football |
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All Time Record |
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877-298-36 (.739) as of October 25, 2009
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Important Figures (1898–1968)
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Important Figures (1969–1989)
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Important Figures (1990–2008)
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National Championships (11) |
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1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1918, 1923, 1932, 1933, 1947, 1948, 1997
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