page_title: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the early years
section_title: Early developments
hierarchical_section_title: History of Michigan Wolverines football in the early years / History of the program / Early developments
caption_attribution_description: English: Rules and Regulations adopted by the University of Michigan Foot-ball Association in 1873
context_page_description: The History of Michigan Wolverines football in the early years covers the history of the University of Michigan Wolverines football program from its formation in the 1870s through the hiring of Fielding H. Yost prior to the 1901 season. Michigan was independent of any conference until 1896 when it became one of the founding members of the Western Conference. The team played its home games at the Washtenaw County Fairgrounds from 1883 to 1892 and then at Regents Field starting in 1893.
  While the first official university football team was not formed until 1879, class football teams were formed as early as 1870. The university team played its first game against Racine College in May 1879, and Irving Kane Pond scored the first touchdown in Michigan football history. In 1881, the Michigan football team traveled to the East and played a series of games that marked the beginning of football as an inter-sectional game. In the mid-1880s, the Wolverines had four consecutive undefeated seasons and allowed opponents to score only two points between November 1884 and April 1888.
context_section_description: The November 1869 game between Rutgers University and Princeton University is often cited as the first game of intercollegiate football. By the spring of 1870, the game had spread to Ann Arbor. In April 1870, members of the freshman class announced that they had formed a football club. And in May 1870, the football club formed by the freshmen defeated the football team from the Union School by a score of 7 to 5. Beginning in the early 1870s, football teams formed by the individual classes also played games against each other.
  In May 1873, a newly formed Foot Ball Association approved the first set of official rules to govern the game at Michigan. Michigan's 1873 Rules and Regulations for Foot-ball (shown at right) provided for no more than 20 players per side, allowed a player running with the ball "may be tripped or thrown, but not backed", and prohibited players from wearing "projecting nails, iron plates, or gutta percha, upon the heels or soles of his shoes."
  In the fall of 1873, The Chronicle (a student newspaper of the time) announced that the Cornell football team had accepted a challenge to play a "match game of foot-ball" in Cleveland, but the Cornell faculty had refused to grant the players leave to attend the game. The Chronicle protested the "apron-string, boarding school tyranny" of the Cornell faculty. In October 1874, members of Michigan's University Foot Ball Organization continued their efforts to schedule a game with Cornell, but The Chronicle expressed doubt that it would ever happen.
  By November 1877, interest in football appears to have waned at Michigan. The Chronicle at that time eschewed the emphasis placed on the game in Eastern colleges: "It is noticeable that a greater part of the department for the Fall numbers is given to silly foot-ball matches and other boyish nonsense which makes Eastern colleges a laughing stock in the eyes of sober-minded people. It is all well-enough to have a foot-ball game once in a while for a little exercise, but for a number of colleges to take more interest in such things than they do in their studies, is a peculiar product of the Eastern superiority."
caption: Rules and Regulations adopted by the Foot-ball Association in 1873.
exif: {}