The 50 greatest college football teams throughout history

19. Best college football teams of all-time: 1902 Michigan

Back to another Michigan team, just with a few differences.

In 1902 radio broadcasting didn’t exist. The electric washing machine, frozen food and the “affordable” motor car were not yet invented. The teddy bear, hearing aids and tea bags made their debut.

This Michigan team was nasty, which serves as the justification for me taking you back this far. I’m not saying that this team would have the ability to contain the likes of Jerry Jeudy, Tee Higgins, or Chase Young in a modern-style game (although the flying wedge may do the trick!), but this team demolished other teams of the era.

Head Coach Fielding Yost was in his second year of the game and his second “Point-a-Minute” team averaged a whopping 58.5 points a game and twice scored over 100 points in a game. They destroyed Michigan Agricultural by a score of 119-0 in Ann Arbor and beat Iowa by a score of 107-0 there to boot. The best part of it? Touchdowns were only worth five points and the team only kicked four field goals, which at the time were also worth that amount.

Never leaving fans disappointed, the predecessors of the modern Michigan football squads used Yost’s offensive scheme, at the time called “the short punt” behind stellar play from Albert Herrnstein, James Lawrence, Curtis Redden and Willie Heston to demolish all opposition.

The winners of the original Rose Bowl then called the “Tournament East-West football game”, they destroyed the Stanford team they faced by a score of 49-0 in front of 8,500 people to secure the national title.