Fielding Harris Yost isn't talked about much these days. He was a college football coach. He coached at the University of Michigan from 1901-1926. He's best known for those years in Ann Arbor. In all he coached college football for nearly 30 years. We still hear about Knute Rockne, Pop Warner, and Amos Alonzo Stagg. Yost and Stagg had a fierce rivalry. We hear of John Heisman every year more for the trophy that carries his name than the coach. We hardly ever hear mention of Fielding Yost. His career record of 198-35-12 is impressive. The manner in which got there is even more impressive. The numbers put up by some of his football teams are simply ridiculous. Perhaps Yost's name has been lost through the years because those numbers are too ridiculous to believe. It's video game stuff.
1901: 11-0
Michigan outscored their opponents 550-0.
They defeated a solid Buffalo team 128-0.
The longest gain against the Wolverines defense the entire season was 15 yards.
Michigan defeated Stanford 49-0 on January 1, 1902 in what is now considered the first Rose Bowl.
While yardage totals from games played over a century ago are sketchy, at best, there's enough evidence to suggest that the 1901 Michigan Wolverines averaged over 700 yards/game.
1902: 11-0
Michigan outscored their opponents 644-6.
-they allowed six points in a pair of games-Case and Minnesota.
They defeated Michigan St. 119-0.
They defeated Iowa 107-0.
They defeated Ohio St. 86-0.
This team gained yards at an even greater clip than the 1901 team.
1903: 11-0-1
Michigan outscored their opponents 565-6.
The first blemish of Yost's Wolverine years was a 6-6 tie with Minnesota.
No 100 point games this year but they did hit at least 65 points four times.
1904: 10-0
Michigan outscored their opponents 567-22.
The first team to score more than six points against Yost's Wolverines was Chicago in a 22-12 loss.
They defeated West Virginia 130-0.
-Yost was a West Virginia alum.
1905: 12-1
Michigan outscored their opponents 495-2
Yost suffered his first loss as Michigan's coach in the final game of the season. 2-0 to Chicago.
Yost was the Wolverines head coach for 56 games before he suffered his first loss.
That's a splendid start for Fielding Yost.
Michigan was 55-1-1 from 1901-05. They outscored their opponents in those five seasons by an incredible 2821-36.
Even if they didn't get the national respect at the time that they truly deserved due to an intense East coast bias Michigan is widely accepted as the National Champions each season from 1901-04.
Fielding Yost coached college football in much the same manner that Chip Kelly and other up-tempo offensive fellows coach today. Yost did over a century ago what so many do today. His nickname was "Hurry-up." It's what he repeatedly shouted during practices. It's what he demanded of his "point-a-minute" team. He was ahead of his time.
The "point-a-minute" tag that Michigan garnered at the start of the Yost years was legitimate. The Wolverines scoring total from 1901-02 was 1,194 points. Those points were scored in 1,207.5 minutes of game time. 0.99 points per minute.
Other coaches and their football teams did catch up with Yost after those ridiculous first five seasons. They had to. But he was far from done. He won two more National Titles in 1918 and 1923. Yost is one of the few coaches to build college football dynasties decades apart. He put an unparalleled dynasty together right out of the gate. He put another Wolverine dynasty together in the early 1920s. While not nearly as dominant as his first five Michigan teams, his final five Michigan teams lost only three games.
1921: 5-1-1
1922: 6-0-1
1923: 8-0-National Champions
1925: 7-1
1926: 7-1
George Little coached the Wolverines in 1924. So, Yost missed out on the game in which Red Grange introduced himself to the football world. But this isn't about Grange. This is about Fielding Yost and his ridiculous numbers.
Fielding Yost at Michigan
6 National Titles (1901-04, 1918, 1923)
10 Conference Titles (1901-04, 1906, 1918, 1922-23, 1925-26
56 consecutive games without a loss (1901-the final game of the 1905 season)
8 undefeated seasons
9 seasons with a single loss
It's not like Fielding Yost succeeded at a college football powerhouse. He made Michigan a football powerhouse. He's the one that started the great football tradition at Michigan. He also showed that he could coach before he even arrived in Ann Arbor.
1897: Ohio Wesleyan 7-1-1
1898: Nebraska 8-3
1899: Kansas 10-0
1900: Stanford 7-2-1
Yost even managed to moonlight while at Stanford. He's the coach of record for a win with San Jose Normal (San Jose St.). He also might have coached at least two high school teams in the area. If time permitted. Yost's single year at Stanford might have turned into much more. Following the 1900 season the Stanford football team decided that having one of their own coach the team was the way to go. It wasn't unusual for a college of that era to require a player-coach or a recent graduate lead their football teams. If Stanford hadn't gone this route Fielding Yost might have stayed at Stanford. He might have done for their football team what did for Michigan. That's a scary thought. Although Andy Smith coaching against Fielding Yost in the Cal-Stanford rivalry would've been incredible.
We often think of these up-tempo college football offenses as a relatively new thing. It's not. Fielding Yost was doing this over 100 years ago. And he put up some ridiculous numbers doing so. Buffalo was a solid team in 1901 but they were a solid team playing a grind-it-out, physical game that was the norm at that time. Especially in the East. Michigan ran the Buffalo players off the field. They simply couldn't keep up with that sort of tempo. Few teams could. And the Michigan Wolverines just rolled over everyone that tried to oppose them. And generated ridiculous numbers in the process.
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