The Michigan Wolverines football team represents the University of Michigan in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) level. Michigan has the most all-time wins in college football history. The team is known for its distinctive winged helmet, its fight song, its record-breaking attendance figures at Michigan Stadium, and its many rivalries, particularly its annual, regular season-ending game against Ohio State, known simply as "The Game," once voted as ESPN's best sports rivalry.
Michigan began competing in intercollegiate football in 1879. The Wolverines joined the Big Ten Conference at its inception in 1896, and other than a hiatus from 1907 to 1916, have been members since. Michigan has won or shared 45 league titles, and since the inception of the AP poll in 1936, has finished in the top ten a total of 39 times. The Wolverines claim twelve national championships, including three (1948, 1997, 2023) from the major wire-services: the AP Trophy or Coaches' Trophy.
From 1900 to 1989, Michigan was led by a series of nine head coaches, each of whom has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame either as a player or as a coach. Fielding H. Yost became Michigan's head coach in 1901 and guided his "Point-a-Minute" squads to a streak of 56 games without a defeat, spanning from his arrival until the season finale in 1905, including a victory in the 1902 Rose Bowl, the first college football bowl game ever played. Fritz Crisler brought his winged helmet from Princeton University in 1938 and led the 1947 Wolverines to a national title and Michigan's second Rose Bowl win. Bo Schembechler coached the team for 21 seasons (1969–1989) in which he won 13 Big Ten titles and 194 games, a program record. The first decade of his tenure was underscored by a fierce competition with his former mentor, Woody Hayes, whose Ohio State Buckeyes squared off against Schembechler's Wolverines in a stretch of the Michigan–Ohio State rivalry dubbed "The Ten Year War".
Following Schembechler's retirement, the program was coached by two of his former assistants, Gary Moeller and then Lloyd Carr, who maintained the program's overall success over the next 18 years, Carr winning a national championship in 1997. However, the program's fortunes declined under the next two coaches, Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke, who were both fired after relatively short tenures. Following Hoke's dismissal, Michigan hired Jim Harbaugh. Harbaugh is a former quarterback for the team, having played for Michigan from 1982 to 1986 under Schembechler. Harbaugh led the Wolverines to three consecutive Big Ten titles and College Football Playoff appearances during his final three years as head coach, from 2021 to 2023. His final team, the 2023 Michigan Wolverines won the program's first national championship since 1997, and first undisputed national championship since 1948 after beating Washington in the National Championship Game. Following the championship and nine seasons at Michigan, Harbaugh left to return to coaching in the National Football League (NFL). The Wolverines promoted offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore to head coach, who had been on Harbaugh's coaching staff since 2018, and was the acting head coach in four games during the national championship-winning 2023 season. After the 2025 regular season, Moore was fired and replaced by longtime Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham.
The Michigan Wolverines have featured 89 selections that have garnered consensus honors on the College Football All-America Team. Three Wolverines have won the Heisman Trophy: Tom Harmon in 1940, Desmond Howard in 1991, and Charles Woodson in 1997. Gerald Ford, who later became the 38th president of the United States, started at center and was voted most valuable player by his teammates on the 1934 team.
History
Early history (1879–1900)
On May 30, 1879, Michigan played its first intercollegiate football game against Racine College at White Stocking Park in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune called it "the first rugby-football game to be played west of the Alleghenies." Midway through "the first 'inning'," Irving Kane Pond scored the first touchdown for Michigan. According to Will Perry's history of Michigan football, the crowd responded to Pond's plays with cheers of "Pond Forever." In 1881, Michigan played against Harvard in Boston. The game that marked the birth of intersectional football. On their way to a game in Chicago in 1887, Michigan players stopped in South Bend, Indiana and introduced football to students at the University of Notre Dame. A November 23 contest marked the inception of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program and the beginning of the Michigan–Notre Dame rivalry."2007 Notre Dame Media Guide: History and Records (pages 131–175)". und.cstv.com. Retrieved June 12, 2008. In 1894, Michigan defeated Cornell, which was the "first time in collegiate football history that a western school defeated an established power from the east."
In 1896, the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives—then commonly known as the Western Conference and later as the Big Ten Conference—was formed by the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin, Northwestern University, and Purdue University. The first Western Conference football season was played in 1896, with Michigan going 9–1, but losing out on the inaugural Western Conference title with a loss to the Chicago Maroons to end the season. By 1898 Amos Alonzo Stagg was fast at work at turning the University of Chicago football program into a powerhouse. Before the final game of the 1898 season, Chicago was 9–1–1 and Michigan was 9–0; a game between the two teams in Chicago decided the third Western Conference championship. Michigan won, 12–11, capturing the program's first conference championship in a game that inspired "The Victors", which later became the school's fight song. Michigan went 8–2 and 7–2–1 in 1899 and 1900, results that were considered unsatisfactory relative to the 10–0 season of 1898.
Yost era (1901–1928)
After the 1900 season, Charles A. Baird, Michigan's first athletic director, wrote to Fielding H. Yost, then head coach at San Jose Normal School in California (now San Jose State University). Saying that "our people are greatly roused up over the defeats of the past two years", Baird gave Yost an offer to come to Michigan to coach the football team. The New York Times reported that Michigan's margin of victory was "one of the most remarkable ever made in the history of football in the important colleges." At the end of the season, Michigan participated in the inaugural Rose Bowl. Michigan dominated the game so thoroughly that Stanford's captain requested the game be called with eight minutes remaining. Neil Snow scored five touchdowns in the game, which is still the all-time Rose Bowl record. The next year, 1902, Michigan outscored its opponents 644 to 12 and finished the season 11–0. In 1903, Michigan played a game against Minnesota that started the rivalry for the Little Brown Jug, the oldest rivalry trophy in college football.Gruver, 2002 pg. 50 The game marked the only time from 1901 to 1904 that Michigan failed to win. Michigan finished the season at 11–0–1. In 1904, Michigan once again went undefeated at 10–0 while recording one of the most lopsided defeats in college football history, a 130–0 defeat of the West Virginia Mountaineers.
From 1901 through 1904, Michigan didn't lose a single game. The streak was finally halted at the end of the 1905 season by Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago Maroons, a team that went on to win two Big 9 (as the Western Conference was now being called with the addition of Iowa and Indiana) titles in the next three years. The game, dubbed "The First Greatest Game of the Century," broke Michigan's 56-game unbeaten streak and marked the end of the "Point-a-Minute" years. The 1905 Michigan team had outscored opponents 495–0 in its first 12 games. The game was lost in the final ten minutes of play when Denny Clark was tackled for a safety as he attempted to return a punt from behind the goal line. Michigan tied for another Big 9 title in 1906 before opting to go independent for the 1907 season. The independent years were not as kind to Yost as his years in the Big 9. Michigan suffered one loss in 1907. In 1908, Michigan got battered by Penn (a team that went 11–0–1 that year) in a game in which Michigan center Germany Schulz took such a battering as to have to be dragged off the field. In 1909, Michigan suffered its first loss to Notre Dame, leading Yost to refuse to schedule another game against Notre Dame; the schools did not play again until 1942. In 1910, Michigan played their only undefeated season of the independent years, going 3–0–3. Overall from 1907 to 1916, Michigan lost at least one game every year (with the exception of 1910).
Michigan rejoined the Big 9 in 1917, after which it was called the Big Ten. Yost immediately got back to work. In 1918, Michigan played the first game against Stagg's Chicago Maroons since Chicago ended Michigan's winning streak in 1905. Michigan defeated the Maroons, 18–0, on the way to a 5–0 record. The next three years were lean, with Michigan going 3–4, 5–2, and 5–1–1, in 1919, 1920, and 1921. However, in 1922 Michigan managed to spoil the "Dedication Day" for Ohio Stadium, defeating the Buckeyes 19–0. Legend has it that the rotunda at Ohio Stadium is painted with maize flowers on a blue background due to the outcome of the 1922 dedication game.The Five Greatest Traditions Of Ohio State Football , by Mike Furlan. Retrieved on November 20, 2006. Michigan went 5–0–1 in 1922, capturing a Big Ten title. In 1923, Michigan went 8–0, winning another conference championship. The 1924 Wolverines, coached by George Little, saw their 20-game unbeaten streak end at the hands of Red Grange. After the 1924 season, Little left Michigan to accept the head coach and athletic director positions at Wisconsin, returning athletic director Yost to the head coaching position. Although the 1925 and 1926 seasons did not include a conference title, they were memorable due to the presence of the famous "Benny-to-Bennie" combination, a reference to Benny Friedman and Bennie Oosterbaan. The two helped popularize passing the ball in an era when running held dominance. Oosterbaan became a three-time All-American and was selected for the All-Time All-American team in 1951, while Friedman went on to have a Hall of Fame NFL career. Also during 1926, Michigan was retroactively awarded national titles for the 1901 and 1902 seasons via the Houlgate System, the first national titles awarded to the program. Other major selectors (such as the National Championship Foundation and Jeff Sagarin) later retroactively awarded Michigan with titles in the 1903, 1904, 1918, 1923, 1925, and 1926 seasons. Michigan claims titles in the 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1918, and 1923 seasons.
Yost stepped aside in 1926 to focus on being Michigan's athletic director, a post he had held since 1921, thus ending the greatest period of success in the history of Michigan football. Under Yost, Michigan posted a 165–29–10 record, winning ten conference championships and six national championships. One of his main actions as athletic director was to oversee the construction of Michigan Stadium. Michigan began playing football games in Michigan Stadium in the fall of 1927. At the time Michigan Stadium had a capacity of 72,000, although Yost envisioned eventually expanding the stadium to a capacity well beyond 100,000. Michigan Stadium was formally dedicated during a game against the Ohio State Buckeyes that season to the tune of a 21–0 victory. Tad Wieman became Michigan's head coach in 1927. That year, Michigan posted a modest 6–2 record. However, the team ended 1928 with a losing 3–4–1 record and Wieman was fired.