The Michigan Wolverine’s First Division-1 Win May Surprise You

While writing an article on the most obscure opponents for each Big Ten team the other day, I learned some bizarre facts about each program by simply looking at nearly 150-year-old college football schedules.

One of the more interesting revelations that isn't talked about quite enough concerns the Michigan Wolverines.

On May 30, 1878, the Michigan Wolverines played their first football game, beating Racine College 1-0 at White Stockings Park in Chicago. Since then, the Wolverines have gone on to win more college football games than any other program in the history of the sport.

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However, Racine isn't a Division-1 athletic program, at least not anymore. They were at the time, but of course, Racine stopped playing football in 1887.

Like many programs, Michigan played whoever they could get on the schedule, and often times that meant playing teams who never became household programs in any capacity.

From 1878 until 1887, Michigan played just three teams that are still Division 1 athletic programs to this day: Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

In 1881, all three of those teams beat Michigan, giving the Wolverines their first multi-game winless season (in 1879, Michigan only played Toronto to a 0-0 tie).

Between 1878 and 1887, Michigan beat every team they played except the three Ivy League schools (Harvard and Yale beat Michigan twice, once each in 1881 and again in 1883) and Wesleyan, a Division III school today. However, every team Michigan beat along the way is no longer a Division 1 athletics program and many don't even play football anymore, just like Racine.

However, in 1887, Michigan would pick up its first win against a program that is still, to this day, one of the premiere college football programs in the country: The University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

On November 23, 1887, Thanksgiving Day, Michigan beat Notre Dame 8-0 in South Bend. Michigan would play Notre Dame on two other occasions in the 1887 "season", beating them 26-6 on April 20, 1888, and 10-4 the very next day.

It wasn't until 1909 that Notre Dame would finally beat Michigan after failing in their first eight attempts, the longest winning streak in the series to date.

Michigan and Notre Dame share a healthy rivalry to this day, with Michigan leading the all-time series 25-17-1.

Michigan has a lot to do with why Notre Dame even fielded a team in the early days of college football as former Notre Dame students on the Wolverine squad encouraged the university to field the first Irish squad. The first meeting between the programs was little more than a quick introduction to the sport. This game was the first Notre Dame football game, and their team had only been assembled in the weeks leading up to the game.

However, those two April games helped shape the budding rivalry as the Irish put up the only points Michigan had relinquished in nearly four years of play.

The early days of college football were a unique and interesting time, but it laid the groundwork of everything we love and respect about the nature of the sport today. Still, some context gets lost to time and this small example gives a greater context to the rivalry we enjoy between the Wolverines and the Fighting Irish.