1913 Michigan Wolverines football team

1913 Michigan Wolverines football
ConferenceIndependent
Record6–1
Head coach
MVPJames B. Craig
CaptainGeorge C. Paterson
Home stadiumFerry Field
Uniform
Seasons
← 1912
1914 →
1913 Midwestern college football independents records
Conf Overall
Team W   L   T W   L   T
Michigan Agricultural     7 0 0
Notre Dame     7 0 0
Western State Normal (MI)     4 0 0
Haskell     10 1 0
Michigan     6 1 0
Lake Forest     5 1 1
Doane     5 1 2
St. Mary's (OH)     4 1 1
Christian Brothers (MO)     6 2 1
Wabash     5 2 0
Detroit     5 3 1
Heidelberg     4 3 0
Marquette     4 3 1
Mount Union     4 3 2
Saint Louis     5 4 1
South Dakota     3 3 0
Northern Illinois State     3 3 3
Akron     3 4 0
Iowa State Teachers     2 3 1
Ohio Northern     4 6 1
Butler     2 4 1
Michigan State Normal     2 3 1
North Dakota Agricultural     0 2 2

The 1913 Michigan Wolverines football team represented the University of Michigan in the 1913 college football season. The season was Fielding H. Yost's 13th as Michigan's head football coach. The team compiled a record of 6–1, outscored opponents 175 to 21, and shut out four opponents while giving up an average of only three points per game.

After opening the season with wins against two Ohio colleges (Case and Mt. Union), the Wolverines lost to Michigan Agricultural College (now known as Michigan State University) by a score of 12–7. It was Michigan's first loss in the history of its cross-state rivalry with the East Lansing institution. Following the loss to the Aggies, star halfback Jimmy Craig, who had decided to quit playing football, returned to the team upon "urgent pleading by the entire student body."[1] In his season debut, Craig scored four touchdowns in the first half. Though he played in only two-and-a-half games in 1913, Craig scored seven touchdowns and received consensus All-American honors, including a first-team selection by Walter Camp.

During its decade-long absence from the Western Conference, Michigan played inter-sectional rivalry games against Penn (12 games in 12 years from 1906 to 1917), Syracuse (10 games from 1908 to 1918), Cornell (7 games from 1911 to 1917), and Vanderbilt (7 games from 1905 to 1914). In the final month of the season, Michigan defeated its four inter-sectional rivals by a combined score of 106 to 9. Ohio State joined the Western Conference in 1913 and was barred by a Conference rule from playing Michigan. For this reason, there was a hiatus in the Michigan–Ohio State football rivalry from 1913 to 1917.

Craig and tackle Miller Pontius were both selected as consensus first-team All-Americans. Two other players received first-team All-American honors from at least one selector. They were center and team captain George "Bubbles" Paterson, and quarterback Tommy Hughitt.

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