The 1918 Michigan Agricultural Aggies football team represented

Michigan Agricultural College Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...

(MAC) as an independent during the

1918 college football season The 1918 college football season was a season of college football in the United States. There was no consensus champion, with the ''Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book'' listing Michigan and Pittsburgh as national champions. World War ...

. In their first year under head coach George Gauthier, the Aggies compiled a 4–3 record and outscored their opponents 133 to 69. The game scheduled with

Western Reserve The Connecticut Western Reserve was a portion of land claimed by the Colony of Connecticut and later by the state of Connecticut in what is now mostly the northeastern region of Ohio. The Reserve had been granted to the Colony under the terms o ...

, known today as

Case Western Reserve Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

, was cancelled due to the

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

team having to go into quarantine due to the

Spanish Influenza The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

Schedule

Game summaries

Michigan

On November 23, 1918, the Aggies played Michigan at

Ferry Field Ferry Field is a multi-purpose stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It opened in 1906 and was home to the Michigan Wolverines football team prior to the opening of Michigan Stadium in 1927. It had a capacity of 46,000. It is currently used as a tai ...

in front of the largest crowd of the season estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000. Followers of both schools attended in large numbers, "the maize and blue of Michigan and the green and white of M.A.C. decorating the stands the length and breadth of them." The Aggies in 1918 had a new head coach, George Gauthier, and a highly touted African-American running back, Harry Graves. The Aggies had defeated

Knute Rockne Knut (Norwegian and Swedish), Knud (Danish), or Knútur (Icelandic) is a Scandinavian, German, and Dutch first name, of which the anglicised form is Canute. In Germany both "Knut" and "Knud" are used. In Spanish and Portuguese Canuto is used whi ...

's Notre Dame the previous week in

East Lansing East Lansing is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. Most of the city lies within Ingham County with a smaller portion extending north into Clinton County. At the 2020 Census the population was 47,741. Located directly east of the state capital ...

. After a scoreless first quarter, Michigan scored two touchdowns in the second quarter. Michigan's line was given credit for stopping the Aggies' running attack. The ''Detroit Free Press'' reported that M.A.C.'s "vaunted stars", including Harry Graves (described as "the colored boy of whom so much was expected"), were unable to assert themselves. "Superiority of the Michigan line was the rock upon which the Aggies split. M.A.C. showed a fast backfield that might have created endless trouble, but it got little support from the forwards, who were cracked open to let the Wolverines surge through and flatten the runner." The start of the game was delayed by lengthy pre-game ceremonies featuring the French Blue Devils, performances by the U. of M. army and navy bands and the M.A.C. bands, parades by the Students' Army Training Corps and Naval Units, and a fly-over by former Michigan football captain Pat Smith in his aeroplane. Because of the delay, the game was concluded in darkness. The Aggies took advantage of the darkness late in the game by unleashing a passing attack. The Aggies scored late in the game, "as the darkness already had begun to enshroud the playing field," on a pass from Archer to Schwei. The ''Detroit Free Press'' reported: "But for the review of the service corps and the ceremonies attending there hardly would have been an Aggie score." After the game, sports writer Harry Bullion wrote in the ''Detroit Free Press'': "M.A.C.'s defeat is nothing for her to be ashamed of. It simply was a case of a better-conditioned and smarter eleven overpowering another that, though it lacked nothing in the way of fight that its enemy possessed, failed to cope with the superior knowledge of the game that was Michigan's by right of judgment and the attending conditions."

References

{{Michigan State Spartans football navbox Michigan Agricultural Michigan State Spartans football seasons

Michigan Agricultural Aggies football The Michigan State Spartans football program represents Michigan State University (MSU) in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) level. The Spartans are members of the Big Ten Conference. Michigan State claims a ...