The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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conference crown on the basis of being un- defeated. They were also considered one of the best football teams in the nation, both at the time and in the backtracking done in later years by ranking services. "That's why Michigan claimed a national title," Rosiek noted. "The Big Ten champi- onship was accomplished with a 2-0 confer- ence record. Illinois was 4-0, Purdue 1-0. Each school claims a piece of it." Texas went 9-0 that year. Pittsburgh also featured a highly regarded squad, which some Pennsylvania-based scribes claim would have taken down the Wolverines. In Rosiek's mind — supported by com- puter analysis — those three squads, along with the Chicago Naval Reserve and the Great Lakes Naval Station, played the best football in the war- and disease-ravaged fall of 1918. Steketee wound up a first-team All-Amer- ican as a freshman, leading the Wolverines with four touchdowns. Michigan posted its first unblemished record since 1904, with an average player size of 5-10, 170. There simply wasn't the furor over who is No. 1 nationally as there is today, Rosiek mentioned. The NCAA record book recog- nizes Michigan and Pittsburgh as the top college teams in 1918. "It was very informal, and there was no big controversy over it all," Rosiek said. "Cer- tainly during World War I and the flu pan- demic, there wasn't a big to-do about who was No. 1. We've got to know who's No. 1, darn it, and if we don't, the world will end! "If they had computers back then, Pittsburgh would not have been No. 1. They were good, but they weren't No. 1. If you wanted to know the best team in 1918, it's my view and the view of some others that Michigan and Texas, and even Illinois, were the top college teams, and the Great Lakes Naval Station and Chicago Naval Reserve were the top service teams." An interesting sidebar for the Wolverines in- volves Tad Wieman, captain of the 1918 squad, who didn't perform for the team that year. Be- fore the season, Wieman enlisted in the Army Aviation Corps, and therefore didn't join the Wolverines that fall, although he retained his captaincy. He played in 1916, 1917 and 1920 (in which he became captain again), and later served as head coach in 1927 and '28, after working as Yost's assistant from 1921-26. The End Of The Matter While Michigan enjoyed success in a trun- cated football season, U.S. soldiers and the allies brought it home in November as well. Austria-Hungary reached an armistice agreement on Nov. 4, and Germany followed only a week later. Its resources on the battle- field evaporating, discontent at home rising and its own allies surrendering, Germany sought armistice on Nov. 11. That marked the end of a five-year strug- gle that ended the lives of more than nine million soldiers, with 16 million wounded. The Spanish flu wasn't through, con- tinuing to haunt the world for many more months. Even the armistice came as a mixed blessing, given the reaction to it. When officials announced it, meaning the war had ended, there weren't wild celebra- tions, especially given the pandemic. People reacted with "muted joy," according to the ACEP. Many did wander out of their homes for the first time in months, looking to celebrate. Some did so unmasked, sparking a surge in Spanish Flu cases. According to the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) website, health officials in December 1918 began a serious program of educating the public about coughing and sneezing. Meanwhile, the Committee of the American Public Health Association urged factories and stores "to stagger opening and closing hours and for people to walk to work when possible instead of using public trans- port to prevent overcrowding." The next wave of influenza lasted into the summer of 1919. The CDC website also mentions an event that possibly tied the war and the pandemic together. It noted that in April 1919: "At [the] Ver- sailles Peace Conference, while negotiating the end of World War I with other world leaders, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson collapses. Some historians speculate he was weak from influenza, which was still rampant in Paris." What will be for the football season 102 years after that fateful 1918 campaign re- mains to be seen. There's a growing insis- tence from sources around the Michigan foot- ball program that there will be football played in Michigan Stadium and beyond this fall. The parallels with 1918 are there for all to see. Jim Harbaugh would obviously like to produce a couple more along the way — safety for his players against the disease plaguing the nation and an undefeated record. Even before 110,000 empty seats, he'd show up. "Heck yeah, I'd be comfortable coaching a game without any fans," Harbaugh said, on ESPN's 'Get Up!' "If the choice were to play in front of no fans or not play, then I would choose to play in front of no fans … darned near every guy I've talked to on our team, that's the way they feel about it." A smattering of fans in the stands, of course, would be a reminder of all that's tak- ing place in the nation, and a throwback to what once played out in the fall. ❏ Fans who were lucky enough to attend college football games in 1918 — like the ones above at Georgia Tech — had to wear masks, which may become a common look again 102 years later. PHOTO COURTESY GEORGIA TECH THE WOLVERINE 2020 FOOTBALL PREVIEW ■ 35