The 1895 Michigan Wolverines football team was an American football team that represented the University of Michigan in the 1895 college football season. In its second and final season under head coach William McCauley, the team compiled an 8–1 record, won seven of their games by shutouts, and outscored their opponents by a combined score of 266 to 14.
The 1895 Wolverines won their first five games by a combined score of 220 to 0. The sole loss of the season was a 4–0 setback against the Harvard Crimson, then one of the three great football powers. Michigan finished the season with a 12–0 win over Western rival, Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago Maroons. Undefeated against Western opponents, the 1895 Wolverines laid claim to the Western football championship.
Frederick W. Henninger was the team captain. Six Michigan players received All-Western honors: Gustave Ferbert (first-team halfback), John A. Bloomingston (first-team fullback), James Hooper (first-team guard), Frank Villa (first-team tackle), Henry M. Senter (first-team end), and James Baird (substitute quarterback).
Schedule
Game summaries
Game 1: Michigan Military Academy
On October 5, 1895, Michigan defeated the Michigan Military Academy (M.M.A.) from Orchard Lake, Michigan, by a score of 34 to 0. The game was played in 20-minute halves at Regents Field in Ann Arbor.
Right halfback John W. Hollister scored Michigan's first touchdown, and fullback John A. Bloomingston kicked the goal from touchdown to give Michigan a 6-0 lead. Left halfback Gustave Ferbert then scored, and goal was made to extend the lead to 12-0. Hollister scored again, goal was made, and Michigan led, 18-0. Frank Villa scored the fourth touchdown, goal was missed, and Michigan led, 22-0, at halftime. In the second half, right tackle Jesse Yont scored a touchdown, goal was made, and Michigan led, 28-0. Herbert Gates, a substitute at right halfback, scored the final touchdown on a 40-yard run, and goal was made.
A newspaper account of the game noted that the score would have been more lopsided except that the Wolverines gave up the ball several times "on fouls and off-sides." The account also reported that "Michigan showed up vastly better than last year at this time in every feature of the game."
Michigan's lineup against M.M.A. was George Greenleaf (left end), Villa (left tackle), James Raikes (left guard), Bert Carr (center), Frederick W. Henninger (right guard), Yont (right tackle), Loomis Hutchinson (right end), William Franklin Holmes (quarterback), Ferbert and J. De Forest Richards (left halfback), Hollister and Gates (right halfback), and Bloomingston (fullback).
Game 2: Detroit Athletic Club
On October 12, 1895, Michigan defeated the Detroit Athletic Club (D.A.C.), 42-0, at Regents Field in Ann Arbor. The game began shortly after 3:00 p.m. and was played in 25-minute halves in front of a crowd of 600 spectators.
Michigan scored the first touchdown of the game 30 seconds after the game had commenced on a 70-yard end run by the quarterback and Wyoming-native, J. DeForest Richards. Tackle Jesse Yont from Nebraska was the high scorer with 16 points four touchdowns. Fullback John A. Bloomingston from Chicago scored 14 points on a touchdown and five goals after touchdown. (Under 1895 rules, a touchdown was scored as four points, and a successful kick for a "goal after touchdown" was scored as two points.) Halfback John W. Hollister added three touchdowns.
Michigan's lineup against the D.A.C. was George Greenleaf (left end), Frank Villa (left tackle), John McLain Johnson (left guard), Carr (center), Frederick W. Henninger (right guard), Yont (right tackle), Hollister (right end), James Baird (quarterback), Gustave Ferbert (left halfback), Richards (right halfback), and Bloomingston (fullback).
Game 3: Western Reserve
On October 19, 1895, Michigan defeated the team from Cleveland's by a score of 64 to 0. The game began at 2:30 p.m. and was played in 40-minute halves at Regents Field in Ann Arbor. The margin of victory was a surprise as Western Reserve had won the Western football championship in 1894 and had narrowly lost to Eastern football power Cornell the previous week by a score of 12 to 4. Against Michigan, however, Western Reserve had the ball only five or six minutes in the entire games and, as one newspaper wrote, "was never in the hunt."