1907 Michigan Wolverines football team
The 1907 Michigan Wolverines football team represented the University of Michigan in the 1907 college football season. The team's head football coach was Fielding H. Yost in his seventh season at Michigan. The team finished the season with a record of 5–1, allowing an average of one point per game. The team did not give up a single first down in its first four games and won its first five games by shutouts, outscoring its opponents by a combined score of 107 to 0. In the final game of the season, the Wolverines lost, 6–0, to the Penn Quakers. The Quakers were in the early stages of a 23-game winning streak that was broken by the 1909 Michigan team.
1907 Michigan Wolverines football team
Schulz depicted on a football card, c. 1955
1907 college football season
The 1907 college football season saw the increased use of the forward pass, which had been legalized the year before. Football remained a dangerous game, despite the "debrutalization" reforms, and an unprecedented eleven players were killed, while 98 others were seriously injured. However, there were no serious injuries reported among the major colleges. The Yale Bulldogs, unbeaten with a record of 9–0–1, had the best record. The Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936, declared retroactively that Yale had been the best college football team of 1907. Yale and Penn both claim 1907 as a national championship season. Although Yale was named as champion by 6 different entities, Penn was not named champion by any. Penn's claim to the championship is only by the university itself.
Part of the crowd watching the Penn Quakers defeat Cornell on Franklin Field, Philadelphia