Great Video of Football Practice from 1924; Yost Teaching Punting
I've seen a lot of old-timey Michigan football videos, and the content and quality of this one are excellent. It's a film reel that the Detroit News shot back in 1924. You see Yost coaching the team at Ferry Field, particularly the punters and the "forward passers." It looks like every guy on the team was learning how to punt.
Nice. But if it was Harbaugh he'd be instructing them on why we won't punt!
There are four downs for a reason - use all of them.
He probably will make sure... they remember.. the night the played.. the titans.
NOT ANOTHER YARD!
There was no sound but you could read his lips and he said "football isn't fun, is it!" And "who's your daddy, Gary?"
He clearly underestimated his own offense if he felt he needed to go 12 deep at punter.
Kirk Ferentz loved that punting footage.
In Iowa this is considered football porn.
So its probably outlawed...
This is what they call "The Golden Age"
I was surprised how many Iowa fans wore shirts similar to this when I went there last fall for the game.
This is exactly how I imagine Iowa practices: everyone punts for 2 hours, 59 minutes, then they dabble with the "forward passing" for the final minute.
10 minutes at end of each practice for walk-on tight ends.
Btw Sam LaPorta is getting raves from Lions players in spring/summer drills.
This was amazing to see, but all I kept thinking was who else would have seen that? It was a "Detroit News Pictorial" before TV, internet, etc. Were these just shot strictly for archiving or to put them in a vault on the off chance the internet would be invented someday?
Back then, newsreels were commonly shown in movie theaters before the feature film. I am quite sure this would have been shown in Detroit theaters for moviegoers to get some Wolverine hype.
Indeed, newsreel film was played before movies into the 50's. Most of the WWII footage commonly shown is from newsreels.
For those of you interested in old football footage like this, there is an amazing Three Stooges short where they end up on the gridiron: No Census, No Feeling (1940)
If you're just looking for the football bits, skip to around 11:30, but the whole episode is gold IMO.
I always imagined they were in Michigan stadium when I was a kid.
Cheers!
"There must be 100,000 people in there"
Well done Moe.
As per Three Stooges dot net, the football sequences were filmed at USC. All 3 were masters of hypnotism and highly suggestible, the classic line-up. I hope the harbs and the coaching staff are aware of this episode. Could be gold in the film room.
I never knew that, but makes sense since the film lots were in SoCal. Thanks for the new bit of trivia!
It's understandable why Yost was so fixated on punting. All-American Harry Kipke, one of the best punters in Michigan history, led Michigan to an 8-0 record and a share of the national championship in 1923, but his graduation left Yost with a big hole to fill.
In 1924 Michigan went 6-2 with losses to Iowa and to Illinois, the latter with whom Michigan shared the NC in 1923. Michigan and Illinois didn't play each other in '23, but they met in Champaign on October 18, 1924 in what was the official dedication game for newly-built Memorial Stadium. That game didn't go well for the Wolverines.
The star player on that day was Illini junior Red Grange, who returned the opening kickoff for a 95-yard touchdown. He then scored three more touchdowns on runs of 67, 56, and 44 yards, all in the first 12 minutes of the game. In the second half, Grange scored a fifth touchdown on an 11-yard run and also threw a 20-yard touchdown pass. And then to top it off, playing defense, he intercepted two passes.
Was hoping to see Charlie Chaplin go scampering across the field.