Notre Dame Football: Fielding Yost’s Affect On Notre Dame

Michigan coach Fielding Yost accidentally changed the course of Notre Dame football history out of his personal spite for the program.

It’s rare that an opposing coach has a significant impact on a rival’s program. Typically, at best, not being able to beat a rival team can get a coach fired. That’s not the case of Fielding Yost.

Fielding Yost is one of the legends of college football. He was the head coach of six different programs, but most notably he coached Michigan from 1901-1923 and 1925-1926. His record as a head coach is 198–35–12, with six National Championships. Yost was noted for his invention of the linebacker position and the hurry-up offense.

Among Yost’s distinctions is one not uncommon to America at the turn of the century, and unrelated to football. Fielding Yost was noted for being anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant.

Now, this is worth noting for the obvious reason that Notre Dame is a Catholic university. Their football team meanwhile was coached by Knute Rockne from 1918-1930. Rockne, who was born in Norway, was an image of everything Yost held personal prejudices against. He was an immigrant coach with Catholic players.

This was all the base of a feud between the two men that lasted past Yost’s coaching days and into his administrative career at Michigan.

Of course, the two had never met on the field to coach against one another. They never met when Rockne was a player either. Instead, after Notre Dame beat Michigan for the first time in 1909 (making the series record Michigan 9 Notre Dame 1), Yost called off the 1910 game.

Fielding Yost would claim, without any basis, that two of Notre Dame’s players should be ineligible. He refused to put Notre Dame on the schedule. Likely, this wasn’t due to ineligible players, but Yost’s personal humiliation losing to Notre Dame.

Whatever the reason that Yost held, he took his hatred of Notre Dame to heart. He refused to schedule Notre Dame both as a coach and as an administrator. The two programs wouldn’t play again until 1940.

Yost put the third hiatus and the first significant one in the Notre Dame-Michigan series. Today, the two programs still hate each other but continue this habit of finding reasons not to play it out on the field.

Now, it’s one thing to run from an opponent. However, Fielding Yost didn’t stop there. He also blackballed Notre Dame from joining the Big 10. In fact, he was instrumental in not even allowing Notre Dame to play against Big 10 schools.

This left Knute Rockne looking for answers in the scheduling department. They had very few options close to home, meaning they’d have to look nationally. This led to Notre Dame playing games on either coast of the United States.

Notably, they built up a huge fanbase in New York by playing Army. More importantly, they began an annual series with USC. This meant that people watched Notre Dame from coast to coast. Notre Dame became the team willing to travel and play anyone. Add in the fact they won a lot, and Notre Dame became a national program rather than a regional one.

Furthermore, by keeping Notre Dame out of the Big 10, Yost unintentionally gave Notre Dame its Independence.

Today, playing a national schedule and not being a part of a conference is a large part of Notre Dame’s identity. Both of these would likely not have been possible if Yost hadn’t canceled Michigan’s series with Notre Dame, and blackballed them from playing the major Mid-West schools. If he hadn’t, Notre Dame would have likely remained a regional power rather than a national one.