NOTE: One of my favorite stories I’ve written is being reposted today to refresh ya’ll for Friday’s segment of Goldy’s Almanac which will follow this story forward to 1917.
The 1916 Gophers on the gridiron are the quintessential shoulda, woulda, coulda team. Seven players won All Big Ten honors, including Bernie Bierman who also won the Big Ten medal for his academic achievements. In the seven game season the Gophers won by an average of 56.5 to 2.3.
Sadly one game, on November 4th ruined everything. That game was a 9-14 defeat to Illinois.