our-year
contract with Yost made special difficulties. The student body and many
alumni felt aggrieved at a clause in the new rules which made the
three-year playing rule retroactive, thereby barring out several of the
most prominent players, including Garrels, after their junior year. They
therefore demanded that Michigan sever her relations with the West and
seek her future opponents among Eastern universities. Implicit in the
whole discussion also was the question as to whether the Faculty was to
have the last word in the control of athletics. This was the fundamental
demand of the Conference, while the effective opinion at Michigan
favored a broader control by students, Faculty and alumni, in which the
final decision was to rest with the Board of Regents. This view was
accepted by the Regents; changes were made in the organization of the
Board in Control of Athletics which limited the authority of the
Faculty, and Michigan, by simply refusing to abide by certain of the
rules of the Conference, automatically ceased to be a member in 1908.
For twelve years, 1906 to 1918, Michigan put to the test the conviction
of the students and many alumni that Michigan could find satisfactory
opponents elsewhere than in the Conference. The result was not
encouraging, for on the whole these were lean years. The football
schedules proved unsatisfactory and though Michigan won her share of
games, interest and enthusiasm waned correspondingly, while the baseball
and track teams suffered even more. Henceforth the principal opponents
were Pennsylvania, Cornell, Syracuse, and for a time Vanderbilt.

During the seasons of 1907 and 1908 the team was defeated in the
principal games, though one player, Schulz, not only won a place on
Camp's All-American team in 1907, but was also the second Michigan
player chosen on his All-Time All-American. Things went a little better
in 1909 and 1910. Pennsylvania was finally defeated and Minnesota, who
appeared temporarily on the schedule for two seasons, as a result of her
desire to play Michigan and her own dissatisfaction with the Conference,
was twice defeated and Michigan was able to claim the rather empty honor
of an unacknowledged Championship of the West. Albert Benbrook, '11_e_,
guard on these two teams, was given an All-American position by Walter
Camp.

For the first time since 1894 Cornell appeared on the schedule in 1911
and defeated the Varsity, but lost in turn the following year; a record