Howard Yerges

Yerges was a native of Point Pleasant, West Virginia.[3] He played quarterback for Grandview High School in the Grandview Heights section of Columbus, Ohio.[4] His father, Howard Frederick Yerges, Sr., played for the Ohio State Buckeyes in the 1910s and later played professional football for the Columbus Panhandles in 1920.[5][6]

Yerges began his collegiate football career at Ohio State University, where he received a varsity letter in football in 1943. As a U.S. Navy trainee, Yerges was transferred to the University of Michigan prior to the 1944 academic year.[7] The 20-year-old sophomore, who had played for the Buckeyes in 1943, joined Fritz Crisler's Michigan Wolverines football team in 1944 as a backup quarterback behind Joseph Ponsetto.[8] Yerges earned a varsity letter in football from Michigan in 1944.[7] Yerges again began the 1945 season as a backup for Joe Ponsetto. He scored a touchdown for Michigan in September 1945 against Great Lakes Naval Training Station Bluejackets, 27-2.[7]

Yerges took over as Michigan's quarterback in November 1945, replacing Ponsetto, after his leg was injured in a game against Illinois.[9] In his first game as Michigan's starting quarterback, Yerges led the Wolverines to a 26-0 win over Minnesota on November 3, 1945. He scored Michigan's first touchdown of the game on a quarterback sneak in the first quarter.[10] He also led the Wolverines to a 7-3 win over Ohio State in 1945.[11]

Yerges was Michigan's starting quarterback in five games of the 1946 season, sharing the quarterback position with Jack Wiesenburger and Pete Elliott.[12]

In March 1947, the Western Conference faculty representatives approved Yerges for a fifth season of competition, excusing his playing time for the Ohio State Buckeyes in 1943.[13] The ruling proved fortunate for Michigan, as Yerges started nine of ten games for the 1947 Michigan Wolverines football team that went 10-0, outscored opponents 394 to 53, and won a national championship.[1] Yerges was part of a backfield in 1947 that included Bob Chappuis, Bump Elliott and Jack Wiesenberger.[1] The undefeated 1947 team became known as the "Mad Magicians" due to Coach Fritz Crisler's complex shifts, stunts, and schemes.[14] As the field general of the "Mad Magicians" team, Yerges became known as "Crisler's 'second brain.'"[15]

At the close of the regular season in late November 1947, Yerges was selected as the first-team All-Big Ten quarterback by five selectors, including the Associated Press and United Press, and as a second-team All-Big Ten player by one selector.[16][17] The AP called Yerges the "unheralded field general and ball-handler of Michigan's magical attack."[16] After the close of the 1947 season, Crisler said, "Pete Elliott was just as good a quarterback as Howard Yerges was the past season, but we used Yerges because the players had so much confidence in him ..."[18]

Yerges played his final game in a Michigan uniform in the 1948 Rose Bowl, a 49 to 0 win over the University of Southern California.[1] Yerges both threw and caught touchdown passes in the 1948 Rose Bowl; he received an 18-yard pass from Bob Chappuis and threw a 29-yard touchdown pass to Dick Rifenberg.[19]

After graduating from Michigan, Yerges took a job in the fall of 1948 with the mechanical engineering department of a Flint, Michigan, automotive company.[20]

When the 1947 Wolverines staged a 10-year reunion of their Rose Bowl championship in 1958, Yerges was the subject of a "whatever became of" feature story by the United Press International. The UPI wrote at the time: "Like all single wing signalcallers, Yerges was the unsung hero of that Wolverine powerhouse that swept to the 1947 Big Ten title and a subsequent 49-0 victory over Southern California in the Rose Bowl. But he blocked, faked and quarterbacked to perfection."[21] As of 1958, Yerges was working as a successful sales executive in St. Louis.[21]