2024 marks 100th anniversary of an iconic Big Ten football moment

The year 2024 means that an epic college football feat and an iconic Big Ten football moment are 100 years old. It was in 1924 that one of the greatest college football players of all time — quite possibly the greatest Big Ten football player who ever lived — produced a titanic performance on a big stage.

Grange and Illinois faced Fielding Yost’s Michigan Wolverines in a battle of two Big Ten teams which both went 8-0 in 1923 and did not play each other that season. These were two giants who met to settle a score. Memorial Stadium in Champaign was brand new. This game marked the formal dedication of the stadium one year after it was built. National media figures such as iconic sportswriter Grantland Rice were covering the game. This was the big sporting event of the day.

Grange, a running back, scored six touchdowns, and they weren’t one-yard plunges. Four were 45 yards or longer. Grange also threw a touchdown pass. He played defense, too, given that football was a two-way sport back then. He intercepted two Michigan passes. Six touchdowns, two interceptions on defense. Grange was a one-man wrecking crew against a formidable opponent led by Yost, one of the game’s greatest coaches. Final score: Illinois 39, Michigan 14. The legend of Grange took off that day. He would come to be known as “The Galloping Ghost.” When he signed with the Chicago Bears two years later, he legitimized the fledgling National Football League. He helped the Bears win their first NFL championship in the early 1930s. Grange is one of the most important athletes in the history of a conference (the Big Ten), a city (Chicago), and a state (Illinois). His infuence on the course of football history is hard to measure.

Red Grange’s magnum opus is 100 years old.

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