Tag: Red Grange

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

Red Grange of Illinois delivered one of football’s greatest single-game performances versus Michigan in 1924.

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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3 Bears make list of top 11 college football players of all-time

College football unveiled the top-11 collegiate players of all time, and 3 of them went on to play for the Chicago Bears.

As college football celebrates its 150th season, they’ve counted down the top collegiate players of all time. During halftime of Monday’s National Championship Game, they unveiled the top-11 college players of all time — and three of them went on to play for the Chicago Bears.

Running back Red Grange, linebacker Dick Butkus and running back Gale Sayers made the list. All three are Hall of Famers and played their whole careers with the Bears.

Here’s the full list:

  1. Jim Brown
  2. Herschel Walker
  3. Bo Jackson
  4. Archie Griffin
  5. Jim Thorpe
  6. Red Grange
  7. Earl Campbell
  8. Dick Butkus
  9. Barry sanders
  10. Gale Sayers
  11. Roger Staubach

Oh, and let us not forget…

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Bears legends Walter Payton, Gale Sayers named to NFL 100’s All-Time Team

Two Hall of Fame Bears running backs were named to the NFL’s All-Time Team.

As the NFL continues its celebration of its centennial season, they’re continuing to honor some of the greatest moments and players of the last 100 years.

It’s no surprise that two Chicago Bears — Walter Payton and Gale Sayers — were named to the team, considering their two of the best to ever play the game. But two other Bears Hall of Fame running backs, Bronko Nagurski and Red Grange, didn’t make the list.

Payton was among two running backs named unanimously to the All-Time team (Jim Brown was the other). Both Payton and Sayers also made the 75th edition of the All-Time list.

The 10 other running backs named to the NFL’s All-Time Team included Jim Brown, Earl Campbell, Dutch Clark, Erick Dickerson, Lenny Moore, Marion Motley, Barry Sanders, O.J. Simpson, Emmitt Smith and Steve Van Buren.