The WMU Broncos Once Played Two Local SWMI High School Football Teams

The Western Michigan football team has never been a national powerhouse, however, they have something in common with many of today's blue-blood programs: They played some high school teams in the early days of the sport.

In those days, the Western Michigan Broncos were known as the Western State Normal Hilltoppers and played in the Midwestern College Football Independant League. For the sake of clarity, we'll continue to refer to them as the WMU Broncos.

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The Broncos' first season was in 1906. In that season, WMU played Eastern Michigan, Kalamazoo College and Wayland High School (located about halfway between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids.) Unfortunately, the Broncos lost to EMU and Kalamazoo College. There is little known about the contest against Wayland, except that it was the first victory in program history.

The following season, Western Michigan won three games: vs. Eastern Michigan, Central Michigan and Grand Rapids High School.

While the Broncos played more than one high school in their first five seasons, two local teams stand out above the rest for the Southwest region of Michigan.

In 1909, the Broncos played against two local Southwest Michigan high schools: Battle Creek High School and Dowagiac High School.

Just like the other high school games the Broncos played, and many of the other games against current non-FBS teams, very little is known about the games. There is no date or location for either contest listed on Winsipedia.

What we do know are the scores: WMU beat Battle Creek High School in Battle Creek 15-0 and beat Dowagiac High School 47-0. The 47 points would have been a school record for points in a game had the Broncos not beaten an Otsego-based baseball team in the first game of the year 61-0.

In the years since Dowagiac has fielded a respectable program that has won nearly 75% of its regular season games since 1950 and 63% of all games in that same stretch.

For the Battle Creek side, things are much more muddied. Winsipedia lists the game as Battle Creek Training School while the WMU Broncos' record book lists the game against Battle Creek HS. As far as I can tell, that should indicate the game was played against Battle Creek Central High School, but there simply aren't enough specifics about the game to draw a firm conclusion.

Nonetheless, the games did happen and it's an interesting factoid for Southwest Michigan football fans to carry around.