The team opened the season with a school record 145 to 0 victory over the Toledo Rockets.
On March 3, 1917, the University of Detroit hired Gil Dobie as its head football coach.
Dobie had compiled a 58–0–3 record in nine years as head football coach at the University of Washington.
[2] Shortly after Dobie's hiring, a game was scheduled for the fall with Fielding H. Yost's Michigan Wolverines football team.
[5] Dobie reportedly left Detroit "because he was not satisfied with the small squad" that had turned out.