During his 18-year career as a head football coach, Crisler's teams won 116 games, lost 32, and tied 9.

Crisler's 1947 Michigan Wolverines football team, dubbed the "Mad Magicians," had an undefeated campaign, ending with a 49–0 triumph over the USC Trojans in the 1948 Rose Bowl.

Crisler recalled that he wandered over the football field as a freshman, where he saw the legendary coach Amos Alonzo Stagg directing a practice session.

Stagg reportedly told the diminutive Crisler, "If you're going to play football, why don't you put on a suit?"

[6] Crisler became an all-around athletic star at the University of Chicago, winning a total of nine varsity letters, three each in football, baseball and basketball.

[9] By 1925, he was also an assistant athletic director at Chicago and was reportedly "being groomed to replace Old Man Stagg, when the veteran coach retires.

[14] Minnesota guard Biggie Munn was named a first-team All-American in 1931 and received the Chicago Tribune Silver Football as the most valuable player of the Big Ten.

The first was his development of a faster starting stance for offensive linemen, and the second was a practice of having his quarterback stand apart from the huddle until ready to call a play.

Crisler later recalled, "There was a tendency to use different colored helmets just for receivers in those days, but I always thought that would be as helpful for the defense as for the offense.

[9] Crisler's most noted players at Michigan included Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon, Bob Chappuis, Forest Evashevski (who later became athletic director at Iowa), Bump Elliott, Pete Elliott, Albert Wistert, Bob Westfall, Ed Frutig, and Julius Franks.

[3] While coaching at Michigan, Crisler developed the platoon system in which separate groups play offense and defense.

Before Crisler switched to the platoon system, players handled both offensive and defensive duties with only occasional substitutions.

[20] Using a single wing formation, Crisler also conceived the buck lateral series and the spinning fullback play.

The 1947 team, known as the "Mad Magicians" due to Crisler's complex shifts, stunts, and schemes,[21] went undefeated and untied with a 10–0 record.

[22] Led by team captain, Bruce Hilkene, quarterback Howard Yerges, and All-American halfbacks Bob Chappuis and Bump Elliott, the 1947 Wolverines outscored their opponents, 394–53.

In November 1947, Time magazine ran a feature article about the 1947 Wolverines (with Bob Chappuis’ photograph on the cover) called, "The Specialist.

"[23] The Time article focused on the new era of specialization marked by Crisler's decision to field separate offensive and defensive units.

[23] The article noted: "Michigan's sleight-of-hand repertory is a baffling assortment of double reverses, buck-reverse laterals, crisscrosses, quick-hits and spins from seven different formations.

Whenever Michigan's defensive team regains the ball, Crisler orders: 'Offense unit, up and out,' and nine men pour onto the field at once.

[20] The first expansion in 1949 involved the installation of permanent steel stands around the stadium concourse, increasing the seating capacity to 97,239.

According to a newspaper article quoting an Athletic Department staff member, "Fritz wanted to end up with a figure of 100,001, but he came up with a thousand seats too many.

[32] Crisler also invested revenues from the school's successful football program to build a $1 million pool for the women's swimming team, a men's varsity competition pool, a modern baseball grandstand and a large press box at Michigan Stadium.

[33] At the time of Crisler's retirement in 1968, the Associated Press credited him with helping to "lift college football from a 'rah, rah' campus pastime in the 1930s into the modern multimillion dollar enterprise of today.

[3] At the time of his appointment, Canham noted that replacing Crisler was "a little like stepping up to bat after Babe Ruth.

[35] In 1978, Crisler and Fielding H. Yost became the first coaches inducted into the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor; the only persons inducted ahead of Crisler and Yost were athletes, Gerald Ford, Bill Freehan, Tom Harmon, Ron Kramer, Bennie Oosterbaan, Cazzie Russell, and Bob Ufer.