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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 338253, member: 289"] The Schwartwalder Era, (with some before and after) 1940’s[B] [/B] 1940 8-1-5-2-6-2-4 = 4.00 (The days of half the schedule being small-time teams were about gone: only one this year. We were 2-4-1 vs. the bigs. The highlight was tying a 6-1-1 Penn State team, 13-13. 1941 4-3-4-5-6-3 = 4.17 (The year of the famous reverse center play, which we used to upset Wisconsin 27-20. We had a good 5-2-1 record. Two of the wins were against small time teams, one of whom was Rutgers. Despite the record, it wasn’t that strong a team.) 1942 2-4-4-7 = 4.25 (In the last pre-war year we did have four “small time” opponents but two were Rutgers and Boston University, who wouldn’t stay that way. They also played a service team. We were 6-3 over all and 2-2 against big time college teams. 1943 Football was suspended for the war. 1944 9-8-5-5-8-1 = 6.00 (A disappointing return but at least we had fun beating Colgate 43-13. We were 2-4-1 with one win coming against a small-time team. ) 1945 7-2-9-5-8-5-6 = 6.00 (We finally had an all-big time schedule. The problem is we didn’t have a big-time team to play it. In Ossie Solem’s final year we were 1-6. The bottom was a 0-8 loss to a 1-6-1 Dartmouth team.) 1946 8-5-1-8-3-2-6-8 = 5.13 (Solem’s assistant, Biggie Munn took over and produced a 4-5 record. Boston U. was still considered small-time so we were 3-5 vs. big time schools. The season ended with dismal 7-25 and 22-59 losses to Colgate and Columbia and Munn and his entire staff moved on to Michigan State.) 1947 9-3-7-9-6-4-8 = 6.57 (Reeves Baysinger, who had played for SU in the 20’s and been a jack of all trades since then for the University, filled the vacant spot for two difficult seasons. This year we went 3-6 but were only 1-6 vs. big time teams. But we did beat Colgate 7-0! The third game was a 0-40 disaster against the best team Penn State had prior to the Paterno era, a team that ran through the regular season 9-0, outscoring them 319-27. They set an NCAA record that still stands by “allowing” us a total offense of minus 47 yards in that game. They tied Doak Walker’s SMU team, 13-13 in the Cotton Bowl.) 1948 10-6-7-10-4-8-8-6 = 7.38 (The most famously bad SU team prior to the G-Rob era. We beat Niagara 13-9 in the opener and then lost to 8 straight big-time teams by a combined 76-235. Niagara gave up football after this season. The joke was if they couldn’t beat Syracuse they might as well quit the sport. The worst loss was a 0-48 loss to Northwestern’s Rose Bowl team. Unlike in 1936, we were the worst team Holy Cross and Northwestern played. We were 8th of 9 vs. Temple and Colgate, 7th of 9 vs. Cornell, 6th of 9 vs. Penn State and Columbia and 4th of 8 vs. Boston U, which was now considered a major college. Baysinger was let go after the season. The best we could get to replace him was some guy from Muhlenberg.) 1949 3-7-2-5-5-6-2-1 = 3.88 (Ben’s first team improved from 1-9 to 4-5. The 3.50 improvement in point differential ranking is easily the best in the school’s history: the second best was 2.00 when we got Donovan McNabb as our quarterback. Lafayette was considered small time. The #1 performance was vs. Colgate, #7 vs. Temple) Summary: 1940 4.00; 1941 4.17; 1942 4.25; 1944 6.00; 1945 6.00; 1946 5.13; 1947 6.57; 1948 7.38; 1949 3.88 Average for the decade: 5.26 1950’s 1950 1-6-6-2-1-3-5-5 = 3.63 (The #1s were vs. Rutgers and Holy Cross, the #6‘s Temple and Cornell. We were 1-1 vs. small time teams, Lafayette and John Carroll and 4-4 vs. everyone else.) 1951 4-4-7-8-2-9-4-2 = 5.00 (The #2 was Boston U, the #9 Penn State. Lafayette was still not big-time. We lost 20-41 to undefeated Illinois’ Rose Bowl champions.) 1952 4-3-4-7-2-2-1-1-12 = 4.00 (The #1s were vs. Colgate and Fordham, the #12, of course, Alabama. We played no small-time teams but did lose to a service team, Bolling Field. We also got crushed 7-48 by Michigan State‘s national champions. Still we were ranked as high as #11 by Poling.) 1953 4-2-6-3-1-1-2-7 = 3.25 (The #1s were vs. Holy Cross and Cornell, #7 Villanova. Temple was not considered big-time any more. We were 4-3-1 vs. everyone else but the losses were by 6,7 and 1 point We were 18 points from being 9-0. Poling ranked us #24.) 1954 5-4-5-9-5-5-1-6 = 5.00 (The #1 was vs. Colgate, #9 Illinois- they were 1-8 but beat us 6-34. At least everybody was big-time this year, as would be the case for the next 28 seasons.) 1955 5-4-2-9-1-5-2-2 = 3.75 (The #1 was vs. Holy Cross, #9 Maryland, who went 10-0 until Oklahoma beat them in a bowl game. Every team we played had a winning record except Boston U. We were ranked as high as #14 by Poling.) 1956 3-6-3-3-2-2-2-1-4 = 2.89 (The #1 was vs. Colgate, the 61-7 game where Jim brown scored 43 points. #6 was the lone regular season loss to Pittsburgh. Our highest ranking was #8 by both AP and UPI as well as Riley.) 1957 6-3-1-6-6-5-5-4-5 = 4.55 (The #1 was vs. Cornell. The #6s were Iowa State- our last tie for 14 years, Nebraska- a 26-9 win over a 1-9 team- and Penn State. We were 20 points from being 9-0) 1958 2-4-1-1-2-4-1-2-4-4 = 2.50 (The #1s were Cornell, Nebraska and Boston U. There were no really bad performances. We lost one regular season game by one point- 13-14 to Holy Cross, a good program in those days under Dr. Eddie Anderson. So did Oklahoma, who beat us 6-21 in the Orange Bowl. Our highest ranking was #8 by poling.) 1959 1-1-1-2-1-1-2-1-1-1-1 = 1.18 (The #1s were Kansas, Maryland, Navy, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Colgate, Boston U., UCLA and Texas. If you don‘t know all about this season, you should. We led the country in scoring, yards gained, rushing yards gained, touchdown passes, first downs, fewest yards surrendered and fewest rushing guards given up, the later 19.3 per game, second all time to the 1947 Penn State team. We outgained our opposition by a ratio of 451-96 yards per game, a record that will never be broken. We were #1 in virtually all the polls, including the ones that really counted- AP and UPI.) Summary: 1950 3.63; 1951 5.00; 1952 4.00; 1953 3.25; 1954 5.00; 1955 3.75; 1956 2.89; 1957 4.55; 1958 2.50; 1959 1.18 Average for the decade: 3.58 1960’s 1960 2-2-2-2-1-9-5-1-4 = 3.11 (The #1’s were West Virginia and Colgate, the #9 Pittsburgh, who ended our 16 game winning streak, 0-10, the team‘s worst performance, by this measure, in 5 years. Still we were ranked as high as #15 by Albrecht.) 1961 2-1-4-1-5-1-2-1-6-4-4 = 2.82 (The #1’s were West Virginia, Nebraska, Holy Cross and Colgate, the last game against them for 21 years. In the Schwartzwalder Era, we played Colgate 13 times, won 12 and laid the worst whipping of the year on them 6 times. The #6 game was Notre Dame. This team was a bit snake-bit, losing by a point to Maryland an on that field goal after time had expired vs. Notre Dame. It could have been a 10-1 team. Poling had us as high as #10.) 1962 4-6-2-3-3-10-2-1-6-5 = 4.20 (The #1 was George Washington The #10 stinker was again vs. Pitt) 1963 2-6-1-3-1-2-5-6-1-4 = 3.10 (The #1’s were Holy Cross, Penn State and Richmond. The #6’s were Kansas and West Virginia. UPI had us at #12.) 1964 7-1-2-1-3-11-2-3-3-5-5 = 3.91 (One of our most inconsistent teams. The #1’s were 38-6 over Gayle Sayers and Kansas thanks to Floyd Little’s 5TDs and 39-0 over an undefeated UCLA team- the first gamer my father ever took me to. The #10 was to Oregon State’s Rose Bowl team, 13-31 on the west coast. That doesn’t sound too bad but the #10 ranking indicates that, like that 1991 FSU game, the fact that an opponent is good doesn’t mean that a decisive loss to them should be excused. We were again #12 in UPI.) 1965 3-9-2-8-2-2-2-6-3-4 = 3.90 (The first time since 1951 that we weren’t the best team somebody played by this measure. The #9 game was 0-24 home loss to a 5-4-1 Miami team. The #8 game was another west coast loss to a Rose Bowl team, UCLA, whom we had handled so well in previous years. Poling had us at #14.) 1966 10-7-3-3-1-1-3-5-1-2-4 = 3.64 (This year’s stinker was an opening national TV 12-35 loss at Baylor, a team that would win up 5-5. Then we got killed by UCLA at home and went on the longest winning streak since the national title year, 8 in a row, with #1’s over Boston College, Holy Cross and Florida State. UPI had us at #16.) 1967 5-1-9-10-5-6-8-1-3-1 = 4.90 (Often thought of as Ben Schwartzwalder’s last really good team, this was actually his worst team in 16 years- by this measure, anyway. It consisted of Larry Csonka and a good defense. Larry got a record 43 carries vs. Maryland for 181 yards. We beat an 0-9 team by 7-3. Everybody else beat them by more. The loss the next week at Navy was also the worst performance against them. And yet we had three #1 performances: West Virginia, Holy Cross and UCLA, the last by 32-14 the week after their famous game with USC and OJ Simpson and our last west coast victory to date. UPI had us at #12.) 1968 6-4-5-5-10-1-2-1-6-7 = 4.70 (We now began our serious slide into mediocrity. We were ranked #10 going out to California but by the end of the season, none of our performances prior to that looked very impressive. We did have a couple #1’s after that trip, vs. Holy Cross and Navy.) 1969 7-10-2-7-1-7-1-7-3-9 = 5.40 (This team was, like the 1967 team, a fine defensive team but it had no Csonka, which was too bad because it lost two games by a point and one by 3 points in a 5-5 season. But it wasn’t really that good a team. The #10 game was a 0-13 loss to Kansas, which like Illinois in 1954, lost all of it’s other games. The #9 game to BC was also the worst performance against them all year. The #1’s were our 14-15 loss to Penn State -see U-Tube- where we fumbled away a 14-0 lead and Arizona.) Summary: 1960 3.11; 1961 2.82; 1962 4.20; 1963 3.10; 1964 3.91; 1965 3.90; 1966 3.64; 1967 4.90; 1968 4.70; 1969 5.40 Average for decade: 3.97 1970’s 1970 8-9-10-4-2-6-2-8-6-1 = 5.60 (This was the year of the black boycott which produced a horrific start, then a sharp comeback with a 5 game winning streak, including the 24-7 win at Penn State, our last over them for 17 years. The Miami game at the end was almost identical to the 1998 game: we led 42-7 at halftime and won 56-16.) 1971 7-6-6-5-6-1-11-3-10-4-5 = 5.82 (This team started out being ranked #13 in the pre-season AP Poll. It wound up our worse team since 1948. The #1 was Holy Cross. #11 was Pitt and #10 was Navy) 1972 3-9-10-5-9-4-7-10-11-3-10 = 7.36 (The collapse everybody thinks occurred the next year really began this year. The “double figure” games were Wisconsin, Pittsburgh, Boston College and West Virginia. We managed to win several close games over bad teams and finish 5-6 but this was a bad team.) 1973 10-9-10-12-8-10-10-4-4-2-9 = 8.00 (The bottom of the barrel. The Schwartzwalder Era is a bell curve, starting from the terrible 1948 the year before Ben came and ending with this mess. The “double figure” games were Bowling Green, Washington, Maryland, Penn State and Miami.) 1974 4-5-8-7-8-4-7-7-11-9-8= 7.09 (Frank Maloney’s first team had the same record as Ben Schwartzwalder’s last team but was a noticeably better team until they ran of gas at the end of the year. The #11 game was West Virginia.) 1975 5-7-3-8-5-8-4-9-4-3-4 = 5.45 (Frank’s second team was much improved, won it’s first three games and was being considered for a bowl until our loss to Rutgers. The Pitt game, 0-38, complete with a Connecticut-like long bomb for a score at the end, was the #9 game.) 1976 9-11-6-5-8-11-4-2-9-7-9 = 7.36 (Frank’s third team sharply backslid. After the Iowa game- the first #11- Frank said that we were the worst team in the country. The other #11 was Penn State. The #2 was the famous Pittsburgh game, when the refs moved the ball back two plays in a row to deprive us of a key first down vs. the national champs. We played two 11-0 teams that year- Maryland and Pitt. The Terps lost in the Cotton Bowl to Houston. The Panthers beat Georgia in the Sugar for the national title.) 1977- 11-12-3-8-9-4-4-9-4-3-3 = 6.36 (A mild comeback after a horrendous start. We were the worst team- by this measure- both Oregon State and North Carolina State, our first two opponents, played.) 1978- 10-6-6-11-5-7-10-5-3-4-10 = 7.00 (Bill Hurley got racked up by Florida State in the first game and any hope of a good season disappeared with him. Illinois went 1-8-2 that year: we were the “1“.) 1979- 7-5-4-3-6-10-11-4-4-2-9-1 = 6.00 (Frank Maloney’s best team laid two huge eggs in mid-season vs. Temple and Penn State and another in the rain at Schoellkopf Field vs. a bad BC team. McNeese St. was 11-0 and a D1A team- they dropped down to 1AA shortly afterward- when we blitzed them in the bowl game.) Summary: 1970 5.60; 1971 5.82; 1972 7.36; 1973 8.00; 1974 7.09; 1975 5.45; 1976 7.36; 1977 6.36; 1978 7.00; 1979 6.00 Average per decade: 6.60 [/QUOTE]

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