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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 131478, member: 289"] This game is often presented as the real beginning of Jim Brown’s stardom. (Although you could hardly tell that from the final score.) Here’s how Jim tells it in his autobiography, “Out of Bounds”: “Game Six was against Cornell. Our backs were still hurting, they’d moved me up to the second team. None of our runners were doing much and the fans started chanting my name. ‘We want Brown…We want Brown”. Man, I got a chill in my body. Then the guy who started in front of me busted up his ankle. Coaches called my name. I flew into our huddle. I broke a TD for 54 yards, finished with about 150. I started every game the rest of my college career.” Cornell kicked off, winning the toss but preferring the wind. Ray Perkins returned it to the 30. An offside penalty gave the Orange a first down on the 45. On the next play, Art Trolio was trapped for a two yard loss and hurt his ankle. He was carried off the field and Jim came in. (The paper doesn’t report that the crowd at Schoellkoff Field was chanting his name.) Perkins got the ball on the next two plays and ran it all the way to the Cornell 30. Jim had a four yard gain but the Orange wound up giving it over on downs. DeGraff pitched to Jackson who ran 30 yards to the Syracuse 45. But Cornell was forced to punt. Bill Wetzel fumbled on the first play and Cornell had it on the SU 17. Jackson ran 9 yards in two off tackle plays and then Meade ran it around end for 8 yards and the touchdown. The kick made it Cornell 7 Syracuse 0 at 10:16 of the first period. Dick Mathewson picked off an Orange pass and returned it to the SU 30. Runs by Meade and Jackson got the ball to the 16. DeGraff passed to Meade who ran it to the 4. But DeGraff had been beyond the line of scrimmage and the play was called back. Then Jim Brown tossed Boland for a five yard loss. On the next play Jim intercepted a DeGraff pass in the end zone. (Who said he couldn’t play defense?). On the second play after the interception, Big Jim broke through for 29 yards to the Orange 48 as the first quarter ended. But a penalty and a “brilliant overhead catch” by Meade of a long Mickey Rich pass on the Cornell 22 ended the drive. A Cornell punt was downed at midfield and two plays later, Brown again burst through the line for 30 yards to the Big Red 18. “Schwert fought his way to the 11 on an end around and Perkins dove for the first down at the 6. Laacksonen went to the two but it was ruled Syracuse had illegally shifted and was penalized to the 21.” (Apparently, that was a 15 yard penalty in those days.) By now the value of having Jim Brown on your team was being recognized and he got the ball on four straight plays. He made it back to the 2 but, as it had been goal to go, Cornell took over on downs. They were forced to punt and a short kick was returned by Perkins to the 27. Bill Wetzel burst to the 14 for a first down. But three runs got only four yards and Mickey Rich’s fourth down pass sailed through the end zone. With a minute left in the half, DeGraff found Meade on a short pass over the middle. He caught it on the 30 and cut through the defense all the way for a score. “Meade, taking a short pass from DeGraff, did a brilliant job of running, used his interference smartly dodged and outmaneuvered tacklers and went 72 yards for a touchdown….one of the prettiest runs ever seen on any gridiron.“ But there was a flag, the fifth time a Meade score had been called back that season. A roughing the punter call gave Cornell a couple of extra plays but they couldn’t make it pas midfield before time expired. Cornell took the second half kick-off and drove 59 yards to the Syracuse 13 but Perkins intercepted another DeGraff end zone pass. Mickey Rich hurt his arm on the following possession and SU stuck with the ground game. “Cornell’s deepest defender was only seven yards beyond the line of scrimmage.” 11 in the box. Two straight runs by Brown were turned back on second and third and inches. “Steve” Van Buren, (That‘s in the Post Standard: The Herald American calls him Jim), blocked Bill Wetzel’s punt and Cornell took over on the SU four yard line. DeGraff carried to the one and Bedrosian, the big fullback, took it to the one foot line. A quarterback sneak by DeGraff pushed it to the three inch-line. Jackson took it the rest of the way- barely- and DeGraff kicked the point to make it 0-14. “On the ensuing kick-off Perkins took the ball on his won 1drove up the middle and burst out of a wave of tacklers. He seemed to be away but fleet Art Boland caught him from behind on the 11. Then the play was called back because of an illegal use of hands penalty and Syracuse tried to get started from it’s own 17. “Rich faked a pass and fumbled handing off to Brown. Joe Simon recovered for Cornell at the Syracuse 18. Three plays failed to gain and a fourth down pass was intercepted by Ridlon who took it on the 8 and came out to the 27.” Runs by Brown and Perkins and a penalty on Cornell got the ball to the SU 47. “Brown went off right end and was temporarily halted at the Cornell 45 but he bowled over the tackler and cut back to dash 53 yards to pay dirt…The big sophomore seemed to be hemmed in before he had gone 10 yards. He got away from two tacklers at the Cornell 45 and sidestepped a safetyman prettily as he went all the way for the tally.” Perkins was wide left on the conversion and it was 6-14 1:46 into the fourth period. A short punt by Schwert was returned by DeGraff to the SU 43 but Boland fumbled on the next, Paul Slick recovering on the Cornell 48. Syracuse was forced to punt. Laacksonen tried to run for it but was tackled at the 46 and Cornell took over. “A clipping penalty against Cornell gave Syracuse another chance since the foul occurred on a fourth down punt and Jim Ridlon gave Syracuse rooters something to yell about when he raced 18 yards on an end-around play. Then Cornell, led by Van Buren, who twice broke through to throw would-be passers for big losses, took the last bit of starch out of the Syracuse attack and the Redmen managed to keep the ball for all but one futile Syracuse play.” SU won the stat battle. Led by Jim Brown’s 151 yards on 17 carries, SU rushed for 243 yards to only 155 for Cornell. Cornell’s vaunted passing attack was held to a measly 11 yards on two completions and 3 intercepted, two in the end zone in 13 attempts. SU completed 4 of 13 for 39 yards with 2 picks. Syracuse had 14 first downs to 9. But SU lost 3 fumbles to 1 and was penalized for 63 yards to 33. Actually more yards were nullified by penalties than were walked off, (it might be fun to include both in “penalty yards”. Some great pictures were published: Dick Meade crossing the goal line with no one near him on the 8 yard run in the first period. The sun was behind the photographers and the players are perfectly lighted. Meade is in a classic pose: front leg up in the air in a “L” shape, back foot perpendicular, with the toes pushing off the ground. About five yards away are two SU players with a Cornell blocker between them, realizing the play is over. Don Laacksonen is shown driving to the two yard line in a shot from the back of the end zone, looking to the scoreboard at the other end. Three guys are hitting him at once. He’s still upright but not for long. And the play was negated by the 15 yard illegal shift penalty. Dick Jackson is shown on his big yard first period run, with a wall of blockers in front of him, two defenders awaiting their impact and a guy running up from behind, vainly looking to take Jackson down. Dick Meade takes the pass at his own 30 that he ran all the way in, which was called back. DeGraff is running toward the near sideline as he passes, apparently on a roll-out. Jim Brown and (I think) Eddie Albright are just behind Meade at about the 25 and 28, respectively. Jim is turning toward him. The pass, (indicated by an arrow), seems to have led Meade perfectly and he was able to catch the ball in stride and keep ahead of Jim and Eddie. The final shot is of Big Jim running around Art Boland for a 15 yard run in the second quarter. Cornell went on to beat Dartmouth and Pennsylvania to finish 5-4 after a 4-5 start. They tied Yale for the Ivy League title, (even though it wasn’t an official league until two years later). For Syracuse it was frustrating to lose it’s fourth game in six starts, six years into Ben Schwartzwalder’s tenure, especially to a local rival and in a game they could have, maybe should have, won. But they’d found a new running star. #44 was starting to mean something. 　　　 My primary source is the Post Standard Archive. I also used Street & Smiths 1954 football preview, Upperdeck’s site for roster numbers and Jim Brown‘s autobiography, “Out of Bounds“. [/QUOTE]

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