THE GAME
This game was played on my second birthday. When my Dad worked at General Electric he got to know a co-worker named Bill Eschenfelder who had played for SU in the late 30’s and was part of Ben Schwartzwalder’s staff back in the 50’s. (Yes they had Schwartzwalder and Eschenfelder on the same staff- not big name coaches but long name coaches.) When I developed an interest in SU football Bill was nice enough to lend Dad some game films from his era to show me. Dad would bring them home, along with a projector he borrowed from GE, (whether GE knew he had borrowed it, I have no idea). He was unable to score a screen to project it on and so Dad would take down a large picture from our living room wall and project the film onto the wall. I was fascinated to see this football game suddenly appearing on our wall with the players running all around the back of the couch. The only specific game I can recall is one where SU played Army and Jimmy Brown was on the team. I don’t know if it was the 1955 game, which I am about to describe, or the 1956 game, which I will be describing next season. What I remember the most is seeing #44 elude or run over several Army defenders and then run right through one of the nails that had held up the picture. Even the nail couldn’t stop Big Jim!
The game was played in gale that made front page news for the damage it caused up and down the east coast. (I don’t remember Bill’s film as showing the players playing in the mud and rain but I can’t be sure, the quality of memory and old film being what it is. I suspect I may have seen the 1956 game). The played “on a field that was inches deep in mud”. They had taken the covering off the field just before the game and the players had virtually no time to work out on the field. The normal pre-game parade of Cadets on the field was cancelled and the “straw-hatted“ SU band had to remain in the stands, as well. Attendance, expected to be 27,000, was held to 12,500 by “sheets of rain”. One of those wet fans was Biff Jones, Army’s coach for the last game between the two schools in 1926, who had come up from his retirement in Washington to see the renewal of the series.
This was the venue for one of Syracuse’s greatest victories. Since 1926 they hadn’t played what should have been a natural rival and watched the Black Knights become perennial national championship contenders, (at their height they were the most dominant college football team of all time), while Syracuse became irrelevant. They were finally playing again after all these years but it was at West Point in a downpour and the Orange were 21 point underdogs. Army, being Army, and with their 329 yards-per-game rushing attack, figured to be able to adjust to the muddy conditions better than Syracuse. Yet Syracuse won, 13-0, with one of the greatest defensive displays in school history. They held the Knights to 78 yards rushing. That was also their total yardage as they failed to complete any of their 7 passes except for two of them that were caught by Syracuse defenders. The home team had only two first downs in the first half and never entered Syracuse territory until there were less than two minutes left in the game and even then the farthest they could penetrate was the SU 40.
The Orange, who did have Eddie Albright running the show, managed to complete 7 of 11 passes, one of them a halfback pass by Jim Ridlon that produced one of the scores. Those 67 passing yards added to SU’s total of 110 rushing yards to produce 11 first downs and two touchdowns, a modest total but enough to totally dominate this game. They were supposed to lose by three touchdowns and they won by two. It would be interesting if we had records of the point spreads going back that far or farther and see how that rates as in the magnitude of the reversal, (the 1984 Nebraska game and 2010 West Virginia games probably exceeded that gap but how many others?)
The headlines were “SYRACUSE SHOCKS ARMY 13-0 Orange mops muddy field with favorites…UNDERDOG ORANGE ACHIEVE EPIC TRIUMPH Orange is surprise to Cadets”. The Herald-American: “Scoring one of the greatest triumphs in Syracuse history, a gallant hard-fighting football squad upset favored Army 13-0 yesterday in the rain and mud of Michie Stadium…the game will go down as one of the all-time top achievements for Syracuse.” The Post Standard: “A fired-up Syracuse team scored one of the biggest victories in the university’s football history today.”
Syracuse won the toss and chose to receive the ball. “The Cadets tried to get away with an outside kick, (sic), and Brill covered the ball well up the field.” (A risky move for Army in a game where field position would be paramount.) SU started from it’s own 35. Ferd Kuczala ran it to the 48 on a fake pass play but SU eventually had to punt to the Army 25. Army also got a first down but them also had to punt form it’s own 38 to the SU. Jim Brown returned the punt for 15 yards to the 30. The Orange kept giving the ball to their big gun and Jim responded with 16 yards on four carries. “Brown then fumbled going across the line of scrimmage and Rudy Farmer recovered for as first down on the Syracuse 41.” But SU again had to punt and Big Jim made the tackle of Don Holleder at the Army 13.
Pat Uebel “skirted right end for 17 yards and a first down on his 30.” But Dick Lasse recovered a Mike Ziegler fumble at the 28. “This time Syracuse showed no power on attack as three downs netted a yard loss. Albright carried on a fake kick but he got only three yards through the middle as the Cadets took possession. That ended a desultory first quarter. The second wasn’t much better.
It started well as Albright picked off a Holleder pass at the 50 and ran it back to the Army 35. “Brown skirted right end to the 29. Laacksonen gained a yard at center…..Albright hit Althouse, breaking away from the tackler, got as far as the 11 before he was pulled down, a gain of 16 yards. Here Brown made three yards in two tries. Althouse, on an end-around, went to the 4 before he was knocked out of bounds. Then, on fourth down, Brown was piled up at the line of scrimmage and Army stopped him for a yard loss to take the ball on it’s own 5.”
Red Blaik did something coaches never do any more. He punted on first down to get the ball out of trouble. (Coach Mac quick-kicked but I don’t recall him doing it on first down). Jim Ridlon caught the ball at midfield and return it to the Army 45. A Kuczala pass to Lasse and a run by Ed Ackley moved the ball to the 31. But Kuczala was hit trying to pass and Army’s Loren Reid recovered his fumble at the 42. But the Cadets still couldn’t move the ball- neither could Syracuse- and the teams traded punts before the half ended at 0-0.
After getting the second half kick-off the Cadets could get only one yard in three plays and the Orange got the ball back on their own 38. A sweep by Brown and a pop pass from Albright to Althouse got two first downs. “Then as Ridlon and Brown collaborated for what would have been another first down on the Army 28, Syracuse was hit by a clipping penalty which ruined the drive.” I assume the ’collaboration’ was a halfback pass from Jim R to Jim B.
Chuck Strid recovered a Uebel fumble at the Army 25. “Three plays gained only three yards and then it was fourth and seven when Albright handed off to Ridlon, who raced to his left, turned and fired to Althouse, who caught the ball on the seven and headed for the goal. Holleder made a diving tackle but his effect was only to drive Althouse into the end zone for the touchdown.” Jim Brown kicked the point and it was Syracuse 7 Army 0, one of those scores you imagine being announced in stadiums across the country.
One play after the kick-off, Gus Zaso intercepted a pass intended for Holleder, who had been shifted to halfback because he was Army’s best receiver as well as best passer. Holleder tackled him immediately but SU had the ball again on the Army 44. “From there it took 13 plays but the Orangemen couldn’t be stopped.” Zaso, Brown and Zaso again moved the ball to the 30 as the third period ended. “Three plays, including a seven yard smash by Brown, left only a yard to go but an offsides penalty against the Orange made it fourth and six on the Army 26. Then Albright hit Tom Richardson with a pass good for 8 yards and it was first down on the Army 18. The next three plays netted only eight yards but Brown, going wide and getting fine blocking as he cut back inside tackle, picked up the seven yards with a little to spare that made it first down on the seven. From there, on second down, Ridlon took a handoff from Albright, swept wide around his left end and swirled into the corner of the end zone. This time, Bill Brown, who did a brilliant job as a linebacker, made a poor pass to Jim Brown, who was trying for the point. The ball sailed over Jim‘s head and there was no chance for a conversion.” Syracuse led 13-0 with time winding down in the fourth quarter. And Army had gone no where.
“Army, desperate now, started from it’s own 12 after Pete Schwert’s fine kick-off and had reached the 21 in three plays. There, the Cadets gambled on fourth and one deep in their own territory and Dick Lasse, sophomore end, broke through to spill (Vince) Barta for a yard loss as the orange got possession on the Army 20. Here it was the Orangemen, over-eager to get a third touchdown, were guilty of offsides on two plays. On fourth down, Albright faked a pass and raced nine yards to the Army 11, but he missed the first down by a yard and Army got the ball for the last time.”
“The Cadets reached their 22, where Ralph Farmer burst through to throw Holleder for a 10 yard loss but the Orange was guilty of holding and Army picked up along penalty and a first down as the result. An eight yard sweep by (Bob) Munger carried the ball past the midfield stripe for Army’s only invasion of Syracuse territory with only 90 seconds left to play. Then three Army passes were incomplete, the third almost intercepted by Althouse as Syracuse took the ball on it’s own 40 with 10 seconds to play and quarterback John Panucci fell into the line for the final play.” I guess they hadn’t invented the “victory play” yet.
“As the game ended with a third-string outfit running out the final play for Syracuse, the Orange gridders leaped and shouted with joy while the Syracuse supporters, out-yelled by throughout by the massed ranks of the Cadets, got their chance to whoop it up unopposed….Thousands of hopeful Syracuse rooters , who braved torrential rains to sit through the battle, went wild with elation as the Orangemen defied the elements and Army’s vaunted power to bury all thoughts of supremacy of the Black Knights.”
Michigan, now ranked #1 on the strength of their home 26-2 victory over Army the previous week, had been out-gained by the Cadets 236-164. Syracuse, in beating the same, (still 13th ranked), Army team out-gained them by 177-78. And Army was lucky they weren’t defeated by a larger margin. They had 4 turnovers to Syracuse’s one.Basically the whole game had been played in their end of the field. It was the first time Army had been shut out at home since 1943, where they had a 138-12 record in Michie Stadium’s history going into the game. It was now 138-13.
There was little pictorial coverage of the game, probably owing to the weather and the fact that it was a road game, abit a close one. Jim Brown was shown in an identical photo in both papers being tackled after a 9 yard first period gain. Army guard Stan Slater has him by the left calf and Jim has his left arm extended and pointing forward as if the show the way. Both papers also had the same shot of Mike Ziegler’s fumble. Mike is shown falling on the ball and SU’s Harvey Healy is shown falling on Ziegler. It’s explained that Dick Lasse, not in the picture, wound up with the ball. And in both papers, Fern Kuczala was shown crouching to tackle Pat Uebel, who has not quite reached him.
Army took it all out on Columbia the next week, 45-0 and then trounced Colgate, 27-7. Then came a shocking 12-14 loss to Yale, a 40-0 blow-out of Pennsylvania, (this was before the Ivy League de-emphasized so it‘s teams were still considered to be formidable opponents), and a 14-6 over Navy that made everything OK, even though they finished 6-3, (and ranked #15 by the coaches and #20 by the writers).
Don Holleder made the cover of Sports Illustrated as Army’s football captain that fall. He was a natural end with few skills as a quarterback but Blaik switched him to that position because of his leadership skills. He had a chance to become a pro football player but opted to continue his military career and rose to the rank of major when he was killed in Vietnam in 1967. Tom Hanks is producing a movie about his life:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Holleder
Next up for the Orange was mighty Maryland, who had been displaced by Michigan as the country’s #1 team after the Wolverines fell on all those Army fumbles but who were still undefeated, #2 and very much in the hunt for the national title.
