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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 527355, member: 289"] [I]The Game[/I] “Holy Cross a three point favorite going into yesterday afternoon’s game against Syracuse University, ran into the best football team to represent the Hill in years and left the field with a look of disbelief at a scoreboard which read 49-9 in favor of Syracuse”. I don’t think the Sugar Bowl scout was impressed, at least not with the home team. The game had begun well enough for the Crusaders and very frustratingly for the Orange. Jim Brown returned the opening kick-off to the SU 33, “the start of an afternoon that saw him gain a total of 157 yards on kick returns during the game”. Ironically, on a day when the Orange score 7 touchdowns, Big Jim never dented the end zone, except for three extra points that he kicked. But “the Orange, with Brown doing most of the ball carrying moved down to the Holy Cross 12 before the attack died out”. Brown then picked off a Holy Cross pass at the at the 40 and ran it back to the 13. “The Orange’s golden opportunity went away when Mark Hoffman fumbled on the first play and Holy Cross recovered.” (Wouldn’t that have been an Orange opportunity?) Holy Cross was forced to punt but a clipping penalty moved the ball back to the Orange 30. Syracuse was forced to punt and Bill Smithers returned Don Althouse’s kick to the Orange 35. Then came a highly controversial play. Smithers rolled out and “before a defender could reach him, Smithers twisted his ankle, landed heavily on his right arm and the ball slithered out of his grasp. A Syracusean promptly fell on it at midfield. Referee Keating unaccountably ruled that it was not a fumble, but an incomplete pass. This, despite the fact that Smithers had made no motion to throw the ball”. Whatever pain this caused on the Orange sideline was magnified when Jack Stephens, replacing Smithers, dropped back to punt. He “faked the kick, raced to the right sideline and dodged his way for the 35 yards to the end zone”. The kick was good, giving the Crusaders a 0-7 lead. New Orleans, here we come! Not so fast, my friend. Brown returned the kick-off back 29 yards and later had a 22 yard run with a pitch-out to the Holy Cross 20. Jim Ridlon scored on an end-around from the 14 and the deluge of Syracuse touchdowns had begun. Holy Cross was forced to punt after Joe Krivak sacked Stephens for a 10 yard loss. Ed Ackley returned the punt 17 yards to the Holy Cross 39. Billy Micho did the rest of the work, gaining 27 yards on a pitch-out and gaining the last 8 yards on two plays, the clincher coming from the 3. This being the second team, (scoring against Holy Cross’s first team), Dick Darr kicked the point. The first team came back in and forced another punt, which allowed Jim Brown to put on a show. He caught the punt at the SU 39 and “faked a handoff and then started upfield. At the 50 he was close to the Orange bench. There he stopped, reversed his field and was caught…near the Holy Cross sideline by Stephens. His run gained 56 yards but covered more than 100 yards on the ground.” Two penalties and a run by Eddie Albright got the ball two the two where Eddie leapt over the goal line for the third score. Brown converted to make it 21-7 at the half. In the third period Ferd Kuzala “ran far to his left and pin-pointed Don Althouse” with a 35 yard pass to the Holy Cross 14. Kuzala, “ran to his left on a keep or pitch play. The Crusader right end had him bottled up as he jumped up and, over-hand rather than in the customary under-hand pitch, got the ball the Micho, who sped into the end zone near the flag in the corner of the field .“ Darr converted to give the visitors a commanding 28-7 lead. “The last period was a rout and not a true indication of the strength of the Crusader team. It was throwing desperation passes in the face of a line that simply overpowered the Holy Cross front wall.” A Glenn Preising sack of Stephens was followed by a punt block by Jim Ridlon. “Syracuse ran two plays and, on the 13 yard line, Albright faded to pass, found no receivers, and burst through the wide open middle of the Holy Cross line for a score.” Big Jim converted and it was 35-7. Bill Brown intercepted a pass and returned it to the Orange 38 yard line. Then came a play SU had used against Maryland, an interesting relic of the days when there were several players in the backfield. “Albright spun away from the line and the ball went to fullback Gus Zaso on a direct snap. He bucked toward the line, handed off to Albright and the quarterback pitched to Hoffman. That halfback broke to his left, spotted Ridlon on the Holy Cross 30 and threw him a lead pass. When Ridlon got the ball over the hands of a defender, he had a clear path to the goal line.” The play covered 62 yards. SU was caught without a kicker in the line-up and couldn’t send one in under the rules of the day so Albright threw to Zaso for a one-point conversion to make it 42-7. Darr closed the scoring with a 42 yard pick 6 and did his own conversion. To their credit, the Crusaders didn’t quit. It just wasn’t their day. They drove down to the SU 1 in the final seconds but Tom Roberts fumbled going over the goal line and SU’s Joe Pollino recovered on the 2. The home team got a final whiff of success when Lou Iannicello, trying to run the clock out, couldn’t make it out of the end zone, making the final score Syracuse 49 Holy Cross 9. That Sugar Bowl scout was doubtless on his way back to New Orleans by that time. Syracuse out-gained Holy Cross 301-191. The Orange only attempted 7 passes, completing 5 for 124 yards. The Crusaders completed 10 of 22 passes but only got 112 yards out of it and 3 of them were intercepted. Jim Brown only rushed for 45 yards on 11 carried but ran back two punts for 96 yards and two kick-offs for 61 yards, as well as interception a pass and kicking three extra points. You had to be versatile in those days. The 1956 NCAA Guide has a classic shot of Ridlon blocking the punt in the third period. Jack Ringel is frozen in the kicker’s pose, his left leg pointing to the ground, (but slightly off of it), his right leg stomach high and slightly crooked, just having made contact with the ball a split second beforehand. His arms are separated and his hands open as if he was lining up a picture of the on-coming Ridlon. Jim is flying through the air, perhaps two feet off the ground, his knees bent and calves parallel to the turf. One arm is extended forward, the other pointing to 8 o’clock, his head down, staring at the ball, which is circled and headed toward the ground between them, “reducing the value of the boot to zero”. The same shot is on the front page of the sports section of the Herald-American, without the circle. The Post Standard showed Albright, parallel to the ground, falling over defenders into the end for the third score and Billy Micho bulling past them for the first one. The Herald-Journal had the same two plays but in closer shots. Albright, hunched over with the ball encased in his arms, has found an opening between the defenders and is coming in for a landing into the end zone. Jim Buonopnae has an arm around Micho’s head and looks as if he’s trying to twist it off. It wouldn’t have prevented the score even if he had succeeded and the ball, cradled, in Billy’s arms, has passed the goal line. Albright was also show eluding two defenders on the way to the goal for the fifth score. Other shots showed Jim Brown taking a bead on a Holy Cross pass while jumping behind the receiver to get at the ball. This wasn’t his interception: he knocked it down. Jim was such a great runner that his defensive play and his kicking has been forgotten. Below that shot Gus Zaso also leaps for an interception and has his extended hands of a ball but he couldn’t hold it. Tom Richardson is shown hauling in an over-the-shoulder pass in the first quarter, making what is normally an error by looking downfield as he was catching the ball. But here he held onto it. Next to that shot is Jim’s interception. He’s run into front of the receiver, who is crouching, waiting for the ball. Another SU player is behind the receiver, making an ill-timed leap for a ball that never got to him. Next to that is the one moment of Crusader glory, Jack Stephens running out of the arms of Jim Ridlon and down the sidelines that produced the false-positive 0-7 start to the game. But the best photograph shows the end of Jim Brown’s third quarter punt return. He’s been tackled by two Crusaders but has somehow wound up sitting on top of them. If anything symbolized this game, that picture does. [/QUOTE]

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