The Bold, Brave Men of Archbold 1955: Maryland

[SWC75]

In the days of old, when knights were bold
Every city had its warrior man.
In the days of new, when fights are few
You will view them from a big grandstand.
In our college town one has great renown
If the game of football he should play.
With his pig-skin ball he is cheered by all,
He's the Saltine Warrior of today.
The Saltine Warrior is a bold, bad man,
And his weapon is a pigskin ball,
When on the field he takes a good, firm stand,
He's the hero of large and small.
He will rush toward the goal with might and main
His opponents all fight, but they fight in vain,
Because the Saltine Warrior is a bold, bad man,
And victorious over all.

We are in a new era in SU football- the Doug Marrone era. 60 years ago, another era began- the Ben Schwartzwalder Era, during which SU rose from its greatest depths to its greatest heights, and then all the way back down again. It was the era into which I was born, the one I remember from my youth. I can still recall listening to the games on the radio and waiting until Tuesday to see the grainy black and white films of the previous Saturday’s games on the local news. The music played over these highlights was not “Down, Down the Field”. It was “The Saltine Warrior”. My Dad thought he knew the beginning of it and would sing “The Saltine Warrior was a bold, brave man”. I later found that the line was “bold, bad, man”. But that’s not the way I learned it and it’s not the way I like it. My heroes were not “bad” men. They were “brave” men. They were the “Bold, Brave Men of Archbold”.

 

[SWC75]

CURLEY BYRD AND JIM TATUM
(My primary source for this section is “The Terrapins: Maryland Football” by Paul Attner.)

You can’t talk about Maryland football in the 1950’s, (or for any prior period), without first talking about Curley Byrd. In fact you can’t even talk about the University of Maryland without talking about Curley Byrd. When I was a student at Syracuse in the early 70‘s I remember a professor telling me that Curly Byrd had spent so much money on the Maryland football team that he school almost lost it‘s accreditation as a university. (I didn’t know you could do that.)

Harry Clifton Byrd started out as a 138 pound hopeful for the 1905 football team for the Maryland Agricultural College. The coach failed to discourage him from trying out for the team. By the time he was senior, he was the team’s captain and quarterback. By 1912 he was the coach. Even before he got that job, a friend saw him drawing something while sitting on a hill over-looking the campus. The friend asked what he was drawing. Byrd said it was a map of what the University would look like someday. Decades later, according to the friend, (an old classmate, Dr. Levin Broughton), that’s what it looked like.

Byrd was the football coach, officially, for 21 seasons, until 1932. He had so many other jobs by that time that he was criticized for trying to do too many jobs at once and creating conflicts of interest. Byrd then chose front men to coach the football team while he continued to run things behind the scenes until he had become President of what was now the University of Maryland. Along the way he was also the school’s baseball coach, an “instructor in English and History”, Athletic Director, Assistant University President, (1918), University Vice President (1932) and a sportswriter for the Washington Star, reporting on his own team for the paper. He’s the only football coach who became the president of the university he coached for.

When not coaching, he spent much of his time in the state capitol lobbying for the school, especially his version of it. He convinced the legislature to pass the Consolidation Act of 1920, which created the University of Maryland in 1920. He lobbied for funds for a new football field, (named after him), and locker rooms, an athletic dorm, (an innovation at the time), and later a basketball arena. He also arranged to have the schools’ sports nickname changed from the “Farmers” to the Terrapins to eliminate the “cow college” reputation the school had. When the new university chapel was dedicated, no sufficiently non-denominational hymn could be found so Curly Byrd composed one. Despite an ongoing feud with Governor Albert Ritchie, (1920-35), he managed to get the budget for the University increased to $9.8 million a year. He also increased his own budget. When he became University President in 1935, his net worth was estimated to be almost $1.5 million in the depths of the depression.

Bryd was an ardent segregationist. In organizing the state university, he created Maryland State, (now Maryland-Eastern Shore), and Morgan State for black students in Maryland. It was during his tenure that the famous incident in which Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, Syracuse’s star, was prevented from playing against the Terrapins in College Park because he was black.

He used to get bored and would “walk down the hill from his office, take off his collar, put on an old sweatshirt and take up where his assistants left off.” But eventually he realized that Maryland needed a full-time coach who was in charge to prosper as a football team. He wanted the best for his school and the next four head coaches he hired are all in the Hall of Fame. The first was Clark Shaughnessy, who had installed the T formation for the Chicago Bears NFL champs and then went off to Stanford to do the same thing and led them to an undefeated season and a Rose Bowl victory in 1940. Behind quarterback Tommy Mont the Terps went 7-2 in 1942. But then Shaughnessy, whose nickname was “football’s man in motion”, left to what he considered a better job, coaching at the University of Pittsburgh, a move he later described as “the worst decision I ever made”. Pittsburgh announced a decision to de-emphasize the sport and Shaughnessy went 10-17 in three years there.

Byrd next turned to Clarence “Doc” Spears, another man in motion who had had success at Dartmouth, West Virginia, Minnesota, Oregon, Wisconsin and Toledo. But he didn’t have much success at Maryland, going 5-12-1 in in two seasons.

Byrd then gave Paul “Bear” Bryant his first head coaching job . He’d been coaching service ball and he brought 15 of his players with him to Maryland. (This was a common practice: hire a coach who had been involved with service ball and have him recruit some of the guys who had played for him or who had played against him and looked good: Frank Leahy had his greatest years at Notre Dame doing this and Paul Brown made the Cleveland Browns instant winner by the same method). He was still young and not so sure of himself. He called those his “up-chucking” days because he got so nervous before games. Echoing a future Syracuse coach, he said “We would have been undefeated except for my bad coaching.” It wasn’t that bad: Maryland went 6-2-1 in 1945. But he left the school after a dispute with Byrd for reinstating a suspended player when Bryant was away visiting his family. Bryant went on to glory at Kentucky, Texas A&M and, finally, Alabama.

Byrd then invited Shaughnessy back. Shaughnessy was serving as a consultant to the Washington Redskins and Byrd allowed him to continue with that job, figuring he could save money by sharing Shaughnessy’s salary with the Redskins. Shaughnessy missed three weeks of the pre-season working with the Redskins but tried to make up for it by having some Redskin assistants work with the Maryland team. A clique had developed among the war veterans and new players and Shaughnessy made it worse by dividing them into separate teams, the “big” team and the “little” team. That alienated the new recruits and Shaughnessy then alienated the veterans by saying “a lot of people would refer to some of these boys as bums…You have to remember they’ve been in the Army a long time. They’re all mixed up in the upper story about civilian life. They think the world owes them everything.” The team tumbled to a 3-6 record. And “the man in motion” was in motion again.

Byrd now turned to Jim Tatum, the head coach at the University of Oklahoma. It was a sticky situation. Oklahoma had to release Tatum from his contract and there was a state law in Maryland against long-term contracts which both Tatum and Byrd wanted, Curley because he was sick of losing coaches on short notice. If he couldn‘t get Tatum, Byrd was thinking about offering the job to Tatum‘s promising assistant, Bud Wilkinson.

Tatum was another “service” coach, (that’s where he hooked up with Wilkinson), who, (per Wikipedia), “largely rejected the players from the previous season and instead focused on building a new team.” when he took the Oklahoma job in 1946. The 1945 team had a respectable 5-5 record but had ended the season with an unrespectable 0-47 loss to Oklahoma State. The 1946 team had a roster of 33 players, of whom 31 had been in the service. They had an amazing number of future college head coaches: Darrell Royal, (Mississippi State, Washington and Texas) Jim Owens, (Washington), Jack Mitchell, ((Wichita State, Arkansas and Kansas), Dee Andros, (Oregon State), Wade Walker, (Mississippi State), Warren Giese, (South Carolina), and Pete Tillman, (Wichita State). Andros joked “We had too many coaches and not enough players in the line-up”.

But they had players- and good ones. Nine of them became All-Americans in their careers at Oklahoma. The team opened up playing the Blanchard-Davis Army team that dominated college football in that era and the Sooners gave them quite a battle, losing 7-21 due to 4 turnovers, including a 86 yard return of an intercepted lateral. They also lost to Texas by a touchdown and Kansas by a field goal. They won their other seven games, including the mother of all paybacks, a 74-13 annihilation of Oklahoma State. They then beat North Carolina State in the Gator Bowl, 34-13.

Tatum wanted a 10 year contract. The best Oklahoma would offer was 6 years, so Tatum listened to Curley Byrd’s offer. After mulling it over and realizing Wilkinson was probably next in line for the Maryland job, Tatum decided to make the move, leaving Wilkinson to become a legend in Norman. Oklahoma President Dr. George Cross discovered that Tatum had paid his players $120 each after the bowl game and that $60,000 from the athletic department budget could not be accounted for. He contacted Byrd, wanting him to persuade Tatum not to reveal this. Byrd replied “Persuade? Hell, I’ll tell him to keep his mouth shut!”

Tatum was a legendary character. At 6-3 240, he was a bear of a man who seemed to fill up a room when he entered a door. He was a non-stop talker and master recruiter. He was also a tireless worker who was always searching for that 25th hour in a day. He learned the Split T formation coaching in the service with Missouri’s Don Faurot. But Tatum’s obsession was defense and one time it nearly got him and Faurot killed. “He was trying to explain a defense to me. We approached a little shanty on the side of a curve. Tatum was so busy talking he didn’t realize he was going at a pretty good clip, not did he see the curve. People were sitting on the porch in horror. Tatum’s car left the road and I knew our doom was sealed. We went into the yard under a clothesline, over a ditch and bounced out on the other side of the curve, miraculously on the same highway. Jim never once changed the subject nor the tone of his voice. He never noted, as far as I can tell, our narrow escape. His defense, incidentally, worked.”

Both his defense and his offense worked at Maryland, largely because he obtained a small army of talented players, giving out as many as 93 scholarships in one season, (an era when there were no limits but when the giving of athletic scholarships at all was still controversial). He especially recruited western Pennsylvania. In the old black and white pictures, Maryland’s Tatum’s teams look a bit like Penn State, (but their jerseys were red, not blue), and their record was similar to what the Nittany Lions achieved in Joe Paterno’s best years. Basically they were Penn State, only in an adjacent state in the early 50’s. A sportswriter came up with a different comparison: “Tatum’s work at Maryland much parallels the building of Miami Beach. Both were wastelands until construction began. Both became monuments- one to football, the other to architecture and leisure. The transformation was rapid and complete.”

Tatum ‘s first team, (1947), went 7-2-1 and tied Georgia 20-20 in the Gator Bowl. His second team fell back to 6-4 but the Terps really got going in 1949, rolling to a 8-1 regular season record, losing 7-14 to another rising power, Biggie Munn’s Michigan State team, (coached by the 1946 Syracuse coaching staff, who had moved there the same year Tatum showed up at Maryland because the Spartans were making the same kind of commitment to winning football games the Terps were). The beat the Missouri team of Tatum’s mentor, Don Faurot in the Gator Bowl, 20-7. The next year, they lost their opener to Georgia and traveled to East Lansing for the return game with the Spartans. State had just beaten #3 ranked Michigan and had risen to #2 in the polls themselves. The Terps were unranked. Three fourth quarter touchdowns, two the result of interceptions, closed out a resounding 34-7 Maryland win. Ed Modzelewski said “It was our first major national victory. We found out we could do well against a big power. From then on, I think those types of games weren’t nearly as hard for us.”

They still had a couple of hiccups along the way: a loss to NC State and a tie against North Carolina to finish 7-2-1 in 1950. But no game was hard for Maryland in 1951. The outscored nine consecutive regular season opponents 353-62, including a combined 96-7 over the two teams that had beaten them the year before, Georgia and NC State. They wound up ranked #3 behind Tennessee and Michigan State, (voters have short memories). The Spartans, who had just joined the Big Ten, were not yet eligible for the Rose Bowl and stayed home while the Vols and Terps were matched in the Sugar Bowl.

In those days there were no polls after the bowls so Tennessee was already in the books as the 1951 “National Champion”.. Tatum told his players before the game “We’re like the little boy who said ’Hell, no, I’m not the toughest kid in the neighborhood. But I can lick the kid who is!” They went out and steamrolled to a 21-0 lead in the first 20 minutes and led 28-6 going into the fourth quarter when they gave up a meaningless late TD to win 28-13. They out-rushed the Vols 289-81 and out-gained them 351-156. Had there been a poll after the bowls, Maryland would likely have been voted national champions for 1951.

The Terps opened 1952 with seven straight wins, extending their winning streak to 19 straight and their undefeated streak to 22. But they kind of ran out of gas at the end of the year, losing to Mississippi and that Alabama team that went on to obliterate Syracuse in the Orange Bowl. Jim Tatum was seen to be crying after the Ole Miss game. One of his players, Joe Blair, said “I don’t think any loss, even in the bowls, got to him as much as that one.” It may have cost quarterback Jack Scarbath the Heisman that year, although tackle Dick Modzelewski won the Outland.

At this point a rift developed between Byrd and Tatum, two egos too big for one campus. There had been a controversy over bowl games. Maryland was in the Southern Conference, which was against them, It was a similar issue in that time that the BCS is now, with many of the same arguments). When they’d violated the conference rule to go to bowl games, Tatum was against it, feeling that scheduling would get harder if they were kicked out of the conference. Byrd was in favor of them. The dispute eventually led the top teams of the SC to form the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1953. After the disappointing ending in 1952, Byrd was quoted as saying that the losses were because Tatum “stopped thinking and talked too much about things when he should have left well enough alone. I’ve been trying to shut him up for three years.” Tatum almost left the school to take and offer from North Carolina, his alma mater.

Tatum’s team came back strong in 1953, crushing ten teams by a combined 298-31, including revenge games on Mississippi and Alabama by a total of 59-0. When Notre Dame, who had been #1 in the polls all year long, suffered an upset tie to Iowa, 14-14, the Terrapins snapped up the #1 spot in the polls and kept it through the end of the regular season. As with Tennessee in 1951, that gave them the national championship in that era. And like Tennessee, they lost, (0-7) in a bowl game, (The Orange), to Tatum’s protégé Bud Wilkinson and his Oklahoma team, who had embarked on what would be an all-time record 47 game winning streak after losing to Notre Dame and being tied by Pittsburgh to begin the season. Maryland should be considered either the 1951 national champions, (in modern eyes), or the 1953 champion, (by the standards of the time). But either way, they got one.
Curley Byrd decided to tilt after other windmills. He resigned as president of the University in 1954 to run for Governor of Maryland. In his tenure as president, enrollment had increased from 3,400 to 15,700. The schools’ budget had grown from $3 million to $20 million. The value of the school’s physical plant had increased from $5 million to $65 million, including Byrd Stadium and Cole Field House. But there were complaints that he’d spent so much on athletics that academics had suffered. The new president, Dr. Wilson Elkins, was determined to put athletics and football back in perspective.

In Maryland’s second game of the 1954 season, they lost a titanic battle in Los Angeles with UCLA, 7-12. The Bruins went undefeated and won the coach’s version of the national title, (Ohio State was #1 in the writer’s poll hat year). Later they lost a 7-9 nail biter to up and coming Miami, (Florida). The Canes were a top ten team that year, losing one game by a point to another coming power, Auburn. Maryland also suffered a tie to lowly Wake Forest. The frustrating 7-2-1 ended with a 74-13 slaughter over another Faurot Missouri team. Tatum must hold the all-time record for 74-13 wins.

Faurot almost gained revenge in the 1955 opener but Maryland won 13-12. Then they gained revenge against UCLA in College Park, 7-0. They went on to run the regular season table for the third time in three years. They reached #1 in the polls after the UCLA game but lost it to Michigan after the Wolverine’s deceivingly impressive 26-2 win over Army, (which was the product of 9 turnovers by the Cadets). They moved back into the #1 spot in week 7. Despite not losing, they were eventually overtaken by Oklahoma, (the normal rule of retaining your position in the polls if you don’t lose didn’t seem to apply in this year). They also fell behind an 8-1 Michigan State team after they beat Michigan. They wound up rated #3 and matched again in the Orange Bowl with Oklahoma. In what turned out to be the finale of the Tatum era, they got beat again, 6-20.

In 1951 Maryland had been sited in a court case for over-emphasizing football, the judge noting that 60 of Maryland’s 97 players came from out of state. That would not be shocking now but in those days the idea was that a state university was primarily for the citizens of the state. Governor Theodore McKeldin ordered an investigation to see if the athletic program “is based on deceit, whether it invades the rules of intercollegiate sports and whether it would bring dishonor to the university.” The report found nothing it considered unethical and that only three players “of the first 33” were below the “average standing in class”. Then in 1954, a report by something called the “Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools” found Maryland had “flexible academic standards“, that football was “overemphasized”, that “athletic scholarships were out of proportion with the rest of the school’s grants” and that the recruiting rules of both the NCAA and ACC had been violated. Athletes totaled 8% of the student body but received 78% of the scholarship money, 54% going to football players. And 73% of the football team was from out of state. (By comparison, 28 of Syracuse’s 91 players in 2012 are from New York State. That puts us at 69% out of state.)

Tatum was not only the football coach but the athletic director and he had tired of that role. The new President, Dr. Wilson Elkins, despite being a former football player, (at Texas), was determined to bring the athletic department and the football program under control and re-emphasize academics. “It think a school can have a strong athletic program and a strong academic program. We are opening up next year additional scholarships for non-athletes in the amount of $10,000, (10 scholarships). These are state scholarships that formerly went to students. I hope (athletic scholarships) can stay the same. Sports will have to depend more on it’s own funds and on outside help.” That opened the door for “booster clubs” to finance and thus influence athletic programs. But in the short run it made football success, or at least dominance, more difficult. Elkins also established a rule that and out-of-state student had to maintain a “C” average to play.

“Tatum rebuked almost every part of the report. His solution to the scholarship situation was to “Add more money (to the budget) for non-athletic scholarships.” Regarding complaints about athletes being given ‘soft jobs’, he said “Does anyone in their right mind expect an athlete to hold down a 20-30 hour a week job after all he puts in on studies and practice?” Tatum claimed he had given out an average of only 28 scholarships a year and 90% of those who had completed their eligibility had graduated.

But the handwriting was on the wall. “Although Elkins had not criticized Tatum, it was still clear that he was going to correct the apparent deficiencies despite the effect it might have on the athletic program. Tatum no longer enjoyed the free reign he had had under Byrd. By 1955 he could see that maintaining the type of program he wanted was impossible.” He announced he was leaving to coach his alma mater, North Carolina. “It’s like a br’er rabbit returning to the briar patch.” But he tearfully told a friend, “I don’t want to leave. I love it here. It’s been very kind to me. But I have to.”

Former quarterback Tommy Mont became the Maryland coach for the 1956 season. “I knew there would be some changes but I thought I could do the job. I was a graduate of Maryland and I liked the area. I took the job with the idea if things didn’t work out and if Maryland improved its academic standing, things would be worked back up again. I never saw it happen.” Football scholarships were cut to 18 a year, (Ben Schwartzwalder started out at 12 in 1949, which was increased to 16 in 1952 and later to 22, eventually reaching 25 per “The Syracuse Football Story“. The dates of the last two increases were not stated). The Maryland football roster had been 93 players in Tatum’s last year. Under Mont, it shrunk to 51 players. “he was asked to recruit more form Maryland high schools, even though the caliber of play was not good.”

Mont’s first team started out being ranked #6 out of force of habit. After all, they were “Maryland”. Per Street & Smiths: Coach Tommy Mont is blessed with marvelous material from the Tatum regime. He has no major personnel problem since there is ample experience to fill the shoes of four departed regulars.”

But after being knocked off by Syracuse in the opener, they tumbled to a 2-7-1 record. Mont had 23 letterman back from a 10-1 team but injuries swept through the team. 13 of his 22 starters missed at least one game. Quarterback Frank Tamburello got drafted, (and not by the NFL). “Injuries, flunkouts and the draft killed us.” It was the beginning of a stretch of 17 years in which Maryland would have only three winning seasons. Mont only lasted three of them, getting fired after a 13-18-1 record.

The one highlight of his career was winning a game against Tatum’s North Carolina team on a day when Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip on a visit to the United States, attended the game:
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/the-queen-is-at-home-aka-the-queen-is-home
That was Ted Kerschner going 81 yards for the go ahead score in the 21-7 win. “The delirious players carried Mont on their shoulders to meet the Queen and she seemed to delight in the break with protocol.” Mont said “I’m going to revel in this for the rest of my life.”

It was a different story for the former coach. “On the other side of the field , Tatum walked slowly to the locker room, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched. He was a lonely figure.” Back at the “rabbit patch” as he continually called his alma mater, he was not able to immediately re-create the success he had had at Maryland. He also went 2-7-1 in 1956. He improved to 6-4 the next two seasons. After a round of golf he developed a fever that wouldn’t go away. He had to be hospitalized. He eventually fell into a coma and died on July 23, 1959 at the age of 46. It was determined he’d been bitten by a tic and died of what was determined “to be a
rickettsial disease "similar to typhus and RockyMountain spotted fever".
Curley Byrd lost his race for Governor in 1954. Typically, he held several different positions, often at once for the next several years. He became involved in administering the fishing business in Maryland, head of the Tidewater Fisheries Commission, the Potomac Fisheries Commission, the Commission on Chesapeake affairs, etc., bringing to an end something called “The Oyster Wars” with the State of Virginia. He also became involved in banking, helping to form the Suburban Trust Company. He was active in the Loyal Order of Moose and the head of the local Rotary club. He also created something called “Defense Orientation Conference Association”, which “educates civilians on the Defense Department’s programs and policies. But even perpetual motions machines age and run down. Curley Byrd died of a heart condition at the age of 81 in 1970.

So now you know the back-story of the 1955 Syracuse-Maryland game. This was their last great team of their great era, as prominent an opponent as Syracuse had had in the Ben Schwartzwalder Era and one of the best teams ever to come to Syracuse to play a football game.

 

[SWC75]

THE BUILD-UP
　
Bill Reddy of the Post-Standard said that the Orange “came back from the Orange Bowl Saturday. The onus that has been carried by Syracuse University football teams since that shellacking by Alabama in the 1953 Orange Bowl is being forgotten now that Coach Ben Schwartzwalder’s team showed, as it did against Army Saturday, that it can tackle a ‘big one’ and win….Ever since the game, there has been discussion as to whether Syracuse could have won it on a dry field. It’s a discussion which will get nowhere because football is a game which is played under the conditions which prevail and certainly under Saturday’s conditions, (which were rather frightful), Syracuse was superior in all departments. Those of us who watched it and thrilled to the crusading spirit of the Orangemen, came away convinced that the Syracuse team wanted to win their game so whole-heartedly that it would have won on a field dry as a bone- and possibly by a much bigger margin.” Orange Nation was feeling it’s oats.

Ben Schwartzwalder said this was his biggest win yet: “Up to now, the biggest win any team of ours has had, in my opinion, was the 25-7 victory over Penn State in 1952. That one was the win we needed for the Lambert Trophy and the boys got it in a great display of football. But this one, over Army, is a lot bigger than that, I think. I’m proud of them all.” Of Maryland, he said “We’re solemn all over again. You have to be solemn when you think about Maryland.”

Rocky Pirro had been sent to scout Maryland against UCLA, Wake Forest and North Carolina, (wins of 7-0, 28-7 and 25-7 ), and came back calling the Terps “the closest college football to a professional outfit I have seen….a big, speedy, T-formation squad powerful on attack and strong on defense…They‘re big, they move well, they don‘t get excited….I just never saw any college football team like Maryland. They just take their time, execute their plays and for all the world look like a professional football team. It certainly doesn‘t look like any college group I ever saw.” He said that quarterback Frank Tamburello was “a polished play director”. Halfback Ed Vereb had scored three TDs and passed for another against the Tar Heels, who gained only 18 yards against Maryland. Howard Dare was the other halfback and Phil Perlo the fullback. They ranked 1st in the nation in rushing defense, (40 yards a game) and #4 overall. Their line out-weighed Syracuse’s by 10 pounds per man. They’d won 10 games in a row. They were ranked #2 behind Michigan in the polls and favored by 2 touchdowns. But Army had been favored by three.

Even Rocky was cocky, saying “We’ll be a stronger team to oppose Maryland than the three teams I saw…Syracuse will be the toughest team they‘ve played all season. The Terrapins can only put 11 men on the field, the same as we can.” That was a big statement since UCLA, at least according to the coach’s poll, was the defending national champions. Jim Tatum also had scouting reports from all three Syracuse games. He called the Orange “a balanced array”. Maryland was one of three teams remaining on SU’s schedule, (of 5) that were still unbeaten at this point, the others being Holy Cross and West Virginia. The two teams had not met since 1939, with the all-time series being 3-3-1.

Jack Slattery said “In Jim Tatum’s Maryland Terrapins the Orangemen have to face one of the truly great teams in the nation. Maryland has the material to run the Orange right out of Archbold Stadium into Hendricks Field. And Tatum’s the kind of many who won’t stop them if he can.” Tatum said of own team, “We think we have a good college player at every position. We have enough seniors to provide experience. We have enough juniors to provide eagerness and we have enough sophomores to make mistakes and create excitement.” .

The Herald Journal reported “Schwartzwalder is planning new offensive tactics through the air and tricky ground operations for the coming test.” The Post Standard: “Coach Ben Schwartwalder spent a good deal of yesterday’s practice routine trying to polish Bill Orange’s ground attack. He’s hopeful that good deception and faking will spring such speed backs as Jimmy Brown and Jimmy Ridlon for long yardage.” Jim Brown had gained 224 yards in 39 carries, a 5.7 average. Ed Albright had completed 67% of his passes, but that was only 6 of 9. But he did throw for 120 yards, 20 per completion. And he’d done that with injuries to both hands. Wednesday’s Herald has pictures of Albright throwing the ball and end Tommy Richardson catching a pass with a long black arrow connecting them. Thursday’s Herald had a big headline “MARYLAND EXPECTS HEAVY AIR ATTACK”.

Shirley Povich of the Washington Post reported that the Terps were angry that they’d been dropped down to #2 behind Michigan. “I know a fellow could get tired of hearing that the only rugged football being played is in the Big Ten, at Notre Dame or at a couple of spots on the west coast…Michigan, for example, zoomed to it’s #1 ranking ahead of Maryland by knocking off Army. Well, Syracuse did the same thing and just as convincingly. So now the Terrapins could promote themselves smartly by beating Syracuse.”

An unnamed Army spokesman said, “Syracuse was bigger and tougher than Michigan. Army took a worse physical beating in the Syracuse game than in the Michigan game. They quickly pointed out that the play of both Michigan and Army was clean but Syracuse was bigger, hit harder and did us more damage.” Jim Tatum said of Syracuse, “They played Army off it’s feet.”

Joe Blair, the Maryland SID, said “Our club has been excellent on defense all season. But the offense hasn’t come to what Coach Tatum expected of it. In the spring, before the season started, Coach thought this would be his greatest team. But injuries changed the picture considerably. Offensively, we just grind out the yardage and then somebody manages to get the ball over the goal line.”
Tackle Jim Brill had suffered a pinched nerve late in the Army game and was doubtful for Maryland. Lineman Jerry Cashman and fullback Don Laacksonen were also “banged up” but expected to play in the game.

Jack Slattery of the Herald-Journal praised Don Althouse, saying that in his first tour with the Orange in 1952, he had “displayed a disinterest in books” but during his Army hitch, he came to realize the importance of a college degree. “Ben Schwartzwalder didn’t even count on Althouse. He knew of Don’s diffident attitude toward studies and just didn’t consider him in his football plans. Don contacted Ben and thoroughly convinced him of his desire to work in the classroom so he returned.” He “hit the books” and also developed into a fine player, who “punts well, he’s a strong defender…he caught the first touchdown pass and sent Army skidding towards defeat. But more than that, his very presence on the team made it possible for Schwartzwalder to move Jimmy Ridlon from end to a halfback post. The lessons Don Althouse learned in the Army bore fruit for Syracuse University. For the Army’s seat of learning at West Point it bore bitter fruit.”

Friday’s Herald had pictures of the faces, (from ‘action’ shots taken on the practice field), across the top of the sports page and a listing of the starting line-ups for each team, with weights, (but not heights) listed. Maryland’s line, from end to end, weighed an average of 211 pounds per man with the biggest being Mike Sandusky at 240. SU’s line weighed 200 pounds per man, with the biggest being Jerry Cashman at 214. Jack Slattery said that Tatum had a “giant squad- eight teams strong” when he saw them in the spring but the paper said the traveling squad was 44 strong. They also reported that “Tatum never puts his boys through an outdoor practice the day before a contest either at home or away but goes over the opposition’s personnel and operations thoroughly in his inside talk to the players.”

Slattery said that prior to the Army game, he had a feeling Syracuse would win but for this game he had “10 feelings….So far I haven’t got a winner. First I have Maryland defeating the Orange in a rout. Then I look at the record of the Terps and Jim Tatum coached teams. There’s no ground to believe there’ll be a rout. (There isn’t?) Then I see the Orange staging the biggest upset of the year with a victory over Maryland. But that, I find, doesn’t stick with me….I just can’t see any team in the nation beating them. That match over and another one beings- this one has Maryland as the victor in a hard-fought game with the margin of victory being sufficient but not exactly comfortable.”

CBS decided to televise the game as it’s “Eastern Game of the Week”. The Post Standard heralded it as “The Game of the East”. The weather would be 52 degrees with only a light wind. Maryland was bringing it’s 150 piece band, (the number of tubas was unknown), and 1000 students and fans with the team for the game. The Herald warned travelers that there wasn’t a hotel room in the area that wasn’t taken already. “Filled up are Hotels Syracuse, Onondaga, Yates and others. Motels are jammed. So are tourist homes and cabins.“ A total crowd of 30,000 was expected, (the listed capacity of Archbold Stadium at that time was 40,000). One of them would Dr. Wilson Elkins, the President of “Maryland University” was one of them. “If Dr. Elkins is critical of the selection of plays of the Terps ace quarterback Frank Tamburello, it because of his experience. At his alma mater, Texas University, the Maryland president was an eight letterman and starting quarterback during the 1930 and 1931 seasons.”

JimTatum was pretty confident. When told the Maryland fans had planned a victory celebration on Sunday at the Hotel Syracuse, he said he’d hold the team over so they could attend it.

 

[SWC75]

THE GAME
　
I have a VHS tape I made of a newsreel about the 1955 college football season several years back- I think it was on AMC or TCM. One of the games covered is the 1955 Syracuse-Maryland game. They only have 7 plays in the highlight clip. I have not been able to find this on U-Tube so I will describe those plays when I get to them in the narrative.

The tape shows some shots of the stands. It was the largest crowd, (32,500), ever to see a football game in Syracuse when the opponent wasn’t Colgate. Fans are seen joining hands and moving in unison back and forth, a sort of primordial ‘wave’. It was an era when being a spectator meant being a participant, with organized cheers, card sections, etc. If those fans walked into the Carrier Dome for a game today, I wonder what they would think?

The articles lead off with tributes to the dominance of the Maryland team. “Mightly Maryland continued unbeaten by crushing Syracuse, 34-13...Jim Tatum’s red-jerseyed charges displayed superiority in speed and power…The Terps left no doubt of their class in scoring impressively in their initial appearance against a Ben Schwartzwalder-coached array of underdogs…..The strongest team to show here in years, unbeaten Maryland rolled over an out-classed Syracuse eleven for a 34-13 victory…The Terps amazed the standing-room-only crowd with the speed and power of their attack as they built a two touchdown lead in the first period and were never in danger thereafter. Syracuse, which had hoped to contain the Terp’s all-round offense on the strength of a brilliant showing against Army the week before, tried to turn the trick with a ground attack but were unable to against consistently against the swift and beefy Maryland line.”

On SU’s second play from scrimmage, Jim Brown fumbled a pitch-out from Albright and Bob Pellegrini of Maryland recovered at the SU 29. Ed Vereb swept for 5 yards and Phil Perlo went off tackle for four more. Vereb got a first down to the 18 on another sweep. Still another sweep by Vereb got the ball to the Orange 9. Tamburello went up the middle to the 5. He then lost a year but Perlo “ripped through from the 6” and Bob Laughery converted for a 0-7 Maryland lead.

SU was forced to punt and Howie Dare, (great name for a punt returner), returned it 42 yards but much of that was lost due to a clip. “On the next play Ed Albright intercepted a Vereb pass as he out-wrestled (Russ) Dennis for the ball while both were falling to the ground.” Althouse again had to punt and Dare again had a good return nullified by a clip that put the ball on the Maryland 28.
The Terps drove 72 yards for a second score. Tamburello hit Jim Parsons for 39 yards. The clincher came on a 20 yard pass from Vereb to Dennis. It had been 4th and 13. This is the first play on the newsreel. Vereb takes a pitch-out, runs right and throws it to Dennis in the end zone. Russ is being chased by Ferd Kuszala, (#24) and Gus Zaso, (#36) but they get there just to late to break the play up. They tackled Dennis but all three are 2-3 yards into the east end zone. This time Perlo kicked the point and it was 0-14.

At the end of the first quarter the Orange began a 70 yard march. Albright passed to Brown for 13 yards and then Jim ran another 7 to breach Maryland territory for the first time as the quarter ended. Two plays from this drive are on the newsreel and they are interesting. Ed Albright passes to Don Althouse for 14 yards. What’s interesting is how he does it. He takes the snap and leaps in the air, using both hands to fire what in basketball is known as a chest pass to Althouse who has cut just behind the line and over the middle from his end position. The quickness of the throw catches the Maryland defenders flat-footed. The pass is completed between two linebackers, who are dragged forward as they tackle Althouse.

Then comes the touchdown play. Albright, (#23), is under center but pivots to his left and moves to the side, his back to the line. Maryland jumps offsides but it won‘t matter. The ball is directly snapped to Zaso, who runs to the line and hands it off to Albright, who then pitches it to Mark Hoffman, (#18) who sprints outside and throws a pass to Althouse, (#87) who has gotten behind the defense for the score. Both newspaper accounts got the play wrong, saying it was Zaso who pitched to Hoffman. One said that Albright pitched the ball to Zaso before he pitched it to Hoffman. That’s how confusing the play was but with the newsreel, you can see what happened, (after running it back several times).

In the old days, faking and misdirection seemed to be much more of an art form than it is now. The plays were more choreographed and the fakes carried out with more panache than you see now. The modern game in some ways seems more primitive, less imaginative. Having multiple players in the backfield allowed for more versatility as well as more blocking at the point of attack. Spreading the team out has it’s advantages, but you lose some things as well.

Jim Brown’s extra point pulled the Orange to within 7-14. It was as close as they would get. “The Terps were marching downfield inexorably after the next kick-off and the ball had reached the Syracuse 26 in a series of swift plays when Perlo fumbled and Ted Warholak recovered.” The best SU could do was another Don Althouse punt and “Vereb led a drive which carried to the Syracuse 25 before (Ron) Tyler halted the burst by intercepting Tamburello’s pass on the goal line and ran it out the Syracuse 16.
“A fumble by Ferd Kuscala who dropped the ball after a 17 yard gain, gave the Terps their chance for their third touchdown.” In the newsreel, Dare sweeps around left end, (and toward the west goal), for 8 yards to the SU 10 as the newsreel announcer intones “But Maryland was too busy scoring to hold Syracuse down”. (?) Vereb goes over from the three through a gaping hole, only having to leap one prone defender. Laughery’s placement was wide and the halftime score was Syracuse 7, Maryland 20.

Jim Parsons returned Pete Schwert’s second half kick-off to the Terp 46. Vereb then broke away for a 30 yard run, bursting up the middle before being tackled by the SU safety, #44. That’s the only time Big Jim appears on the newsreel. Two carries by Perlo got the ball to the 4 and Vereb got it to the 2. Healy scored but the play was called back by an offsides penalty. Tamburello got it back to the 3 and Healy scored again. This is the final play on the newsreel. Tamburello just gets the ball off to Healey while tripping over his own feet and falling to the turf. Healy muscles his way in to the west end zone behind a wall of blockers. Perlo converted for a 7-27 lead.

But the Terps weren’t done. “The Orange drove to the 50 but then Albright, chased hard, lost 25 yards on two passing attempts.” Don Althouse went back for a punt only to see the ball sail over his head. He chased it down and tried to kick it but it was blocked and Pellegrini recovered on the SU 7. Healy swept left end for the score. Laughery made it 7-34.

The game became a comedy of errors for a time. Chuck Strid recovered a Dare fumble on the Maryland 42 but the Orange surrendered the ball on downs at the 36 after they declined further passing following Albright’s debacle. Maryland drove to the Syracuse 35 but fumbled again as Ed Coffin wound up with the ball at the 38. Syracuse put on a drive but this time it was Coffin who fumbled on the Maryland 38.

There was one more. Tamburello fumbled on the Maryland 32 to set up SU’s closing score. Brown got 9 yards around left end. Ed Coffin carried it to the 20. Ron Tyler ran for 9 yards and then Brown did the same. Big Jim then dove over the goal line from the 2. The extra point was botched due to a bobbled snap and the final score was Syracuse 13 Maryland 34.

The game was generously covered with photos in the Sunday papers. Jimmy Brown is shown catching the 13 yard pass in the first SU scoring drive. He looks to be ’tight rope walking’ along the sideline with a Maryland player a step behind him and Ed Coffin in the background. The photographer appears to be just a few feet in front of the play. Russ Dennis’ touchdown grab is shown from behind the end zone, although it looks like a more placid play than it does on the newsreel. Dennis is shown apparently standing in the end zone waiting for the ball. Gaso and Kuscala are not yet in the picture although Billy Micho, (#46) is 5-10 yards in front of the play, having leapt for the ball but, realizing it’s over his head, has turned in vain to watch the play.

There’s two shots of Ron Tyler’s goal line interception, one with the pass in the air and the Maryland receiver at about the 7, turning to look for the ball as he heads for the goal line. Tyler, (#16) is running along the goal line from the center of the field. The pass was apparently under-thrown as the next picture is a close-up of Tyler leaping to make a ’basket’ catch of the ball behind the confused Terrapin, who is still looking up for the ball with his arms outstretched.

There’s a picture in “The Syracuse Football Story” on page 191 of Jim Brown on a sweep around end against what I recognize to be Maryland. The caption is “The unsinkable Jimmy Brown sails into some opponents”. (My Dad always loved that shot and caption.) I had always imagined this to be from the 1956 game but it is from the 1955 game. (SU wore it’s all orange uniforms in the 1956 game but here they are in their traditional white jerseys with orange helmets and pants. Maryland is in dark- red- jerseys with white pants and helmets and a triple stripe- red, gold, red over the top). The same photo was displayed in a cropped version in the newspaper. It’s a four yard gain in the second period. As can be seen in the full picture, Jim’s interference has been defeated on the play and are sprawled on the ground. Two Maryland players, still upright, are waiting for him with two more on the way. I believe the same play is presented in the Post Standard under the caption “Orange star lugs the leather.” This one is from the side and the press box. It says it’s a three yard gain and the quarter is not given but the same players seem to be in the right place.

Phil Perlo is on the ground in the end zone, clutching the football for the first score, with his blocker next to him and a couple of Syracuse defenders looking down at them. Don Althouse is shown scoring in a long shot. He’s cruised into the end zone already with a lone Maryland defender several steps behind. Ed Vereb is shown hitting the turf in the end zone with Maryland’s third score in two different pictures, one from the left and one from the right, both beyond the end zone. Ron Tyler is shown on his 9 yard run, setting up Jim Brown’s score on the second SU touchdown. It’s the end of the play and Ron is bring roughly brought to the ground by several Terrapins. Jack Healy is shown scoring the final Maryland score after the blocked punt. Jack is either grimacing or smiling, (I’d guess the latter), as he gallops past the last SU defender towards the end zone.

The Terps dominated the stats, out-gaining the Orange 179-322 and out-rushing them 115-221. It was a turnover-plagued game, with Maryland intercepting 2 passes and recovering 3 fumbles but coughing up 5 fumbles and throwing an interception of their own. They also had 9 penalties for 75 yards to only 3 for 25 for the home team. Syracuse had some consolation in rushing for 115 yards on a team that had been giving up only 40. Jim Brown, “a bearcat on defense and a battler on attack”, gained 74 of those yards on 16 carries.

But Maryland had achieved their goal of thrashing the team that had beaten Army, just as Michigan had done to steal the #1 ranking from them. They’d beaten the Wolverines by proxy. Syracuse had once again seen a vision of what a powerhouse team could be and they weren’t looking in a mirror. Ben Schwartzwalder said “We made a couple of mistakes- really bad mistakes- and that’s something you can’t do against a club as good as Maryland…..If we didn’t make those errors and set up a couple of scores for them I am sure it would have been a more interesting game to watch.”

Syracuse’s running success was in part due to the defense the Terrapins chose to play. “They played us soft” said Schwartzwalder. “Every team they played this year tried to pass against them and they couldn’t do it. They looked for us to pass and by playing us soft made it almost impossible for us to throw. In fact, I believe we might have thrown too much.” Nonetheless, per Jack Slattery, “The press box opinion was that Jimmy Brown was the best back on the field, better even than Maryland’s Vereb, (who ran for 132 yards in 15 carries). Stanley Woodard, veteran of many football campaigns, classed Brown as the best back he’d seen this year. The big fellow from Long Island played all but the final minutes of the game.” Don Althouse, just getting used to his new teammates after a stint in the Army, said “That Jimmy Brown sure proved to the world that he can carry the mail against good ball teams, didn’t he? Two weeks in a row he showed them how to run.” There would be many more lessons.

Schwartzwalder was asked if the team profited from playing a team like Maryland. “I’m sure we’ll be a better team because of the game we played today. Of course, I hate to take a licking like that but the fellows came out of it pretty well and we had to learn a lesson playing such a fine team.” He was also asked if he resented Coach Tatum leaving his starters in as long as he did. “Not at all. Maryland’s shooting for a #1 ranking and bowl bid and it’s their job to go out and get all they can. That’s part of the game. “ It was a lesson Ben would learn well.

Maryland would go on run the table, with their third perfect regular season in five years. They were again matched up with Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl in a game that, to modern eyes, would settle the national championship, (which Oklahoma had officially won, there being no poll after the bowls). It was the end of Maryland’s glory era.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsEP1V7ahwk
Then there would be another rematch- with Syracuse to open the 1956 season.