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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 367206, member: 289"] THE GAME The crowd was reported to be about 16,000. A heavy rain provided for a muddy, slippery field., even with the wonderful new tarpaulin. The home team came out unintimidated by the visitors, forcing them to punt and then putting on a 69 yards drive that took up most of the first period. Included was a 40 yard pass, Albright to Ridlon that got called back because someone was offsides. Billy Micho had a 24 yard run. The Orange moved to a first down at the Pitt 6. Jim Brown powered the ball to the 1 on the next play. But another offsides call moved them back 5 yards and the drive ended on an incomplete pass to Brown. But SU got the ball back deep in Pitt territory after an exchange of punts when back-up quarterback Darrell Lewis fumbled and Don Laacksonen recovered at the Pitt 25. Pitt stiffened up until, “on fourth down, when, from the 18 yard line, Albright fired a pretty pass down the middle to Ridlon, who shook loose at the goal line and gathered it in for the touchdown.” Back in the day we didn’t have kicking specialists and Jim Brown attempted the conversion. It was wide right. (Actually it seems to me that the lack of specialists made this play more interesting). But the Orange had dominated the first quarter and had a 6-0 lead over the #7 team in the nation. But the Panthers “began to flash real blocking power for the first time” on their next possession, marching 66 yards to score. They finally penetrated Syracuse territory 22 minutes into the game. Tommy Jenkins finished off the grinding drive when he “slammed inside left guard, got some strong blocking in the secondary and stumbled into the end zone.” Ambrose Bagamery, (now doesn’t that name sound like a specialist?) kicked the extra point to give the visitors the lead, 6-7, which proved to be the halftime score. SU returned the second half kick-off to the orange 41, then suffered a 5 yard delay of game penalty. No problem. Eddie Albright dropped back and passed to Billy Micho who caught it at the Pitt 35, evaded one defender and motored down the sideline 64 yards for the score. Unfortunately Browns kick as again inaccurate but SU had a 12-7 lead. Corky Cost (!?!) returned the kickoff to midfield but the orange forced a punt. At this point the Pitt defense took over and tackled Albright for consecutive losses, forcing another punt. The Panthers took over at the Orange 31 and three plays later Corky Salvaterra launched a pass to the end zone and Joe Walton out-leaped two orange defenders for the ball. This time even Ambrose Bagamery couldn’t kick the ball through the uprights but Pitt still led, 13-12. Jim Ridlon returned the kick-off to the 45 but fumbled it there and Pitt had the ball again. Cost launched a pass that Louis Cimarolli caught on the 14. Eddie Albright made the tackle but was “knocked out for the rest of the game. It was revealed after the game that Albright had “cracked a bone in his throwing hand”. Cimarolli then ran it to the 1 on a sweep. Two plays later Pete Neft pushed it over the goal line and Bagamery converted to make it 12-20. The Panthers had bottled up Jim Brown, (28 yards in 12 carries) and now we had no passing game with Albright out. They now used “double-barreled blocking (which proved) powerful enough to grind out yardage in the late going when the undermanned Orange faded under the continued pressure up front.” Ben first went with John Pannucci to run the team but he was unable to engineer a first down and Pitt took the punt and launched a drive that went to the SU 8, where the defense stiffened and a fourth down pass was batted down. Ed Ackley seemed to have gotten the Orange out of trouble with a 27 yard burst but a backfield in motion penalty, (remember those?) nullified the play. Ferdinand Kuzala had replaced Pannucci and he somehow channeled the spirit of the still unborn Troy Nunes, retreating into the end zone to escape a third down pass rush and was tackled there by Bob Roseborough to complete the scoring at 12-22. Pitt out-gained SU 190-230. Behind their powerful lien they out-rushed the Orange 95-185. But the home team out-passed the visitors, 92-45 thanks to the long play to Micho. And they had competed well with a nationally ranked team to open the season. It boded well for the rest of a difficult schedule. Photos in the Herald Journal showed Ridlon catching the first SU touchdown. He’s turned and is catching the ball with both hands extended in a sort of Willie Mays basket catch while Corky Salvaterra and Dick Bowne close in on him, too late to stop the score. Syracuse is in it’s by now traditional white jerseys with orange pants and helmets. Pitt is in blue jerseys with gold helmets and pants with blue trim. The numbers are bright so they were probably white. Below the Ridlon score is a picture of Tommy Jenkins scoring Pitt’s first touchdown. He’s bolted past several blockers whoa re still on their feet while the orange defenders they have blocked are on the ground, “knocked from their feet by the deadly Pitt blocking.” Actually, they were not dead, just irrelevant. The Post Standard had a shot of the Ridlon score, taken from behind the goal posts, (which were at the back of the end zone, contrary to what you see in most films from the 50’s which show the goal posts to be on the goal line. The shot shows that Bobby Grier was also moving in of the play from Ridlon’s left. It didn’t matter. They also had a shot of the Jenkins score, from a farther distance. That’s all there was and since, both scores were first half plays, I assume a newspaper deadline was somehow involved. [/QUOTE]

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