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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 858844, member: 289"] THE BUILD-UP Stanley Woodward wrote a column complaining that “Financial aid to athletes in the Big Ten Conference has reached staggering proportions.” Players had ‘jobs’ where they had to perform little or no work for their salaries. Ohio State had been voted out of the Rose Bowl “on the ground that the players hadn’t done any non-football work for their salaries and had borrowed money from their coach.” Woodward credited Michigan State’s great success to “having hired teams that seem to rise above the conference average. They have apparently worked with greater efficiency than the rest…It is somehow difficult to understand, however, how Big Ten schools get certain of their heroes past the academic office.” Fortunately, we have now solved all these problems… The coaching staff got the bad news that Ron Luciano had reinjured his right knee late in the West Virginia game and would be out for at least two weeks. The 223 pound sophomore had been backing up Chuck Strid but, per the Herald Journal, was “probably through with football for 1956.” Meanwhile Army was getting a tackle back from a “disciplinary punishment” he had been “working off”. Reid was 6-1, 200 but that’s about what most linemen were in those days. His nickname was “Tanks”. Joe Cygler, Army’s left half, was out for the game, to be replaced by Bob Munger. Ben was also worried about his pass defense. West Virginia wasn’t a particularly good passing team but had had some success against the Orange. “Micki Timarki had too much time to pass because we were chasing down possible receivers and if we don’t do something about that situation, we’ll be in real trouble.” Bill Reddy noted “It could just as easily been a tie score because the Orange pass defense was so poor that only the inability of the Mountaineers to hold onto good passes prevented at least one more West Virginia touchdown.” For the second straight year, Syracuse was playing Army a week after the Cadets had had an undefeated record go up in smoke at Michigan. In 1955 it was a 2-26 clobbering. In 1956, the score had been 14-48. And for the second straight year the reason for the one-sided score had been turnovers. The Cadets had only been out-gained by 219-246 and out-first downed 11-13. Army had fumbled the ball an incredible 17 times in the two losses to Michigan. To Red Blaik, it “defied explanation. It wasn’t on the hand-offs. We weren’t getting hit hard. We just lost our poise.” They had a good passer in Bob Kyasky, (Tony’s older brother), a graduate of the Manlius Military Academy. Reddy: “Bob is a 9.7 man in the 100 yard dash and his great speed is a real threat. When he goes back into passing position or when he keeps on the option series, he puts extra pressure on the defense because he sees daylight and he knows what to do with it.” Kyasky was “the fastest gridder in West Point history”. (No he wasn’t- Glenn Davis was a 9.6 man). Arnie Burdick was worried about the Syracuse punts, which would be returned by Kyasky and his almost equally speedy teammate, Dick Murtland, who were known to hand off to eachother. Syracuse had punted 13 times in their first three games. One was blocked and two more were “returned right down the kicker’s throat”. Only one had proved unreturnable. That one went out of bounds. The opposition had 202 yards in punt returns- four times as much as the Orange. Syracuse had gained an average of only 18 yards in field position on its punts. Arnie was also concerned about our kickoffs. Ben had his kickers using a “screwball or flat kick”, which resulted in an average opposition starting point of their own 37. When Arnie asked Ben about this “He merely shrugged his shoulders and said ‘I hope that we get the opportunity to kick off plenty Saturday.” They didn’t- so it didn’t much matter. Reddy said the game was for the “temporary championship of New York State”, that is until the Colgate game- the Red Raiders had already disposed of Cornell. He wondered how Jimmy Brown would do, saying he was “terrific (against West Virginia), just as he was in the Maryland game. In between he was hobbled successfully by Pittsburgh. The Army game offers a chance for the Manhasset Marauder to prove that he’s not an in and out performer.” Reddy was also impressed with Jim Ridlon, “who is somewhat obscured by the shadow which Brown casts but, if you want personal vote, is the best all-around football player on a good Syracuse team. He doesn’t get the spectacular gains but he gets the short yardage that’s needed. And he defends with a fury that nobody on his team can surpass. “ Arnie Burdick described him as “Born and brought up on the stormy banks of the Hudson River at Nyack, NY, just a forward pass from West Point….In high school he was a back, a hero at the local high school, one of the smaller ones in Rockland County. It was questionable that he’d be able to make the grade in the faster, bigger league. As a soph, he was an end who sat on the bench more than he played…Ridlon has been attracting more and more conversation. More and more rival coaches have been worrying about him- they’ve had to ‘defense’ him. In other words they think so highly of his talents that they take this into account when they set their special defenses to stop Syracuse. More and more scouts have rated him highly on their draft lists for the coming winter meetings. And more and more football fans have been arguing the relative merits of Ridlon vs. Jim Brown. The fact that Ridlon is mentioned in the same breath with Brown is testimony enough that he’s a terrific football player.” There was a picture of Jim in the Friday paper, a practice field shot of him preparing to punt the ball, (on the run, it seems- maybe it was a drop-kick?). The caption read “At the rate Jim Ridlon, South Nyack senior, is moving on the field this fall, he’s going to be remembered as one of Syracuse University’s all-time stars. Ridlon is the most versatile back in the top unit, clicking on carries, on both ends of passes, interceptions and punting. Army’s scouts have given an awesome report on him for Saturday’s Archbold Stadium clash.” Jim Brown was leading the nation in rushing yards per game with 123.7 yards per game and 6.9 yards per carry. . The nation’s leading passer was Stanford’s John Brodie who “avoids spring practice to play golf”. Despite this, “Brodie has run more plays than any other player, thrown more passes and accounted for more than half his team’s yardage and averaged more than 15 pass completions a game, a pace that would give him a record if he continues.” Syracuse was out-rushing its opponents 244 yards per game to 166 and out-passing them 81 to 68. An article was entitled “Lasse No Dog”. The reference was to Dick Lasse “the sturdy left end who looks more and more like the best Syracuse end of Ben Schwartzwalder’s eight year reign”. Ben Schwartzwalder: “He’s the kind of guy who could play on the first team of any of the teams we play”. Ferd Kuzala appeared to be fully healthy again and was working out with the starting team with Alan Cann at fullback and the two Jims at halfback. Chuck Zimmerman was running the second team with Ed Coffin, Tom Stephens and Ernie Jackson. Syracuse was ranked 13th by the writers and 14th the coach’s poll. Army was unranked. They had beaten VMI 32-12 and Penn state 14-7 before the Michigan debacle. SU also led the Lambert Poll, followed by Pittsburgh, (who had been upset by California the week after downing the Orange), Penn State and Army. Will Griimsley predicted a 21-7 Syracuse victory in his weekly column of predictions, saying “Jim Brown is one of the country’s best running backs and Army is still reeling from the Michigan disaster. Dick Dunkel favored the ‘Cuse by 12 in his statistically-based column. Jack Cuddy simply predicted an SU win because “there’s still too much butter on the Cadet’s fingers”. The official line in Friday’s paper was that Syracuse was a one point favorite. Former Coach Chick Meehan predicted that Army would win because they would be determined to prove that the previous week’s debacle was a fluke but then lose to Pitt the next week. Bill Reddy noted that the only SU game Chick had seen was the Pitt game. But Ben Schwartzwalder was wary: “They are a much better team than the Michigan seems to make them Let Army play like they did in the first quarter against VMI or against a fine Penn State team and the opponent isn’t going to go too far. “ But Army Coach Red Blaik thought highly of the Syracuse team. “Syracuse is a fine team, very much on the way up. It may be every bit as good as Michigan, which I regard as one of the finest teams I’ve ever played against. Jim Brown is terrific- probably the finest back in the area and maybe in the nation.” He wasn’t sure if his team could come back from such a disastrous defeat. “This time I don’t know. We’ve never been beaten so badly. When boys are outplayed as thoroughly as we are, they can’t help but be shaken. They are apt to lose some self-confidence., mental scar tissue you might call it.” He was asked if Jim Brown could be characterized as a ‘slow starter’ who is a better player in the second half. “You have been deceived. Brown will likely look better in the second half because the other fellow just gets tired of stopping 215 pounds of mass and velocity.” Saturday’s paper had opposing shots of the two teams lined up as if they were facing each other. The “Saltine Warrior Starters” were Dick Lasse, Jerry Chasman, Ed Bailey, Bill Brown, Rudy Farmer, Chuck Strid and Nick Baccile on the line and Ferd Kuczala, Jim Brown, Jim Ridlon and Ed Coffin in the backfield. Army’s “Battle Array” consisted of Art Johnston, Loren Reid, Stan Slater, Ed Szvetecz, Dick Fadel, Flay Goodwin and Dick Stephenson in the line and Bob Kyasky, Bob Munger, Dick Murtland and Vince Barta in the backfield. Bill Reddy made a public service announcement that the crossbars had been welded onto the uprights and were no longer removable. For years the uprights had been metal and grounded in concrete but the crossbar was wooden. People would get hurt trying to remove them. They tried greasing the uprights but some celebrants still managed to scale them- at their peril. Now the point of the whole thing was negated. Spoil-sports! Unlike the previous year’s monsoon, weather conditions were expected to be “perfect” for this game. Blaik’s team arrived at the New York Central train station and went right to Archbold for a work-out and then go to the Manlius Military Academy for their over-night stay before coming back the next day for the game. 1200 Army Cadets would be given a box lunch and transported to the College of Forestry by bus where they would disembark and march into Archbold. “All 39,701 seats are expected to be occupied.” The game was broadcast both on radio and television by WSYR. It was also on regional television throughout the Northeast. [/QUOTE]

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