The Bold Brave Men of Archbold 1956: Maryland

[SWC75]

I’m going to start this by repeating an article I posted prior to my review of the 1955 Maryland game. It’s important because the 1956 Maryland game is one of the seminal victories in Syracuse football history and this sets the stage for it. It’s also kind of ironic because Maryland seems to be having some similar problems these days, at least in terms of their finances. We are also about to play a highly rated ACC team in 2013 and are looking for the sort of breakthrough win we had back in ’56.


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 its 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 a 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.


Byrd 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. Marty Glickman has spoken and written about it at length in his book and interviews.


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, nor 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). They 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. (In Syracuse we would read about these events in the paper and wonder what it was like to be so good that we could be involved in them.) 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. (Again, to Syracuse reading about this was like looking at another planet through a telescope.) 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 cited 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 its 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 from 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 Rocky Mountain 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 motion 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 (and 1956) Syracuse-Maryland game. 1955 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. But now it was 1956.

 

[SWC75]

THE BUILD-UP

A cartoon showed “Floyd ‘Ben’ Schwartzwalder contemplates many a headache as he reflects on the Orange football schedule.” It showed a drawing of a famous picture of Ben in a jacket that says “Syracuse” on the front holding a football but the football was replaced in the drawing by a large bottle of Aspirin. It said October 6th was the only soft spot on the schedule. That was a “bye” week. Other than that Syracuse would play on consecutive Saturdays from September 22- November 17th against Maryland, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Army, Boston University, Penn State, Holy Cross and Colgate. Their combined records the previous season had been 50-27. Below Ben there were two pictures of Jim Brown, one of him in the Heisman pose, the other of Jim with swollen cheeks due to the mumps, (which he developed just before fall practice, causing him to miss the first two weeks), and conplaining “I look like a center!”


An article described the training schedule of the Syracuse team as they prepared for the game:

“7AM: Breakfast

7:50-8:30 Meeting to go over current problems and find out what’s ahead for the day.

8:30-9AM: Change from street clothes to practice uniform and equipment, then get on a bus and ride from Archbold Stadium dressing quarters to Lew Carr practice field, (about 2 miles). (The field was situated behind where Manley Field House is now, where the lacrosse practice field is today.)

9:10-11:20AM: Main practice session, including calisthenics, offensive and defensive fundamentals and offensive team drills.

11:20-11:45AM Specialties- and as far as head coach Ben Schwartzwalder is concerned, everybody is a specialist of some sort. In this session, punters boot, linemen go down to cover and halfbacks receive. Also, passers pitch a few, the extra point boys try splitting the uprights. Linemen get a ‘break’ after this workout. They leave five minutes earlier than the rest so that they can run up the hill after their bus gets back to Hendricks Field, (southwest of the Dome.)

NOON: Shower and change back into street clothes. Lunch at Slocum Hall in time to be back in uniform by 2:40PM at Hendrick.

2:40-3:00 Afternoon specialty drills on Hendricks.

3-3:10 Bus ride back to Collendale, (where Manley is- presumably Lew Carr Field)

3:10-5:15PM Routine fundamentals, work on team defense and passing.

6PM: Supper- after riding, showering and changing again. Ready for bed? Not if you are going to stay being a football player. But the heavy work is done.

7PM: Coaches and players get together for another meeting, which usually lasts until 8PM.

Players are through after this but the coaches meet for another two hours, planning, trying to find out how the running of a particular play can be smoothed out, talking things over in general. Players are in bed by 10PM. Coaches are home soon after. “If we’re lucky”, Schwartzwalder says.”


I dunno, but something seems to be missing there. Classes?


Friday’s Herald-Journal had a picture of the starting SU backfield, each carrying a football, running past the cameraman, (four footballs- that’ll fool ‘em). Chuck Zimmerman, #23 was the quarterback. The halfbacks were Jim Ridlon #16 and #44, Jimmy Brown. Ed Coffin, (he should be the punter, right?), #36, was the fullback but in the picture, he’s running ahead of Big Jim. The headline read “Inexperienced quarterbacks to direct Orange, Terrapins”. Syracuse had lost Eddie Albright to graduation and Ferdie Kuczala wasn’t entirely over his shoulder injury so Zimmerman, who had quarterbacked Christian Brother’s Academy in Syracuse to some of its greatest seasons. The Brothers were even more dominant in those days than they are now. Walt Ludovico’s teams had a 35 game winning streak from 1950-54:

http://www.syracusehalloffame.com/pages/inductees/2007/CBA_football.html

Now Chuck was getting a chance to see if he could have similar success at the college level with SU. It was suggested that “Zimmerman will give them a greater passing threat at the quarterback position since the hey-day of Pat Stark.”


Maryland had lost Frank Tamburello, who had been expected to be their quarterback, when he was drafted for military service in July. His appeals to be allowed to play for the Terrapins that fall were denied a week before the game. As late as the Monday before the game he was pictured in the Post Standard in a sort of leaping Heisman pose, with the caption “LOOK OUT SYRACUSE!”. He had been a third team All-American for the undefeated 1955 team so that was a big blow to the Terps. New Coach Tommy Mont was desperately trying to get Jack Fritsch, a third-teamer the year before who only got to play 10 snaps, ready to direct the Maryland attack. (And in the one platoon era, that meant he also had to be ready to play defense). Things got worse when Fritsch’s back-up, Dickie Lewis, sprained an ankle and would be unavailable for the Syracuse game.


“Syracuse will field a line that averages 212 from end to end with big, speedy backs set to “carry the mail” when called upon by Zimmerman.” Brown and Ridlon were described as “the team’s most dependable players” . Coffin was described as “a line-crushing break-away speedster”. A good combination. A picture of Coffin was in the Tuesday Post Standard. A handsome guy with a blonde crew-cut, he was said to be 24 years old, (probably some military service), stood 5-10 and weighed 188 pounds. They look pretty solidly packed. He got the starting chance due to an injury to Gus Zaso.


Ridlon was the punter, (not the more appropriately named Coffin). Don Althouse, the previous year’s punter, had a separated shoulder. He ”hit an uneven spot on the Hendrick’s turf, tripped and landed heavily on his shoulder.” Tom Stephens and Dick Lasse were the starting ends. Jerry Cashman and Chuck Strid were the tackles, Ed Bailey and Rudy GFarmer the guards and Bill Brown the center.


“The Terps still have their tremendous speed, which they exhibited so prominently last fall.” Jack Healey and Tom McVicker were the halfbacks, and Tom Selep, who had missed all of 1955 with an injury, was the fullback. Ed Cooke and Jean Walters were the ends. Mike Sandusky and either Al Wharton or Ed Heuring at tackle while Jack Davis and Mike Suchy were the guards and Gene Alderton the center. Schwartzwadler: “They have speed and power and that’s a tough combination to beat. Frank Selep, their fullback, rates as one of the best in the country and the halfbacks have breakway speed.”


“Coach Ben Schwartzwalder feels that his offense is potent enough to move the ball against the highly-rated Terrapins but he knows that getting the ball away from the rugged Maryland team won’t be easy.” Syracuse was concentrating on defense in their drills, “both with the idea of containing the Terrapins strong ground game but also of trying to stop the Maryland aerials, since Maryland’s new head coach has announced that he intends to use the forward pass more than did his predecessor, Jim Tatum.” Dick Lasse, “a sturdy, 206 pound end, was one of the stand-outs in both sessions yesterday.” Ben Schwartzwalder called him “one of the hustlingest players he has ever coached and figures he’s about the hardest tackler on the squad.” He also “has good speed and runs the Orange pass patterns well.”


They had a feature in the paper called “New Faces of 1956” discussing the sophomores, (remember that freshmen were not eligible), who would get a chance to play for local colleges and one of them featured Maury Youmans, a 6-6, 214 end from North Syracuse. “Football coaches like ends with good speed. They also like ends with good height. Maury Youmans…has both attributes and rates as one of Syracuse’ better flanker prospects….Orange Frosh coach Les Dye rates Maury as just about the fastest lineman he had last fall. An excellent forward passing target, the Syracuse sophomore also used his height to advantage with the Hill frosh basketball team last winter. A strong athlete and a left hander, Youmans is a liberal arts student.” Maury and his brother Gary would later write the book “59” about the national championship season.



The SU traveling squad was 35 players. They left for Washington at 8AM Friday and would arrive at 10:15AM. They had a workout scheduled for the Maryland campus between 3 and5 PM. Friday and a flight back to Syracuse at 7:30PM Saturday. The forecast was for fair weather and 70 degree temperatures.


Dave Brady of the Washington Post described Tommy Mont, the new Maryland coach, as “a sleepy-eyed optimist” who “began to face up to reality after reviewing films of Syracuse games of last year and trying out his defense against Syracuse’s plays. Until now Mont had been taking deep satisfaction from the legacy of material he inherited from Jim Tatum, now at North Carolina.” Mont was quoted as saying “I’m expecting a heck of a game against a big, strong team….we know they have big, rugged players who like to grind out the yardage and, if you remember, Coach Ben Schwartzwalder said in a visit to Washington last spring that Syracuse would make it more interesting for Maryland this time. They have that great, big halfback, Jimmy Brown, who did so well against us last year. In one film sequence he is shown running right over an opponent who had made a real good tackle. He hits as well on a hand-off as anyone I’ve ever seen.”


But, per the Herald-Journal,” Mont failed to display the usual pessimism as he summed up the Terps’ situation for the opener….The new Terp mentor…apparently isn’t worried over the test with Syracuse…. Practically his first statement to a gathering of Syracuse press representatives was to announce “We have more depth than we did a year ago.” Bill Reddy had a phone interview with Mont a couple of days before the game and asked him what problems he had. The injury to the back-up quarterback is the only one he cited. Maryland was undefeated in its last 13 regular season games. Mont: “I was a part of that record and I hope to be able to carry it on.” Reddy: “If that’s the only problem Mont has, is it foolish for the Orange to show up at all?”


The Saturday Post Standard noted that Maryland still had a 15 game regular season winning streak going. They had lost to Oklahoma 6-20 in the 1/1/56 Orange Bowl. “Out of its defeat by Oklahoma, the Terps may have learned the Sooner’s quick-start method of rushing plays so fast that opposing defenses may be caught flat-footed. It’s something to look for, but most observers feel that the “go-go-go” offense isn’t likely to be sprung until later in the season, after teams have had a chance to perfect their timing.” There’s nothing new in football.


Oscar Fraley, who alter wrote “The Untouchables” but was a sportswriter by trade, predicted Maryland would be the victor because Jim Tatum “left the Maryland larder well-stocked. Well, enough, anyway to nose out what figures to be a real rough Syracuse eleven.” Dick Dunkel, who created one of the early mathematical rating formulas, had Maryland the winner by 9 points. Will Grimsley predicted a 14-27 score, saying that Tom Selep and Fred Hamilton “will make Marylanders forget graduated backfield stars” while Syracuse was “hit by injuries”. Apparently he meant Kuczala and Althouse. But Maryland had a late scratch of their own: back-up halfback Bobby Dare. Maryland was ranked #6, Syracuse unranked and the oddsmakers favored them by 2 touchdowns. They got the margin right.

 

[SWC75]

THE GAME

Some years ago I purchased a tape of this game from an Internet source. It’s grainy black and white with no sound but gives me a visual record of the plays described in my usual main source, the newspaper. I don’t know how to load things onto You-Tube so I will simply incorporate what I see into the descriptions. The main plays can be seen in this brief clip that is already on You-Tube:


(Remember to register and vote!) SU’s uniforms are orange from head to toe, except for white numbers and blue trim. (We were the Orange back then.) Maryland, despite being the home team, is all in white, with the distinctive triple stripes they used for years on their helmets. The outside stripes are red and the center one gold. Their numbers and trim are red.


The Post Standard: “Underdog Syracuse scored the greatest opening-game victory in its 68 year football history when a battling band of Orangemen upset the University of Maryland before a crowd of 27,000 at Byrd Stadium today, 26-12.” The Herald-Journal: “An aggressive, well-poised and determined Syracuse University gridiron machine struck a grand note for eastern football here in sun-flooded Byrd Stadium yesterday afternoon by downing nationally-ranked Maryland 26-12 before 27,000 who sat in on Tommy Mont’s coaching debut. “(We complain about the crowds today: Byrd Stadium held 35,000 in 1956)


“The Orange, beginning its eighth season under Ben Schwartzwalder and directed by clever and confident sophomore Chuck Zimmerman, showed a more imaginative, better-balanced attack with greater finesse and weakside punch than they have been able to exhibit before. However it was the fire and determination of the New Yorker’s defense…their bone-rattling and teeth-chattering tackles that punished the Southerners with constant pressure forcing them into innumerable ball-handling and timing mistakes which robbed them of ball possession. “


Maryland won the toss and took the ball. Don Healy returned Jim Brown’s kick-off to the Maryland 40. Three plays gained five years and John Fritsch punted to the Syracuse 26 where the ball went out of bounds. The Orange could only get 9 yards and Jim Ridlon punted to John McVicker at the Maryland 23. “The fleet halfback, getting fine blocking on the outside, skirted the right sideline and went 67 yards before Bill Brown hauled him down on the Syracuse 9.” Looking at the film, Maryland had such an excellent screen set up that no Orangeman was outside the hashmarks until McVicker was well into Syracuse territory. Three plays later, Fritsch sneaked the ball over. A bad snap, (the kicker wound up trying to pass to the holder who wanted no part of it), cost them the conversion and it was Syracuse 0 Maryland 6. The rout was on! Yes it was.


“Syracuse, which had played in awe of the Marylanders a year ago, demonstrated immediately that that this was to be no repeat of that performance by counter-marching for the equalizing TV.” Ed Coffin responded by returning the kick-off to the Syracuse 41, breaking two tackles along the way. Two offsides penalties on the Terps gave the Orange a first down on the Maryland 43. Ridlon ran for 17 yards on a weak-side pitch-out. Three plays later, “Ridlon took a pitch-out, went to his left and passed to Jim Brown. The big fellow caught the ball at the 15 and out-raced two defenders to the end zone to complete the 24 yard scoring play.” Jim’s extra point gave the underdogs the lead at 7-6. The film pans the SU sidelines and shows the excitement level with players jumping up and down. We were playing Maryland in their place and beating them!


“Three offsides penalties, (a sure sign of a lack of focus by the Terps), ruined Maryland’s next sequence and Hawkins punted weakly on the Terp 45.” But an interception by Ted Kershner of a Chuck Fogarty pass at the 17 killed the threat. Maryland was again unable to move and Fritsch punted to the Maryland 43. (The film shows this one was nearly blocked. The defense had great penetration on this series. On one play the quarterback is already being tackled by the ankles as he’s trying to hand off. ) Chuck Zimmerman hit Dick Aloise on the Maryland 24. Brown “plowed for 9 yards to the 15”. But Dick fumbled on an end-around and Mike Sandusky recovered for Maryland on the 9. The Terps were driving as the quarter ended.


They got to the SU 49 before Frisch punted to Brown who was “swarmed over” at the SU 12. Ridlon had to punt from there and the ball was run back to the Syracuse 36. Then came the turning point in the game. Bob Rusevlyan hit the line but the ball was jarred from his grasp by Mike Bill and popped in the air. “Dick Lasse, alert to the opportunity, picked it off in mid-air and was in the Maryland secondary before the Terps realized what had happened. Ridlon threw a block to clear a path at the line of scrimmage. Tom Stephens, sophomore end, cut across to provide an escort for Lasse as the junior raced down the left sideline. Stephens moved slightly ahead of Lasse and, as Dick reached the 10 yard line on his 68 yard scoring jaunt Stephens wiped out the last Maryland defender with a perfectly-timed block.” The film shows Ruseylyan holding the ball to one side, getting hit, turning around and the ball flies out of his hand. Lasse grabs it and the only Terp with a shot at him is the quarterback. Lasse does a pirouette in front of him that so confuses the Marylander that Lasse can just run past him. Brown’s kick was wide but the underdogs were ahead 13-6. The film shows the SU cheerleaders actually running on the field as Lasse crossed the goal line. No “excessive celebration” penalties back then. It also shows the wild celebration on the SU sidelines, with players jumping up and down and hugging each other. There’s a real sense of the team realizing they were coming into their own this day.


The revved-up Orange stopped the Terrapins cold and forced another punt to the Syracuse 41. But Syracuse was unable to take advantage of the field position due to a holding penalty. An exchange of punts set up the Orange on their own 40. “Brown skirted end twice for a first down on the Terp 45. Then Zimmerman hit Lasse on the 21 for a first down. A bad snap led to a field goal attempt that only went 10 yards as the half ended.


After the half, Maryland had an opportunity to change the momenumt back in their direction when Ed Cooke blocked a Ridlon punt and Maryland recovered at the SU 48. They got to the 34 but Aloise sacked Healy for a 9 yard loss. On the next play a Syracuse end, (I couldn’t make out his number on the film), took out both a blocker and a back who had caught a screen pass to force a punt which gave SU the ball on its own 12.


After a short gain, Jim Brown took a pitch-out, knifed his way through three defenders with help from Ridlon and Lasse and was off to the races. 78 yards later, he was pulled down from behind by Fritsch at the Maryland 7. After two running plays only got it to the 5, Zimmerman found Ridlon in the end zone with a “beautiful running pass” for the score. Brown’s kick was wide left but Syracuse led 19-6. Schwartzwalder commented after the game that Jim’s big run ”took something out of Maryland.”


That may be but the Terrapins put on their best drive of the game, from the Maryland 35 to the Syracuse 4. Frisch took a pitch-out, looked to pass but was hit by Tom Stephens and fumbled. Jack Healy tried to corral the ball but just pushed it backwards where Bill Brown fell on it for the Orange. It had been a close thing. On one play a Maryland receiver got open along the right sideline and a beaten defender leaped to tip the ball before it got to him. On another play, the past defender on a sweep managed to make the tackle before the back could break away down the left sideline.


“There the Orange, showing one of the finest demonstrations of ball control that they’ve ever flashed as they ate up 83 yards of and more than 10 minutes of time in marching to the clinching touchdown. It took 19 plays with Ed Coffin and Zimmerman helping mightily on dives and keepers as Brown continued to get the yardage needed for first downs. A nine-yard burst by Brown made it first down on the Maryland seven. Ridlon fought for three and then Brown, on a pitch-out, went wide and dived through two tackles into the corner of the end zone. This time Brown faked his placement and Zimmerman passed to Ridlon for the 26th Syracuse point with only three and half minutes left in the final period. What is impressive about this drive on film is the blocking. There were no big gainers but virtually every play gained yardage because the line of scrimmage was consistently moved forward a couple of yards on every play. Maryland was determined to stop the orange and their tackling was sure but contact was always made after the SU backs had already made a couple of yards. On wide plays and passes, the blocking consistently took out the nearest defenders so the play had a chance to gain yardage. The gains were incremental but inexorable. Brown capped it off by out-running several Terps to the corner of the goal line and diving in, carrying a tackler with him. Afterwards, he was escorted to the sideline by his linemen, all patting him on the back. They all have their helmets off, which was not considered such a grievous sin back then.


Maryland, still showing some spirit, drove to the Syracuse 2 where the game appeared to have ended but Ed Coffin was injured and the officials called time out to deal with him. That allowed Maryland to get off one more play Healy dived over from the two. One play on the drive featured an odd two hand chest pass to an open receiver on the sideline. The play where Coffin was injured was a double lateral play, with the QB running to the line, turning and throwing overhand but backwards to one back, who pitched to another. Coffin wasn’t fooled and made the tackle but was injured doing it. For some reason, Maryland was allowed to try a conversion even though time had run out but it was wide, leaving the final score at Syracuse 26 Maryland 12. There were about 1500 Syracuse fans there and they mobbed the team as the final gun sounded.


Ben Schwartzwalder described it as “The biggest win we’ve ever scored. Somebody asked me before the game how we’d make out but I didn’t want to claim any victory. I like my victories after the game and that’s what I got today. We knew we could move the ball but defense was the question. I’ll know more when I see the pictures but right now I’d say we played a pretty good ball game. ”


Ben was also enthused about the way his team won, controlling the ball of 10 of the 15 minutes in the fourth quarter. Syracuse out-rushed the Terrapins 266-190 and out-passed them 99-20 for a total edge of 365-210. Maryland had led the nation in rushing defense in 1955, giving up only 78 yards per game. Syracuse got more than three times that. “Zimmerman completed 5 of his 6 throws, which riddled the Terp’s defense and came at times when the pressure was nerve-shattering. He even threw and completed passes on first down, something that conservative, power-minded Schwartzwalder elevens haven’t done often. “


Jim Brown, “the offensive siege gun of the battle”, wound up with 154 yards in 18 carries. He wound up with a minor cut over his eye for his efforts but was too happy about the outcome of the game to be bothered by it. “Yes, I guess that first touchdown helped out a lot. Then we knew we could score on them. We expected to beat them. Not as big as we did, maybe but we all felt that way.” Tackle Jerry Cashman said “We knew we’d taken and we did, that’s all. We came down here to win and we’re not surprised we did.” Chuck Zimmerman turned to Jim Ridlon and said “We gotta be something now, eh?”. Jim just nodded and grinned.


The Sunday Post Standard had a head-on shot of Jim Brown’s big run. Three Marylanders are after him, one falling forward but supporting himself with his right hand. A fourth is on the ground. Behind them is Chuck Zimmerman, watching with interest. On the front page of the sports section, we see Jim Ridlon being uphended as he tried to score in the fourth quarter. He seems to be held upside down by three Mayrland tacklers. Next to it was a shot of the end of Jim Brown’s long run as Frisch, who had an angle on him, is reaching forward for the back of his pants. Below those shots was a picture of the fourth SU touchdown, Jim Brown being brought down, too late, in the end zone by Ed Cooke. One the next page we see the opening score of the game with Frisch going over from the SU 1. Jim Brown stands helplessly behind the line and the official has thrust his arms in the air, almost a statue of himself. On page 36 Dick Lasse is shown being brought down by Frisch and Healy after catching a second period pass. Next to that was a shot of Jim Brown carrying Ed Cooke, who had his arms around Jim’s neck, for five first period yards.


In the Herald American, the shot of an upside-down Ridlon was on the front page, perhaps symbolizing that the college football world had been turned upside down by the result. The sports page began with a shot of Jim taking a pitch-out and sweeping for 4 yards in the first period . Page 67 was entirely devoted to pictures from the game. The top one showed Ed Coffin’s kick-off return in the first period that set up SU’s answering score. Below that is a shot of Frisch’s sneak for a score to open the scoring, this one from the back of the end zone. You can’t really see him under a pile of players. Next to that we see Ridlon running through a big hole to get five second period yards. The hole is so big you wonder how he didn’t get more. Two Terps have been sealed off, probably 8-10 feet apart. Below that is the head-on shot of Jim Bown’s big run. Next to that is the shot of Lasse being tackled by Fritsch and Healy.


“Syracuse feasted on mock turtle soup that night.”

 

[SWC75]

THE AFTERMATH

“We beat one of the finest teams in the country” said Schwartzwalder, “and all of our boys played a great game. They were really up for this game. They wanted to win and they did.” Ben praised his defense, singling out Bill Brown, Jim Ridlon, Dick Lasse, Rudy Farmer, Mike Bill, Joe Krivak, and Ron Luciano. He also praised his second team. “I’d like to have the players get the idea that it’s not who starts but who does the most work that really counts. There seems to be too much emphasis on starting line-ups anyway. “ There still is.


The Old Scout didn’t show up yet for his Monday morning discussions with Arnie Burdick, as he would for so many years to come. (He’ll show up before the season is over.) But Arnie had a few observations of his own. To him this was a blow for the prestige of eastern football. “Fans who watch eastern elevens in action are seeing good, well-coached classy teams, and that on any given afternoon are dangerous enough to defeat any of the more highly-ranked, more heavily-promoted machines in the nation. This does not mean that they would win all of these intersectional battles- it merely means what it says- that they’re dangerous enough to win and, therefore, the brand of football that they’re playing must be deeply respected.”


“These four eyes can’t recall witnessing a game that was more punishing from kickoff to gun…not dirty but hard, rugged, legal contact. It was this furious ‘hitting’ by the New Yorkers , both on offense and defense by both its first and second teams that first stunned, then captivated the sun-splashed audience, about 90 percent of whom were Confederates who had come to see a rabbit-hunt and who had to finally marvel and approve of the way their heroes were being hammered into submission. The Syracuse Aces…were a bunch of pent-up tigers who smashed relentlessly at the nationally-ranked Marylanders until they had them on the run. Their defense pressured the Southerners into repeated errors and their well-balanced offense not only controlled the ball but rolled constantly with a variety of plays that were almost always well-masked.”


“A good many observers felt that Dick Lasse’s 65 yard jaunt with a popped fumble which he plucked off in mid-air for Syracuse’ second score was the turning point in the battle. It was a big play, a great effort on the part of a lot of boys…but it says here that the courageousness that the Orange demonstrated after Maryland tallied first following a swirling 67 yard punt return, unlocked the door to victory. When ben Schwartwalder’s poised boys were scored upon and then immediately steamed downfield for the equalizer with the ensuing kickoff, there was no doubt that the Terps were not going to push this crowd around.”


Bill Reddy predicted that Maryland would win most of their remaining nine games. “But they’ll never come up against a more determined and more solidly poised team than the one which beat them…There were plenty of chances for the Orange to crack wide-open but they showed no sign of buckling under the Maryland pressure. Instead, they kept pressure on the Terrapin line- a line which included three All-American candidates- and they went over, thought and around that line for 357 yards. That’s twice as much as the Terps managed to gain on the ground and in the air.”


Reddy reported that “There’s a feeling among Marylanders that it would have been a different game if Frank Tamburello had played. Tamburello himself didn’t feel that way. He thought Maryland would ‘crush’ Syracuse while he sat out the game. …Sure Tamburello would have made a difference because Chuck Zimmerman made a big difference to the Orange attack. But at half time, with Maryland trailing and obviously in trouble, somebody reported, (incorrectly) that Tamburello was dressing and would play in the second half. A Syracuse assistant coach echoed the sentiments of the Orange squad when he asked “What of it?” The Orangemen were just as ready to stop Tamburello as any of his understudies and they feel a bit irked that they didn’t get the opportunity.”


“There were several keys to the Orange victory. For one, the shifting Syracuse defense, which moved after Maryland had made its initial shift, confused the home team. For another, Zimmerman’s ability to change signals quickly, once he had spotted openings in the Terrapin defense, meant a lot of mileage that wouldn’t have been gained otherwise.” That’s always a good quality in a quarterback.


“In this game, the Syracuse defense was superb, but its offense hit a new high, too. The Orange backs used more shortside plays than Maryland was deployed to cope with and there was more variety than we can remember. The word which was used over and over in the press box after the game to describe the Syracuse attack was “imagination”. Imagine that!


The AP writer said that Syracuse had “humiliated” Maryland, 26-12. He said the Terps were “as jittery as a bunch of freshmen going up against the Cleveland Browns, (the defending NFL champions- who would add an Orangeman to their roster after the season was over). But he also said that Pittsburgh was “The Class of the east”. The Panthers had defeated West Virginia 14-13 in Morgantown and would be Syracuse’s next opponent.


As the season wore on and the losses mounted for Maryland, who wound up a dismal 2-7-1, it became apparent that this victory wasn’t quite as earth-shaking as it appeared at the time. But as the victories mounted for SU, it also became apparent that a new power was on the college football scene.


31 years later another Syracuse Glory Era would begin with a 25-11 victory- almost the same score- over a Maryland team coached by Joe Krivak, who had played for the Orange in the 1956 game.

Next: Pittsburgh

 

[bevosu]

I knew Walt Ludovico when I was a kid. I never knew he was a great high school football coach at CBA. I knew him when he was a successful city politician. He never had a problem getting elected and reelected.

He was a very nice guy.