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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 754960, member: 289"] 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). ([I]The field was situated behind where Manley Field House is now, where the lacrosse practice field is today.)[/I] [I]9[/I]: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, ([I]where Manley is- presumably Lew Carr Field[/I]) 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: [url]http://www.syracusehalloffame.com/pages/inductees/2007/CBA_football.html[/url] 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. [/QUOTE]

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