THE BUILD-UP
Pittsburgh had won the Lambert Trophy as the best team in the East in 1955, going 7-3-0 during the regular season. Their three losses were to Oklahoma, Navy and Miami, who had combined records of 23-5-1, (the Sooners had been 11-0-0 national champions, including a victory over Maryland in the Orange Bowl). The Panthers had gone to the Sugar Bowl and lost to Georgia Tech 0-7 on a controversial interference call on Bobby Grier, their black halfback. They’d lost 19 lettermen and 7 starters from that team but expected to be strong again and this time they had us in their place, having beaten SU in Archbold, 22-12 in 1955. It was tough follow-up game to a great victory like the one over Maryland. And, as it turned out, this was actually the better team in 1956. The game was being advertised as the battle for the Eastern Championship, even though it was the second game of the year. Pitt had opened with a 14-13 win over another contender, West Virginia.
Corny Salvaterra was the Panther’s duel threat quarterback, Dick Bowen and Jim Theodore the halfbacks and Tom Jenkins the fullback. They were backed up by Darrell Lewis, George Haley, Nick Passodelis and Ralph Cifer, respectively. But their best player was end Joe Walton, a 205 pounder from Beaver Falls with movie star looks who went on to have a strong NFL career with the Redskins and Giants and later was head coach of the Jets. Bob Roseborogh was the other end, backed by Bob Kiesel, Dale Brown and sophomores Jim Zanos and Art Gob. Bob Pollack and Herm Canil were strong tackles at 220 and 210 pounds. They had a couple of new starting guards in Vince Scorsone and Dick Carr and a new center as well in Charley Breuckman. Bugs Bagamery was an excellent place-kicker. (Bugs Bagamery?!?) Their coach was John Michelosen. Roy Simmons said “They are not a fancy team, just a club that tries to run over you with Jock Sutherland-type power.” Michelosen had played for Sutherland and later became one of his assistant coaches.
A clarification on what happened at the end of the Maryland game came out early in the week. The injured player on the second to last play of the game was not Ed Coffin but reserve back Dan Ciervo. And he wasn’t really hurt. In Dan’s words, “I thought the game was over so I didn’t hurry about getting up.” The ref thought he ended medical attention and stopped the clock with one second to play, allowing Maryland to get one more play off, on which they scored. It’s a good thing it didn’t matter in the final result. Moral of the story: when the game ends, get up as quickly as possible.
Ben Schwartzwalder told the weekly luncheon “I want everyone to recall what happened last year. You’ll remember that we played a fine game and earned a great victory against Army. Then we let down against Maryland a week later and forgot to play football. It was our worst game of the season. I sure hope that doesn’t happen again, now that everybody’s excited about beating Maryland.“ Ben was “fearful of what Pitt will do to us. Pitt has us outnumbered in men, not boys. We ran out of gas against them last year and they have just about the same team this year. We just couldn’t stop them in the third and fourth periods. “ He credited the fast start vs. Maryland for enabling his team to survive a warm afternoon. "A look at that scoreboard gave them a psychological lift.”
Despite Ben insistence that his team “had taken a body beating” and were “pretty well chewed up” against Maryland, Syracuse came out of the game with no new injuries of note, (it’s interesting how the injuries tend to pile up when you are playing poorly but you avoid them when you are playing well). Ben said “We can only hope that the kids will recover in time to show the same fire they showed against Maryland for Pitt.” Ben went far enough to limit contact in practice to allow his team to maximize recovery. It was also hoped that Don Althouse, trying to recover form a shoulder separation, could return to play against Pitt, which would give us both a veteran end and a strong punter. Jim Ridlon had had one returned 67 yards and another blocked vs. Maryland. Fullback Gus Zaso would still be out for the Pitt game. Pitt came out of the West Virginia game with injuries to center Brueckman and guard Carr as well as reserve guard John Guzik, so they had some concerned in the center of the line.
Michelosen: “We understand Syracuse has the best team they’ve had under Coach Schwartzwalder….We didn’t have anything offensively until we got the ball deep in West Virginia territory.” His assistant, Bobby Timmons, who had scouted the SU-Maryland game, praised the Syracuse defense which had extensively used “stunts”, in which defenders switch lanes in trying to penetrate into the backfield. “I guess you’d call it a multiple defense. Anyway, ti gave Maryland fits. They play the tackles inside, where you generally see the guards and the guards out at the ends, where you generally see the tackles. “ West Virginia used a similar scheme and that had hampered Salvaterra’s ability to run his favored option play. Michelosen: “They lined up in one direction and then charged in the other direction, confusing our blocking assignments. The ends were coming in like tackles. West Virginia was out-charging us and beating us to the punch too often.” Schwartzwalder countered that “They’ll keep us guessing. If our defense is wide, they’ll go inside and if you play ‘em tight they’ll move outside.” It was all about who guessed right.
Syracuse was ranked #7 in the country, Pitt #10. Ben Schwartzwalder was named “national coach of the week” by the International News Service and Jim Brown was a member of United Press International’s “backfield of the week”.
Syracuse took hope in the fact that they had outgained Maryland 365-210 while Pitt had been out-gained by West Virginia 96-238. But all that proved was that games are won on points, not yards. Scout Roy Simmons said “The shock of this close victory over West Virginia plus the news of Syracuse’s triumph over Maryland should get Pitt right mentally. They were a bit lethargic mentally on Saturday, although West Virginia has a fine football team.”
Wednesday’s paper had a cartoon devoted to Corny Salvaterra, noting his excellence as a student, (he was studying engineering), “The Pitt aerial arm is vested in the good right arm of Coney Salvaterra. Yet Coney’s one passer who’d just as soon run the split-T option (and well)!” However, after the poor performance in the opener, Michelosen benched his star and would have Darrell Lewis start the game at quarterback. “Schwartzwalder has high regard for Lewis’ smartness…is wary of the 200 pounder’s running ability and gambling instincts at the controls.”
On Thursday, there was a lengthy article by Frank Woolever about Chuck Zimmerman, the Cuse’s talented new quarterback. He came from a family that went to CBA, (which opened in 1900) and Syracuse. His Dad Joe played football and baseball for the Brothers. He played only baseball at SU due to his lack of size. Chuck’s mother also went to SU. Chuck’s brother Joe Jr. played lacrosse for Roy Simmons and made the football team as a reserve. Chuck played football, baseball and basketball at CBA. He then went to Fordham but transferred back to Syracuse when the Rams temporarily gave up the sport. “Chuck has unlimited possibilities. He displayed so much class against Maryland last weekend, Orange enthusiasts vision top row billing for the youngster before the campaign is over….Chuck has the poise, savvy and brains to scale the heights.”
Jim Brown and guard Rudy Farmer were named co-captains for the game both had large pictures displayed in the Friday Herald Journal. Jim was shown at practice, running helmetless with the football toward the photographer while Farmer, also sans helmet, was in his three point stance.
The Syracuse ticket office quickly sold out the 500 tickets they were given for the game, although there were still 20,000 unsold tickets for Pitt’s stadium which seated 62,000. SU, with a traveling squad of 37, (including Althouse), was scheduled to arrive in Pittsburgh at 10AM Friday. Just before they left it was revealed that five players had had an attack of food poisoning, including ends Don Aloise and Glen Priesling. The others were little-used reserves. The players seemed to have recovered by game time. A rumor about a bus accident turned out to be false. The team would stay at the hotel Webster Hall and have an afternoon practice session at Pitt stadium. Kick-off was at 1:30PM. Estimates were that the crowd could approach 50,000. The team would fly back to Syracuse directly after the game and arrive back at Hancock at 9:30.
Despite the higher ranking, SU was coming in as a 3-6 point underdog. They’d never beaten Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh. AP’s Will Grimsley predicted another 14-13 Pitt win, saying “Syracuse is good but has bitten off too much schedule.” Arnie Burdick wrote “They still don’t believe that Syracuse should rank with the nation’s leaders around here and it’s up to Coach Ben Schwartzwalder and his boys to prove it.”
