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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 138924, member: 289"] THE GAME Before 37,000 fans at Archbold Stadium “on a beautiful, sunny day“, Bill Wetzel took the opening kick-off all the way to the SU 47. After an offside penalty against Colgate, Jim Brown ran it to the 39 for a first down. An end-around for Pete Schwert and a ten yard run up the middle by Wetzel set up Ray Perkins, who swept around end from the 23 for the first score. “Perkins reversed to his left and got a good block by (Paul) Kernaklian as he out-raced the Raider defenders and dashed into the corner of the end zone.” But Brown’s conversion went wide right and the score was 6-0 in Syracuse’s favor. Colgate couldn’t move the ball and punted to Brown who made a fair catch at the SU 32. Eddie Albright made a 17 yard run but the SU attack stalled and Wetzel punted to the Colgate 24. Joe Cappadonna pounced on a Johnny Williams fumble at the 34. Another Perkins sweep got the ball to the 17. Brown bolted off tackle for the remaining 17 yards and the score. “Brown, slanting off left tackle, shook off a tackler in the secondary and drove the final 17 yards to score.” This time his conversion attempt was blocked and it was 12-0 nine minutes into the game. Dave Adams of Colgate returned the kick-off to the 33 but a penalty moved Colgate all the way back to the 8. The SU defense, with the blood in the water, forced a punt. Jim brown called another fair catch at the 50. But the threat ended when Art Trolio fumbled at the Colgate 40. Gil Martin finally got the Colgate offense going with passes to Chuck Garivaltis and Milt Graham that carried to the SU 32. A pass to Jack Coll and run by Ed Whitehair got them to the 22, just short of a first down as the first period ended. Frank Nardulli plunged for the first down. Martin tried a pass to Noll in the end zone but Perkins jumped the route. Unfortunately also dropped the ball. Martin passed to Mike Corbo who fumbled the ball in the air and Sam Alexander grabbed it and ran it back from the 10 to the 26. He was injured on the play, adding to the roster of players suddenly on the sideline, (Don Laacksonen and Jimmy Williams of Colgate had also had to leave the game).SU was forced to punt but Wetzel nailed it, the ball going dead on the Colgate 17. By now the visitors had decided to shelve their passing attack. Whitehair ran 12 yards to the Colgate 32. The Red Raiders kept moving, getting first downs on the 49, the SU 41, the SU 30. Nardulli fumbled but the ball bounced right back into his hands and he rumbled to the 14. Coll ran up the middle to the 10 and scored from there on a pitch-out. Jim Ridlon blocked the conversion and it was 12-6. Ray Perkins returned the kick-off to the forty, then had first down runs to the Colgate 45 and the 32 Albright pitched to Ridlon who passed to the Colgate 11. It was incomplete but an interference call was made- and then negated by a holding call. Albright then passed to Ridlon at the 12. But there were only 26 seconds left in the half. Perkins was stuffed for no gain but Albright ran it to the 3. However time ran out in the half before the Orange could get another play off. (It’s telling they didn’t even attempt a pass). Whitehair returned the second half kick-off to the Colgate 47 but the Raiders couldn’t move and punted to the SU 13. SU couldn’t move either and Wetzel boomed a kick to the Colgate 35. Nardulli got too fancy on the return and Jim Brown brought him down on the 20. Martin moved the team to the Syracuse 42 but Martin had to punt it to the Syracuse 12. Wetzel fumbled on the 17. ”A grand fake by Martin who feigned a pass and slipped the ball to Whitehair for a pretty draw play set up the tying touchdown. Whitehair made 14 yards to the three, Nardulli dived the remaining distance to score“ For the third consecutive time the conversion was blocked this time by Paul Slick. The game was tied at 12. SU’s early momentum was lost. Albright returned the kick-off to the Syracuse 41. Runs by Brown, Vergara and Perkins to the Colgate 38. But Brown was stopped inches short of a first down and Colgate took over with a chance to take the lead. Colgate was forced to punt to the SU 23. The orange then went to their number one option. Jim Brown carried the ball six times in seven plays, the last a 41 yard romp down the sideline for the score that put Syracuse permanently in front. “This time Brown swung to his right, veered away from his blockers, side-stepped a tackler, then raced down the sidelines for the full distance and the winning touchdown.” But we still couldn’t get an extra point and Jim’s conversion went wide again. Martin passed Colgate into Syracuse territory but Ray Perkins picked off one of his passes and returned it to the Colgate 45. “Perkins, who refused to go down with less than three tacklers, made 12 yards on the next play.“ Paul Slick “threw a tremendous block” to spring Vergara for a run down the sideline to the Colgate 5. “Albright, faking beautifully, completely fooled the defenders before handling the ball to Vergara. Before the defense could reform, Vergara was through the secondary and had to be hauled down from behind after a 40 yard gain.“ (Watching old films and reading passages like this, it seems faking in football has become a lost art. Maybe the game has just speeded up so much there’s no time for it.) Vergara then “raced into the end zone” from there and then kicked the first extra point anybody had made all day to make it 25-12. These were the first points of Vergara’s SU career. The SU defense was in overdrive now, throwing Colgate back from their own 28 to the 7 after the kick-off, in part thanks to an intentional grounding call. Martin decided, (on his won?) to gamble. Instead of punting from his won end zone, he passed. Whitehair caught it and got to the 16, far short of the needed yardage and the Orange too over from there. SU clinched it in two plays, a 12 yard drive by Vergara and a 5 yard run by Billy Micho. Vergara extra point string ended at one as this one didn’t even make it to the crossbar. There was time for two plays: a kick off and one play from scrimmage that went nowhere. Colgate had it’s first loss of the year and Syracuse was part of a three-way tie for the “Upstate Championship”. Colgate couldn’t cope with an SU rushing attack that out-gained them 330-145. Syracuse played a very focused game with no penalties being called against them. Colgate was penalized for 40 yards. Guy Martin played virtually the whole game for Colgate and Eddie Albright did the same for Syracuse. Martin couldn’t generate much of a passing attack, completing 4 of 14 passes with two interceptions for 33 yards. Ray Perkins actually out-gained Jim Brown on 12 carries a piece, 108 yards to 102 but Jim scored twice and Perkins once. Vince Vergara, the former Army Plebe who was “purged” after the cribbing scandal, had 64 yards on 6 carries and one score. The smaller Syracuse line had totally dominated their opposite numbers on the Red Raider front. The game set an ‘upstate’ record for gate receipts with $110,000, thanks the to $4.50 ticket prices. The photographic coverage in the paper of this game exceeded anything I’ve seen heretofore in this series and was far better than anything I’ve seen today. Between the Herald Journal and Post Standard there were 20 pictures of the event, most of excellent quality. The idea back then was to document the event, to make the reader feel he was there and to chart out the key plays. Now we have 3-4 shots which are as likely to be of the sidelines as of the game. In 1954 both papers had entire pages devoted to shots of the game and those represented only about half of the photographs of it. Colgate was in white helmets and pants and maroon jerseys. SU was in it’s familiar white jerseys with orange helmets and pants. The Post Standard had a large shot of Pete Schwert’s end-around on the second play from scrimmage. He has to cut inside because Mike Morog and Jimmy Williams have the outside lanes covered. He got only four yards. Next tot hat is a smaller picture of Frank Nardulli pushing over Colgate’s second score, being wrestled down by two unidentified Orangemen at the goal line while #23, Eddie Albright comes up to help- too late. Below the big shot, Albright is seen going for 17 yards on a keeper. Chick Beemus of Colgate is running along side him, waiting for the right instant to lung at him. Ahead of him Bill Wetzel is heading for Frank Garivaltis of Colgate to make a block. To the right is the smiling Alta Berg, the Orange Girl, twirling her baton at halftime. Below those shots, Jim Brown finishes off his big 41 yard run. “A pair of Raiders were close to the speeding ball carrier but couldn’t stop him”. Jim is crossing the 5 yard line. One man is to his right and falling backwards, (likely the result of a straight-arm). Another is running hard at about the 8, laboring in vain to keep up with Jim. Jim is running bent over, with a very determined look on his face. You didn’t want to be in front of him when he looked like that. The Herald Journal showed Tom Coll scoring Colgate’s first touchdown, running ahead of #84 (Tom Richardson) and #57 (Paul Slick) and measuring another Orangeman at the goal line, whom I believe to be #74 (Stan Ables), while to others, #89 (Ed Bailey) and #77 (Paul Kermaklian) are being warded off by blockers. Coll outran Richardson and Slick and cut inside of Ables. Next to this is a classic picture of Jim Brown on a sweep with Ray Perkins and Mike Skop running interference for him. Perkins #14, is drawing a bead on a Colgate defender while Skop, (his #66 is obscured), is already engaging his . Mike has got ten his hands under his opponents and is thrusting him into the air. Perkins was a 192 pound halfback and Skop a 185 pound guard. Jim Brown, at 208, was bigger than both of them. Jim made 10 yards on the play. 　 The local news section of The Post Standard had a wide shot, made of there pictures pasted together, of a full looking, (capacity was listed at 41,000) Archbold Stadium with the band playing on the field The front page had a great shot of Jim Brown scoring his first touchdown, coming right at the cameraman. Nobody is near him but we see Pete Schwert jumping over a fallen Red Raider in the background. A couple more Colgaters are running toward the play, way too alter. Another watches helplessly from his knees. The old Irving Avenue entrance looms in the background. Another shot of Coll’s touchdown shows Ray Perkins being blocked out of the play as Jack cuts inside the block to score. The unidentified Colgate blockers is diving into Ray’s extended leg. Fortunately Ray wasn’t hurt. Below that is a shot of Jim Brown’s second score, this time from the side and apparently the top of the stands. Jim has now crossed the goal line, One player has leaped at him but is falling to the ground at his feet. A couple other players have closed on the play, (on is #444), but too late. Ray Perkins, in another large shot, is shown making the first score, sandwiched between two Colgate defenders as he crossed the goal line. A would be blocker is trying to grab Guy Martin from behind to pull him off Ray. Fortunately nothing was called. Eddie Albright is shown pulling his leg from an attempted tackle on a 12 yard run in the first period. Billy Micho, #46, sprawls across the goal line, making the final score and the first of his career. Vince Vergara bulls his way into the end zone for his score from 5 yards out. Jack Coll bars his way- temporarily. Two other Red Raiders are closing in but they didn’t get there. The Herald’s front sports page had one of those shots I love with arrows turning them into “moving” pictures. It shows Ray Perkins’ first period score with a long white arrow leading from the point of the handoff to the sideline and down the field to the goal line. Ray is about halfway there, running past #88, John Dow. Ahead of him, Paul Kernaklian crouches to get under the arms of Guy Martin. Below that Jim Brown is again shown scoring the second TD. Here he’s on about the 3 and the other #44 is to his right and #82 to his left, both behind him. Johnny Williams is the guy who got knocked down an instant before. The final shot is of old alums, Belf, (sp?) West and Joe Alexander of Syracuse, who got plaques at halftime. Each team had was one more game left. Colgate would lose to brown, 14-18 and finished 5-2-2, a good record but they watched the Cotton Bowl on TV. SU had a chance to even the team’s record at 4-4. It was a trip to New York to play Fordham in the Polo Grounds, a team that had already decided to give up the sport, despite it’s notable history in the sport. 　 (My primary source is the Post Standard Archive. I also used Street & Smiths 1954 football preview, Upperdeck’s site for roster numbers and Jim Brown‘s autobiography, “Out of Bounds“. ) [/QUOTE]

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