Who Knew the Hoodoo? (1926) | Syracusefan.com

Who Knew the Hoodoo? (1926)

SWC75

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1926

Dick Harlow left Colgate after the 1925 season to become athletic director and football coach at Western Maryland. From there he went on to become the coach at Harvard. He was also a zoologist and botanist on the side and wound up the curator of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. There are probably a lot of similarities between being a zoologist and a football coach. Harlow, outwardly a gruff man, was especially proud of the kind of young men he coached. He bragged about the fact that he, over the course of his career, loaned $27,000 to his players and that all but $165.00 of those loans were paid back. That was the amount owed by one player when he was killed in World War II. (One wonders what the NCAA would make of those loans today.) He was eventually elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954, later to be joined by Eddie Tryon, his most famous player during his Colgate tenure.

Tryon, meanwhile, had forsaken his vow to remain an amateur all his life and joined Red Grange in the backfield of the New York “football” Yankees, a team in the original American Football League, which had been organized by Grange’s agent, CC “Cash and Carry” Pyle when the NFL wouldn’t meet his price for Grange. He showed up for the Syracuse game, though, telling reporters that he was “convinced that pro football will be a success but will never rival the college game.” He did allow as how the pro game will “fulfill a big need for Sunday afternoon entertainment”.

The new Colgate coach was one George Hauser, who had led the team to a 5-2 record, losing two of three games to the only big-time teams they had played, Pittsburgh, Navy and Michigan State. Pitt, of course was perennial power under pop Warner and now Jock Sutherland and Navy was unbeaten that year so losing to them, (by a total of nine points), was no shame. And the win over Michigan State was by a resounding 38-6 score, one that opened eyes across the country as scores in games between big-time teams rarely got that one-sided.

Pete Reynolds’ second Syracuse team was a veteran group with eight seniors manning the eleven starting positions, the best of them being the great Vic Hanson, although Ray Barbuti was showing considerable promise as a halfback. They had lost a wild game at West Point called “The Massacre of the Plains”, 21-27 to Army. Nine Orangemen were hurt and the officials nailed SU with an incredible 300 yards in penalties. SU had three scores called back. Roy Simmons was “prompted to observe dryly, ‘I think we got the business’”. Gotch Carr broke his leg in that game and Ray Barbuti was carried unconscious from the field. Hanson’s opposite number at end, John Archoska, hit an Army end named Trapnell so hard he was carried off the field, “blood squirting off of him”. This incited the crowd and the head referee wanted to call the game. He was talked out of it by the Army coach, Biff Jones, who, because his team was behind, “felt the move might be misinterpreted”. Roy Simmons is quoted in “The Syracuse Football Story” that Jones told him “many times that that was the greatest football team he ever saw take the field”. Charley Lee, Syracuse’ right tackle, said “It was a shame. We had the essentials to be a fine team and perhaps we could have gone undefeated that year. But the team never recovered from the injuries they sustained, both physical and psychological, in The Massacre of the Plains”. Army and Syracuse would certainly seem to be natural rivals but they didn’t play each other for 29 years after this game and have done so only intermittently ever since.

The injuries sustained in that game affected SU the rest of the season. Still, they came back to beat Penn State and were 5-1 going into a game with a huge Georgetown team the week before the Colgate game. The Hoyas were coached by Lou Little, who would go on to be a Hall-of-Fame coach at Columbia. Newspaper articles after that game constantly referred to the “Georgetown Goliaths”, although the only statistic I could find about the actually size of any of their players was that they had a tackle named Connaught who weighted 285 pounds. He was pictured and looked in pretty good shape, as if he might be able to play today. In his time, Connaught must have been 60-70 pounds bigger than anybody who lined up against him. SU simply could not handle the big guy and his mates and lost 7-13 at Archbold, the only SU score coming on a dramatic 65 yard catch and run by Hanson, who cut across the field and through the entire Georgetown team to score. (The more I hear about Vic the more I wish we had him- and maybe Connaught- today).

Lawrence Skiddy reported that “Witnesses of the ruin that Lou Little’s Goliaths wrought came out of the stadium full of foreboding for what is to come in the battle of battles next Saturday”. He told fans not to fret over this loss- Colgate didn’t have nearly the size Georgetown had and they wouldn’t be able to dominate the line of scrimmage as the Hoyas had. He said Eddie Tryon would have scored 10 TDs a game behind such a line. “Both teams have fine backfields and ends but were not strong on the line.” The most interesting aspect of the battle would be the duel between SU’s ends Hanson and Archoska and Colgate’s duo of Conners and Trimm. The Orange ends were considered better on offense but the Colgate guys were better on defense, especially Connors, who was, like Hanson a basketball player and could be expected to match his leaps for the ball. “Skid” said that SU “is more efficient in receiving passes but that Colgate has the edge in the matter of getting forward passes away.”

He lamented that fact this game would not have the luster of a normal SU- Colgate game because each team had been defeated twice. “For the first time in years, the mythical Eastern Championship was not on the line”. He said Syracuse would be “fighting to prevent a disaster that no other Orange team has known in 19 years- three defeats in a single season.” (Actually Syracuse had had that disaster befall them just seven years before when they went 8-3 in 1919.)

Weather, as always was a concern: “almost impossible weather conditions and the Syracuse-Colgate series have become companions in recent years “and “trick plays may be foiled by this sort of field”. But now “The Orange has a wonderful bag of tricks to open for Colgate’s entertainment in the event of a clear day.”

And it seemed trick plays might be in order as Coach Reynolds went against tradition and closed his practices. This led to considerable speculation as to what he might be up to. One headline read “Wild Tales Fill the Air”. Skiddy admitted “Never before has the situation presented as great a puzzle.” There was talk of Hanson moving to the backfield. A big lineman named John Bayley, who was also the team’s punter, might join him in the backfield as a blocker. Reynolds was said to working on positioning his passers farther behind the line so they could get their passes off more efficiently.

The Herald used this as an opportunity for humor as Skiddy reported that security men had checked out a construction crew in Kirk Park to see if they were engaged in tunneling into the stadium. He said coach Reynolds had heard than an old friend, Coach Pete Dwyer of Niagara had hired students to chase away interlopers; he decided to do the same thing. Supposedly a baseball coach was hired to teach the passers how to throw and a wrestling coach was brought in to work with a linemen. The there was an article by “Artie the copy boy”, who said he had managed to crash the practice session disguised as a Western Union messenger who was allowed to stay if he promised not to reveal any secrets. However he did report that SU was playing 11 guys at one time, 7 in the line and 4 in the backfield. “Sometimes they ran and sometimes they passed and when they passed sometimes it was complete and sometimes it wasn’t.” Somehow I don’t think that Colgate Coach Hauser found that information to his advantage. Artie also reported that a group of players were designated as being “the Colgate team” but he wasn’t fooled as those guys weren’t nearly as good as the real Colgate team. Somebody told him this was a “dummy” scrimmage and Artie was in full agreement.

“Skid” said “Almost anything can happen in a Syracuse-Colgate game- a truism that is generally accepted everywhere. What will happen this year is on the knees of the gridiron Gods. And, what ever happens, Reynolds and Hanson may be counted on to do all that mortals can do.” Coach Reynolds, for his part, said “They are in splendid condition, mentally and physically. I never saw a squad with better spirit. They simply won’t entertain any idea except that they will win decisively.” Coach Hauser reported that his men were “in fine fettle” and that “we will play Colgate football and the Orange will know it is facing a real football team every step of the way.”

Both coaches used a practice now common but unusual in those days- they billeted their teams in small hotels well outside the city to get them away from the hoopla so they could concentrate on the game. And there was plenty of hoopla to get away from.
“Great throngs trek to the stadium to see the Orange vs. Maroon battle…With seating capacity increased to 32,000 there was every prospect early this afternoon that the big, gray concrete bowl would be overwhelmed by the onrush…A tide of orange swept over the city on the lapels, in bouquets, with pennants and anywhere the color could be displayed. There was no topic of conversation in Syracuse except football….This is the day of days on the sports card of Syracuse. The one day of the year is at hand with all its thrills and once in the last ten years fair weather conditions prevail.”

In Hamilton, “The students formed in front of the Chapel at 8 O’clock, (Friday) and marched down past the fraternity houses, gathering adherents as they went until they came to the center of the village where a hilarious, (?), rally was held with a bonfire.” The Skull and Shell Senior Honor Society offered a cup to the fraternity house with the best decoration. Leading competitors had a maroon tank crushing an orange-colored “flivver” and a grave with an orange casket in it containing a department store dummy in an SU football uniform.

The headline in Friday’s paper read “Orange Should Win Over Colgate Saturday”. One can imagine this had an honored place in the Maroon locker room. Sunday’s paper had a large photo of Ray Barbuti breaking away down the sidelines past Colgate defenders for a 31 yard TD run. Ray and his teammates are dressed in dark, (presumably Orange) colored uniforms from head to toe while Colgate had white helmets to offset their dark, (maroon) jerseys and pants. Even back then the Syracuse Newspapers had several great action shots of the games in Sunday’s edition, many of them from on high of the whole play, rather than just “intimate” shots of individual players. It’s a crime that the Post Standard, (which inherited the archive of the Herald-Journal and which is now the only major paper in town), has never published an illustrated, season by season history of SU football using the many photos in their possession. “The Syracuse Football Story” has some of these shots, but is mostly text. “Syracuse University: a Centennial Celebration” is mostly practice poses, team photos and innocuous game shots. Where are the great moments, the controversial plays, and the rest of the exciting stuff?

The text of the article under Barbuti’s runs begins “Old Bill Orange gave Deacon Colgate a soul-stirring tussle Saturday. Nothing but an error in judgment in the closing moments of play, a furious flurry of aerial thrusts that succeeded by the sheer law of averages and a sensational feat by one of his sons who rose to the sublime heights of spectacular achievement in an emergency enabled the Deacon to stave off the bitterness of defeat.”

The game was played on a clear day with a good field available for all those trick plays that never seemed to materialize. “Everyone in the stands was in either Orange or Maroon. Captains Hanson and Mehler were pygmy gladiators as they met in the center of the field to woo lady luck-tiny mites of men who moved mysteriously under the stare of 60,000 eyes.” Translation: the captains looked small to the 30,000 fans as they went out for the opening coin toss. Both teams used “the old Army strategy of kicking and waiting for a break”. In other words all the secrecy was to mask the idea of doing exactly what Colgate had done- on a wet field- the year before: Just punt it unless you were in the other team’s territory. Hanson did start out in the backfield but that experiment was given up on early as he returned the end position at which he was an All-American.

The surprisingly conservative strategy seemed to work early as SU got a blocked punt but Colgate returned the favor by blocking a field goal. SU then got a 20 yard punt return from Jonah Goldman followed by a 20 yard run by Barbuti. This set up a placekick for a field goal and it was 3-0, SU. That was the halftime score. Barbuti made it 10-0 with his 31 yard scamper in the third period and the prospects looked good for SU to get revenge for the 1925 drubbing and return it its winning ways in the series.

But the Maroon blocked a punt for a score late in the third period and it was 10-7. That set the stage for a wild ending. Late in the game, Goldman set up to receive one of the many punts at his own 35. Timm got there before the ball and knocked him down. The ball bounced off Goldman’s outstretched hands and reserve halfback Russell Williamson ran after the ball, falling on it when it stopped rolling. Then came three incomplete passes. Williamson then got the ball on the 25 and shocked the stadium by trying an old-fashioned drop kick, (the ball was rounder then than it later became), and kicked it through the uprights to tie to the game at 10-10. There was still a minute left but all attempts by the home team to retake control of the game went for naught.

It was only the second field goal Williamson had ever attempted. Navy had blocked the first one, so this ending left everyone stunned. Skiddy said the play would cause Williamson’s name to “go down in history with the nine deacons who founded Colgate’. Well, I never heard of them, either. He also said that Goldman shouldn’t be blamed for his “mistake”. I saw nothing written to indicate that hitting a punt returner before the ball arrived was an illegal maneuver at the time. It sure is now. Skid also observed that perhaps $100,000 had traveled south(east) from Syracuse to Hamilton when that dropkick went though. Gambling and college sports are nothing new.

Coach Hauser was as sportsmanlike as his predecessor had been the year before. “I have never seen two team captains, (Hanson and Mehler), acquit themselves so well, each showing mental alertness, leadership and fine football play.” The fine play continued as the Maroon tied a 9-0 Brown team, also 10-10, to close out the season at 5-2-2. SU closed with wins over Niagara and Columbia to finish 7-2-1. But there was concern that SU would lose eleven seniors, including five starters and the great Vic Hanson to graduation. Where would the heroes come from for the future?

There was some talk after the game about the formation of new Eastern Conference modeled on the Big Ten. Candidates were Syracuse, Colgate, Penn State and teams in the then still “unofficial” Ivy League: Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown and Cornell. Other possibilities were Army, (if SU could ever agree to play them again), Navy and a new power, New York University.

NYU was coached by former Syracuse coach Chick Meehan, who had turned the formally moribund program into the “Violent Violets”. He had scheduled a game with mighty Nebraska and the teams train, (perhaps by design) went through Syracuse. It enabled Meehan to show off his new team to his old town and Skiddy reported, (although Meehan is not quoted on this), that Meehan viewed criticism of Pete Reynolds with some bemusement as it was the same sort of criticism that caused Chick to leave town for NYU. It seems the fans could not be pleased. Meehan had a 35-8-4 record in five seasons, (1920-24) at SU but somehow the 35 wins made the 8 losses all the more intolerable. Pete Reynolds, with a two year record of 15-3-2, (but no wins over Colgate), was feeling the same sort of heat. In fact, there was a committee being formed to “review the football situation” at SU, one that would include two of Reynolds’ players, Hanson and Barbuti. A year later he was gone. Fans losing patience with coaches is also nothing new in college sports.

The Hoodoo continued…
 

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