SWC75
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1931
After the 1930 season a mini-scandal broke out concerning Colgate star Len Macaluso. It seems that he and Les Hart were both enrolled in the school in 1926 and were listed as members of the varsity football team in 1927. Macaluso had even gotten into a couple games as a reserve, something Hart didn’t do as he was injured. In those days the NCAA left it up to the colleges to make their own eligibility rules and enforce them. “Colgate has a rule, like other eastern colleges, to the effect that athletes are limited to three years of varsity service….Syracuse had previously used players in school up to five years if they had only two previous years of varsity experience. Then, in 1925, it adopted a rule that no player could play after his class graduated. The rule, of course, was made elastic to cover the case of an athlete who, though sickness or other causes missed a year or more of classes.” Colgate, for their part, said the reports in the Syracuse paper that Macaluso had played against St. Lawrence and Wabash were erroneous.
The paper reported a rumor that Knute Rockne had a freshman at Notre Dame whom he was holding out for the 1930 season so he could have him for 1931, 32 and 33. Today we would call this practice “Red-shirting”. It’s common for players to practice with the team but not play for one year, then play four years after that, (freshman having become eligible by the NCAA that now governs the sport in 1973). Players who lose a year to injury or illness can even apply for an extension of a 6th year. (I wrote this in 2003: now, in 2020, players can play up to four games and still have four years of eligibility: Colagte was ahead of it’s time, using that rule in the 1930’s. ) But if the newspaper reports were right about Macaluso, the nation’s leading scorer for the 1930 season was not eligible to play in that year. Apparently because of the voluntary nature of rule enforcement in that era, nothing came of this. An article in the 1931 season announces Macaluso, (who never played pro ball), had opened his career in professional wrestling with a 56 minute draw against a smaller but quicker Italian wrestler named Korol Nowins, (that’s an Italian name?). Pro wrestling was for real at the time, not yet quite the farce it soon became.
Relations between Syracuse and Colgate were at a low ebb at this point with the violence that followed the 1930 game and the Macaluso situation. But the schools came together when SU’s diminutive halfback, Steve Sebo, was diagnosed with tuberculosis and had to be confined to a sanitarium in Saranac Lake. SU and Colgate students both took up a collection and collected more than $1500.00 for the young man. That would be worth ten times as much today. It was step in the road back to a civilized rivalry.
Warren Stevens was alive and well and playing in Canada, leading the Montreal AAA Rugby team to the “Interprovincal title”, also known as the Grey Cup, which was competed for by college and AAU teams as well as professional teams until the CFL took over in the 1950’s. Canadian football developed from rugby football and American football, with one of the major developments being the legalization of the forward pass, which occurred for the 1931 season.
Led by Stevens, who had 41 yards rushing, 87 passing and threw the first touchdown pass in Grey Cup history, a 45 yarder, Montreal defeated the Regina Roughriders, 22-0. The game is also remembered as football’s first “sneaker game- three years before the New York Giants switched to sneakers at halftime to turn a 3-13 deficit into a 30-13 win over the unbeaten Chicago Bears in the second NFL championship games. But this was a sneaker game with a comic twist. It was Regina’s coach, Al Ritchie, who ordered lacrosse shoes for his team when he saw the frozen condition of the field. They never arrived and the Roughriders went out for the second half in cleats, only to see Montreal wearing lacrosse shoes- the ones Ritchie had sent for. They had been delivered to the wrong dressing room!
“Stevens has revolutionized the Canadian game though the use of the forward pass, which was permissible for the first time in Canada this year. In addition to his passing, he has been the team’s line bucking back. On defense he has been a safetyman and has given Canada some exhibitions of speed and daring in the handling of punts that it had not known before. The former Syracuse University player being one of the first men the Dominion had seen who goes way back and comes up at full speed to snatch a football out of the air.”
The art of full speed receiving is a knack taught to Stevens in his senior year at Syracuse by Vic Hanson who insisted upon his players catching a ball on the run if possible. Hanson’s argument is that he will run the risk of fumbles and never criticize the boy who does fumble if he will only take the chance and capitalize his full possibilities to get a start against the enemy.”
The kids were doing a lot of listening to Vic Hanson in 1931 and it paid off. The team, after blowing away St. Lawrence, Hobart and Ohio Weslayan by a combined 143-13 to open the year, had a rare trip to the deep south, where they beat Florida 33-12. They followed that up with a 7-0 win over Penn State and 15-10 upset over Michigan State that made the players so happy “they never changed their clothes – just jumped right into cabs with their uniforms on and paraded right through downtown.”
SU’s star player was Dick Fishel, who was the team’s best runner and passer. But halfback Babe Frank was also a key player and when he was hurt against the Spartans, Hanson motioned for his back-up, a kid named Newberg, to come in. The team doctor had such a low opinion of Newberg that he examined the fallen Frank, walked over to Hanson and said, loud enough for the whole bench to hear, “Vic Frank is all right, even if I have to operate.” The whole sidelines broke up at this. Frank remained in the game and scored the winning touchdown.
The Orange warmed up for Colgate with a breather, winning over Western Reserve 33-0 in a game where, according to the paper, the quarters seemed to have been shortened somewhat. This was another practice of those days. The famous 222-0 win by Georgia Tech over Cumberland College in 1917 only lasted 45 minutes and SU’s 144-0 win over Manhattan in 1904 was a 32 minute game. Fortunately the Western Reserve game didn’t get quite that out of hand.
This left Syracuse with a sparkling 7-0 record going into the Big Game, having outscored its opponents 231-35. This was their best record in eight years. “A few Syracuse alumni are dreaming of post season games and possible Rose Bowl competition.” There was also speculation about a post season charity game in Philadelphia against an as yet unchosen opponent. In the days when the Rose Bowl was the only bowl game, these charity games were the closest thing to a Bowl game other than the Rose Bowl. SU had not played in Philadelphia since the war and had many alumni down there and if they could finish unbeaten, they would be a natural for such a game.
Colgate, rebuilding from their powerful 1930 team, was not as lucky, losing to Chick Meehan’s NYU “power specialists”, 0-13. But they had won their other six games and the one common opponent was Penn State, whom the Maroon had crushed, 32-7. They had outscored the opposition, 193-20.
But Colgate had had to deal with a wave of injuries that had unsettled their line-up. Syracuse, on the other hand, had been able to use the same line-up all season. Also, Syracuse’s starters had experience, 10 of 11 of them having played in prior SU-Colgate games. “In past years, the situation was reversed”. Coach Hanson was praised for his physical preparation of the team. “Vic Hanson’s program of football routine has certainly worked wonders with the squad. His men has been driven less than any squad Syracuse has had in 10 years but they have come through with splendid football and have appeared to enjoy every minute of it. In former years, at this stage of the season the Orange coaches have been confronted by tired and weary athletes whose main objective was to reach the close of the season and end the daily grind.”
One reporter, after attending a practice, remarked that he had only heard Hanson raise his voice twice: once when there was a shoving match and once when his players didn’t seem to be putting enough effort into the sprints. Years later another coach said he didn’t mind if his players made mistakes, as long as they made them at full speed. Hanson would have agreed whole-heartedly.
Lawrence J. Skiddy talked to some Colgate students and found them unimpressed, however. “Syracuse may have an undefeated football team but no one seems to know or care much about that fact down here at Colgate. The student body here, possibly the most spirited college student group in the entire world, Syracuse has merely another Orange football team, an aggregation which Colgate will defeat in accordance with an old Colgate custom…The old grads are starting to come back. There will be many of them in tonight and there will be a whole flock of them tomorrow to watch the final practice. They will tell the 1931 players of the glories of the past and listen to the tales of this year’s event. It is all a part of that wonderful spirit that goes to make Colgate one of the most colorful parts of the college world.” And a new color had been added to Colgate football. It was in 1931 that Andy Kerr dressed his team in bright red uniforms, causing people to begin to call the team “the Red Raiders”.
He also talked to a visitor from Illinois who felt that Colgate would be riled up from their loss to NYU and “would have something to prove” while Syracuse was “ripe for a fall”. But a man from Georgia stated he was Vic Hanson fan and had been impressed with SU’s big win over Florida. He felt that the Orange should be favored. Skiddy himself once more brought up the subject of the 1915 game in which Syracuse, after seven straight winless efforts against their rival, had a glorious 38-0 triumph considered by Skiddy the greatest in the school’s history. That game was clearly the equivalent at the time of SU’s 48-21 win over Penn State in 1987 or the amazing 66-13 conquest of Miami in 1998: the benchmark by which all other performances would be measured for years. Both games were the end of years of frustration against those opponents and clearly Skiddy felt that something similar was in the offing for 1931. If not, there would be another seven game winless streak on the books against Colgate. He computed the average score of the 1925-30 games. It came to 7-21.
But he warned “The writer looks for Syracuse to play by far its best game of the season, possibly the best the Orange has played in five years. But there still remains the question as to whether it will be good enough. Colgate has a he-man football team in every sense of the word….Colgate gave Penn State a bad licking while Syracuse was decidedly lucky to win over the Nittany Lions, the Orange having it’s only really bad game of the year on that occasion.” One fan wrote a letter to him predicting a Syracuse victory based on the fact that Syracuse had beaten Michigan State, who had handed the more powerful 1930 Colgate team its only defeat of 1930- In October of that year. Skiddy warned the fan not to bet any money in 1931 based on what had happened in 1930. He also said of Andy Kerr that he “is a November coach. His teams reach their peak then. He doesn’t rush them in the early season but develops them gradually and surely. Vic Hanson, for his part, worried that on two previous occasions Syracuse teams had gone into games against Colgate with perfect records. Both emerged with imperfect records. (Actually there were five- 1903, 1904, 1913, 1914 and 1923- and there were to be three more before two undefeated Syracuse teams finally beat Colgate- in 1959 and 1987).
Skiddy reported a long talk with Bill Reid, the Colgate “Manager of Athletics” about scheduling. It had been the practice in those days to do what Kerr was so good at: play weak teams early, bring the team along slowly and build them up to a peak for the big games, (or game) at the end of the season. For this purpose, the “big time teams” would play a number of “small time teams” early, such as St. Lawrence, Hobart and Clarkson. Notre Dame had become nationally famous by dropping those types of games in favor of playing nothing but big time teams- from various parts of the country, thus causing the Irish to be the one team people looked to judge the quality of football in all the sections of the country- the first “America’s team”, if you will. Reid felt that other schools would soon follow suit. “I honestly think that an established football coach, once he begins to play major foes, would rather continue to keep his team primed for them all the time. The coach doesn’t like the idea of playing two or three strong teams, then dropping to easier opposition and trying to key his players up again.” Reid could not have imagined that Colgate would eventually be dropped by Syracuse as one of those “small time” teams. But that was a generation away. Skiddy and Reid also discussed the possibility of Syracuse-Colgate becoming a home and home series. Both agreed the Red Raiders would have to build a stadium with a capacity of 20,000 for that to be profitable. That never happened, perhaps one reason Colgate became small-time in the post war era.
Meanwhile, “Committees at the rival schools are planning new and novel stunts with the rival college bands, both supposedly bigger and better than ever, figuring largely in the plans.” “Again in 1931, on a ‘pirating mission’, sixteen SU students headed down to Hamilton to steal signs from various Colgate fraternity houses. They were caught- getting nailed by the opposition was held in high regard, almost as high as getting away with the pranks- and summarily dumped into the lake. Also that year, one SU fraternity posted a large placard on its front porch that showed the Saltine Warrior waving a tomahawk over a Red Raider’s skull. The caption read ‘Can We? I ax ya!’”. Behind them was a rope line with the “scalps” of the mascots of prior opponents hanging from it”. No political correctness in those days!
“A complete sell-out not only in the stadium but in hotels downtown was indicated with calls going out to private lodgings and with ticket holders letting go of their colored pasteboards at $20.00 a ticket.” Imagine paying $20 for a ticket to a football game in the Depression. That’s about $200.00 now.
The newspaper reported that no fewer than 28 dances were scheduled in Syracuse for game day. “Thousands” of students were to appear in the SU “oval” for a bonfire organized by the engineering department and a “pajama parade” to the business section of downtown Syracuse. The students would sing “college songs” the whole route and finish the evening on the steps of the county courthouse for a series of speeches by local celebrities. There was also a special promotion for Thursday night. Vic Hanson and the team would appear at the Paramount Theater downtown for the premiere of a new film “Touchdown” staring Richard Arlen and Jack Oakie, as well as Jim Thorpe and Howard, Jones, the Southern California coach. The film was described as “The football picture that dares to be DIFFERENT!…You get the real inside story of college football: ambitious coaches demand victory at any price-costly stadiums paid for with winning teams and broken bodies! It’s a DIFFERENT football picture- and it has a lot of comedy and a swell romance, too!” SU would have been satisfied to skip the comedy and romance if they could only have a DIFFERENT result in their game with Colgate.
The game began promisingly for the Orange. They kicked off and the Red Raiders obligingly fumbled on their first play. SU took over at the Colgate 27 but could only make it to the 21 before giving up the ball on downs. But virtually the entire first quarter was played in Colgate territory. The fans waited impatiently for the big play that would break up the game.
It came early in the second quarter, after Colgate had finally penetrated Syracuse territory to the 34. Johnny Orsi drifted into the SU secondary and found a spot between the linebacker and the backfield. A picture in the Sunday paper shows it perfectly: Orsi with his arms outstretched, three defenders approaching him from different directions, waiting for a pass from Johnny Litster to reach his arms before they got there. It did and Orsi was almost immediately hit by Dick Fishel but he spun out of that tackle. He “charged five more yards, splitting between two Orange-jersied warriors like he was a lineman splitting a double-team.” Now the only man with a chance to prevent the touchdown was Babe Frank. But Frank couldn’t bring the determined Orsi down either and took a ride into the end zone on Johnny’s back. A he-man team, indeed!
Colgate dominated the line-play and Orsi in particular spent almost as much time in the SU backfield when on defense as the SU players did. “Syracuse’s backs found Colgate’s ends and tackles upon them before they had started out of their tracks and plays which called for hesitation and deception will not get far any time the enemy’s forwards can turn this trick.”
Orsi struck again on the first possession after the half. Fishel dropped back from the 20 to throw what we would now call a screen pass to Joe Moran but Orsi smelled the play out, stepped in front of Moran, pulled the ball out of the air and was off to the races. This time, however a desperation tackle, (also captured by the photographer), pushed him out of bounds on the three. It didn’t matter Colgate scored two plays later and it was 0-14.
“After Orsi showed his stuff Syracuse showed the gameness for which it is noted putting on a sensational march of 77 yards down the field.” They borrowed a page from Andy Kerr’s playbook, using laterals to baffle the Colgate defenders. Then, when they got within sight of the goal line the Fishel started passing the ball downfield over the defender’s heads. In a play reminiscent of Harry Haines’ moment of glory for the Maroon in the 1929 game, a Fishel pass was batted in the air but an SU lineman carried it to the Colgate five. Fishel ran the ball over from there and it was 7-14.
This just made Colgate mad. Johnny Litster took over from his fellow Johnny, (Orsi), with 19 minutes left on the clock. He ran and passed his team down the field on a disheartening, time-consuming drive. Bob Samuel took it over from the three to bring the score to 7-21, the exact average score of the previous six Colgate-Syracuse games. “Then came Colgate’s infuriated, (but failed), drive to another touchdown, the rushing in of the substitutes for the well-known block letter awards, the final whistle and the to-be-expected battle for the goal posts.”
“The goal post battle, one of the most ridiculous features of modern football victory celebrations, was not a student affair. Instead it was pretty much of a milling of youngsters and was started to tear down the goal posts where Colgate’s students were standing as one man in their cheering section, singing their Alma Mater. An appeal to stop it was made by the stadium broadcaster, with the explanation that the goal posts were needed for a charity football game to be played that Wednesday. But the appeal, though heeded and respected by Colgate men and the Syracuse University students, fell on deaf ears and there was quite a battle under the posts with many a bloody nose and a black eye resulting. “
The paper described the game as “another gem in Colgate collection of victories.” It also described the next day as “the bluest Sunday of Vic Hanson’s life”. Hanson said “We gave everything we had and it simply wasn’t enough. It was a real he-man’s game of football from start to finish. The better of two teams won….We can’t expect to win them all and I suppose I shouldn’t be ashamed although I certainly did want this one more than the rest.”
The game was like the movie to a point. It had a little romance and a touch of comedy. Unfortunately, it was the same old story.
The hoodoo, unfortunately, continued.
After the 1930 season a mini-scandal broke out concerning Colgate star Len Macaluso. It seems that he and Les Hart were both enrolled in the school in 1926 and were listed as members of the varsity football team in 1927. Macaluso had even gotten into a couple games as a reserve, something Hart didn’t do as he was injured. In those days the NCAA left it up to the colleges to make their own eligibility rules and enforce them. “Colgate has a rule, like other eastern colleges, to the effect that athletes are limited to three years of varsity service….Syracuse had previously used players in school up to five years if they had only two previous years of varsity experience. Then, in 1925, it adopted a rule that no player could play after his class graduated. The rule, of course, was made elastic to cover the case of an athlete who, though sickness or other causes missed a year or more of classes.” Colgate, for their part, said the reports in the Syracuse paper that Macaluso had played against St. Lawrence and Wabash were erroneous.
The paper reported a rumor that Knute Rockne had a freshman at Notre Dame whom he was holding out for the 1930 season so he could have him for 1931, 32 and 33. Today we would call this practice “Red-shirting”. It’s common for players to practice with the team but not play for one year, then play four years after that, (freshman having become eligible by the NCAA that now governs the sport in 1973). Players who lose a year to injury or illness can even apply for an extension of a 6th year. (I wrote this in 2003: now, in 2020, players can play up to four games and still have four years of eligibility: Colagte was ahead of it’s time, using that rule in the 1930’s. ) But if the newspaper reports were right about Macaluso, the nation’s leading scorer for the 1930 season was not eligible to play in that year. Apparently because of the voluntary nature of rule enforcement in that era, nothing came of this. An article in the 1931 season announces Macaluso, (who never played pro ball), had opened his career in professional wrestling with a 56 minute draw against a smaller but quicker Italian wrestler named Korol Nowins, (that’s an Italian name?). Pro wrestling was for real at the time, not yet quite the farce it soon became.
Relations between Syracuse and Colgate were at a low ebb at this point with the violence that followed the 1930 game and the Macaluso situation. But the schools came together when SU’s diminutive halfback, Steve Sebo, was diagnosed with tuberculosis and had to be confined to a sanitarium in Saranac Lake. SU and Colgate students both took up a collection and collected more than $1500.00 for the young man. That would be worth ten times as much today. It was step in the road back to a civilized rivalry.
Warren Stevens was alive and well and playing in Canada, leading the Montreal AAA Rugby team to the “Interprovincal title”, also known as the Grey Cup, which was competed for by college and AAU teams as well as professional teams until the CFL took over in the 1950’s. Canadian football developed from rugby football and American football, with one of the major developments being the legalization of the forward pass, which occurred for the 1931 season.
Led by Stevens, who had 41 yards rushing, 87 passing and threw the first touchdown pass in Grey Cup history, a 45 yarder, Montreal defeated the Regina Roughriders, 22-0. The game is also remembered as football’s first “sneaker game- three years before the New York Giants switched to sneakers at halftime to turn a 3-13 deficit into a 30-13 win over the unbeaten Chicago Bears in the second NFL championship games. But this was a sneaker game with a comic twist. It was Regina’s coach, Al Ritchie, who ordered lacrosse shoes for his team when he saw the frozen condition of the field. They never arrived and the Roughriders went out for the second half in cleats, only to see Montreal wearing lacrosse shoes- the ones Ritchie had sent for. They had been delivered to the wrong dressing room!
“Stevens has revolutionized the Canadian game though the use of the forward pass, which was permissible for the first time in Canada this year. In addition to his passing, he has been the team’s line bucking back. On defense he has been a safetyman and has given Canada some exhibitions of speed and daring in the handling of punts that it had not known before. The former Syracuse University player being one of the first men the Dominion had seen who goes way back and comes up at full speed to snatch a football out of the air.”
The art of full speed receiving is a knack taught to Stevens in his senior year at Syracuse by Vic Hanson who insisted upon his players catching a ball on the run if possible. Hanson’s argument is that he will run the risk of fumbles and never criticize the boy who does fumble if he will only take the chance and capitalize his full possibilities to get a start against the enemy.”
The kids were doing a lot of listening to Vic Hanson in 1931 and it paid off. The team, after blowing away St. Lawrence, Hobart and Ohio Weslayan by a combined 143-13 to open the year, had a rare trip to the deep south, where they beat Florida 33-12. They followed that up with a 7-0 win over Penn State and 15-10 upset over Michigan State that made the players so happy “they never changed their clothes – just jumped right into cabs with their uniforms on and paraded right through downtown.”
SU’s star player was Dick Fishel, who was the team’s best runner and passer. But halfback Babe Frank was also a key player and when he was hurt against the Spartans, Hanson motioned for his back-up, a kid named Newberg, to come in. The team doctor had such a low opinion of Newberg that he examined the fallen Frank, walked over to Hanson and said, loud enough for the whole bench to hear, “Vic Frank is all right, even if I have to operate.” The whole sidelines broke up at this. Frank remained in the game and scored the winning touchdown.
The Orange warmed up for Colgate with a breather, winning over Western Reserve 33-0 in a game where, according to the paper, the quarters seemed to have been shortened somewhat. This was another practice of those days. The famous 222-0 win by Georgia Tech over Cumberland College in 1917 only lasted 45 minutes and SU’s 144-0 win over Manhattan in 1904 was a 32 minute game. Fortunately the Western Reserve game didn’t get quite that out of hand.
This left Syracuse with a sparkling 7-0 record going into the Big Game, having outscored its opponents 231-35. This was their best record in eight years. “A few Syracuse alumni are dreaming of post season games and possible Rose Bowl competition.” There was also speculation about a post season charity game in Philadelphia against an as yet unchosen opponent. In the days when the Rose Bowl was the only bowl game, these charity games were the closest thing to a Bowl game other than the Rose Bowl. SU had not played in Philadelphia since the war and had many alumni down there and if they could finish unbeaten, they would be a natural for such a game.
Colgate, rebuilding from their powerful 1930 team, was not as lucky, losing to Chick Meehan’s NYU “power specialists”, 0-13. But they had won their other six games and the one common opponent was Penn State, whom the Maroon had crushed, 32-7. They had outscored the opposition, 193-20.
But Colgate had had to deal with a wave of injuries that had unsettled their line-up. Syracuse, on the other hand, had been able to use the same line-up all season. Also, Syracuse’s starters had experience, 10 of 11 of them having played in prior SU-Colgate games. “In past years, the situation was reversed”. Coach Hanson was praised for his physical preparation of the team. “Vic Hanson’s program of football routine has certainly worked wonders with the squad. His men has been driven less than any squad Syracuse has had in 10 years but they have come through with splendid football and have appeared to enjoy every minute of it. In former years, at this stage of the season the Orange coaches have been confronted by tired and weary athletes whose main objective was to reach the close of the season and end the daily grind.”
One reporter, after attending a practice, remarked that he had only heard Hanson raise his voice twice: once when there was a shoving match and once when his players didn’t seem to be putting enough effort into the sprints. Years later another coach said he didn’t mind if his players made mistakes, as long as they made them at full speed. Hanson would have agreed whole-heartedly.
Lawrence J. Skiddy talked to some Colgate students and found them unimpressed, however. “Syracuse may have an undefeated football team but no one seems to know or care much about that fact down here at Colgate. The student body here, possibly the most spirited college student group in the entire world, Syracuse has merely another Orange football team, an aggregation which Colgate will defeat in accordance with an old Colgate custom…The old grads are starting to come back. There will be many of them in tonight and there will be a whole flock of them tomorrow to watch the final practice. They will tell the 1931 players of the glories of the past and listen to the tales of this year’s event. It is all a part of that wonderful spirit that goes to make Colgate one of the most colorful parts of the college world.” And a new color had been added to Colgate football. It was in 1931 that Andy Kerr dressed his team in bright red uniforms, causing people to begin to call the team “the Red Raiders”.
He also talked to a visitor from Illinois who felt that Colgate would be riled up from their loss to NYU and “would have something to prove” while Syracuse was “ripe for a fall”. But a man from Georgia stated he was Vic Hanson fan and had been impressed with SU’s big win over Florida. He felt that the Orange should be favored. Skiddy himself once more brought up the subject of the 1915 game in which Syracuse, after seven straight winless efforts against their rival, had a glorious 38-0 triumph considered by Skiddy the greatest in the school’s history. That game was clearly the equivalent at the time of SU’s 48-21 win over Penn State in 1987 or the amazing 66-13 conquest of Miami in 1998: the benchmark by which all other performances would be measured for years. Both games were the end of years of frustration against those opponents and clearly Skiddy felt that something similar was in the offing for 1931. If not, there would be another seven game winless streak on the books against Colgate. He computed the average score of the 1925-30 games. It came to 7-21.
But he warned “The writer looks for Syracuse to play by far its best game of the season, possibly the best the Orange has played in five years. But there still remains the question as to whether it will be good enough. Colgate has a he-man football team in every sense of the word….Colgate gave Penn State a bad licking while Syracuse was decidedly lucky to win over the Nittany Lions, the Orange having it’s only really bad game of the year on that occasion.” One fan wrote a letter to him predicting a Syracuse victory based on the fact that Syracuse had beaten Michigan State, who had handed the more powerful 1930 Colgate team its only defeat of 1930- In October of that year. Skiddy warned the fan not to bet any money in 1931 based on what had happened in 1930. He also said of Andy Kerr that he “is a November coach. His teams reach their peak then. He doesn’t rush them in the early season but develops them gradually and surely. Vic Hanson, for his part, worried that on two previous occasions Syracuse teams had gone into games against Colgate with perfect records. Both emerged with imperfect records. (Actually there were five- 1903, 1904, 1913, 1914 and 1923- and there were to be three more before two undefeated Syracuse teams finally beat Colgate- in 1959 and 1987).
Skiddy reported a long talk with Bill Reid, the Colgate “Manager of Athletics” about scheduling. It had been the practice in those days to do what Kerr was so good at: play weak teams early, bring the team along slowly and build them up to a peak for the big games, (or game) at the end of the season. For this purpose, the “big time teams” would play a number of “small time teams” early, such as St. Lawrence, Hobart and Clarkson. Notre Dame had become nationally famous by dropping those types of games in favor of playing nothing but big time teams- from various parts of the country, thus causing the Irish to be the one team people looked to judge the quality of football in all the sections of the country- the first “America’s team”, if you will. Reid felt that other schools would soon follow suit. “I honestly think that an established football coach, once he begins to play major foes, would rather continue to keep his team primed for them all the time. The coach doesn’t like the idea of playing two or three strong teams, then dropping to easier opposition and trying to key his players up again.” Reid could not have imagined that Colgate would eventually be dropped by Syracuse as one of those “small time” teams. But that was a generation away. Skiddy and Reid also discussed the possibility of Syracuse-Colgate becoming a home and home series. Both agreed the Red Raiders would have to build a stadium with a capacity of 20,000 for that to be profitable. That never happened, perhaps one reason Colgate became small-time in the post war era.
Meanwhile, “Committees at the rival schools are planning new and novel stunts with the rival college bands, both supposedly bigger and better than ever, figuring largely in the plans.” “Again in 1931, on a ‘pirating mission’, sixteen SU students headed down to Hamilton to steal signs from various Colgate fraternity houses. They were caught- getting nailed by the opposition was held in high regard, almost as high as getting away with the pranks- and summarily dumped into the lake. Also that year, one SU fraternity posted a large placard on its front porch that showed the Saltine Warrior waving a tomahawk over a Red Raider’s skull. The caption read ‘Can We? I ax ya!’”. Behind them was a rope line with the “scalps” of the mascots of prior opponents hanging from it”. No political correctness in those days!
“A complete sell-out not only in the stadium but in hotels downtown was indicated with calls going out to private lodgings and with ticket holders letting go of their colored pasteboards at $20.00 a ticket.” Imagine paying $20 for a ticket to a football game in the Depression. That’s about $200.00 now.
The newspaper reported that no fewer than 28 dances were scheduled in Syracuse for game day. “Thousands” of students were to appear in the SU “oval” for a bonfire organized by the engineering department and a “pajama parade” to the business section of downtown Syracuse. The students would sing “college songs” the whole route and finish the evening on the steps of the county courthouse for a series of speeches by local celebrities. There was also a special promotion for Thursday night. Vic Hanson and the team would appear at the Paramount Theater downtown for the premiere of a new film “Touchdown” staring Richard Arlen and Jack Oakie, as well as Jim Thorpe and Howard, Jones, the Southern California coach. The film was described as “The football picture that dares to be DIFFERENT!…You get the real inside story of college football: ambitious coaches demand victory at any price-costly stadiums paid for with winning teams and broken bodies! It’s a DIFFERENT football picture- and it has a lot of comedy and a swell romance, too!” SU would have been satisfied to skip the comedy and romance if they could only have a DIFFERENT result in their game with Colgate.
The game began promisingly for the Orange. They kicked off and the Red Raiders obligingly fumbled on their first play. SU took over at the Colgate 27 but could only make it to the 21 before giving up the ball on downs. But virtually the entire first quarter was played in Colgate territory. The fans waited impatiently for the big play that would break up the game.
It came early in the second quarter, after Colgate had finally penetrated Syracuse territory to the 34. Johnny Orsi drifted into the SU secondary and found a spot between the linebacker and the backfield. A picture in the Sunday paper shows it perfectly: Orsi with his arms outstretched, three defenders approaching him from different directions, waiting for a pass from Johnny Litster to reach his arms before they got there. It did and Orsi was almost immediately hit by Dick Fishel but he spun out of that tackle. He “charged five more yards, splitting between two Orange-jersied warriors like he was a lineman splitting a double-team.” Now the only man with a chance to prevent the touchdown was Babe Frank. But Frank couldn’t bring the determined Orsi down either and took a ride into the end zone on Johnny’s back. A he-man team, indeed!
Colgate dominated the line-play and Orsi in particular spent almost as much time in the SU backfield when on defense as the SU players did. “Syracuse’s backs found Colgate’s ends and tackles upon them before they had started out of their tracks and plays which called for hesitation and deception will not get far any time the enemy’s forwards can turn this trick.”
Orsi struck again on the first possession after the half. Fishel dropped back from the 20 to throw what we would now call a screen pass to Joe Moran but Orsi smelled the play out, stepped in front of Moran, pulled the ball out of the air and was off to the races. This time, however a desperation tackle, (also captured by the photographer), pushed him out of bounds on the three. It didn’t matter Colgate scored two plays later and it was 0-14.
“After Orsi showed his stuff Syracuse showed the gameness for which it is noted putting on a sensational march of 77 yards down the field.” They borrowed a page from Andy Kerr’s playbook, using laterals to baffle the Colgate defenders. Then, when they got within sight of the goal line the Fishel started passing the ball downfield over the defender’s heads. In a play reminiscent of Harry Haines’ moment of glory for the Maroon in the 1929 game, a Fishel pass was batted in the air but an SU lineman carried it to the Colgate five. Fishel ran the ball over from there and it was 7-14.
This just made Colgate mad. Johnny Litster took over from his fellow Johnny, (Orsi), with 19 minutes left on the clock. He ran and passed his team down the field on a disheartening, time-consuming drive. Bob Samuel took it over from the three to bring the score to 7-21, the exact average score of the previous six Colgate-Syracuse games. “Then came Colgate’s infuriated, (but failed), drive to another touchdown, the rushing in of the substitutes for the well-known block letter awards, the final whistle and the to-be-expected battle for the goal posts.”
“The goal post battle, one of the most ridiculous features of modern football victory celebrations, was not a student affair. Instead it was pretty much of a milling of youngsters and was started to tear down the goal posts where Colgate’s students were standing as one man in their cheering section, singing their Alma Mater. An appeal to stop it was made by the stadium broadcaster, with the explanation that the goal posts were needed for a charity football game to be played that Wednesday. But the appeal, though heeded and respected by Colgate men and the Syracuse University students, fell on deaf ears and there was quite a battle under the posts with many a bloody nose and a black eye resulting. “
The paper described the game as “another gem in Colgate collection of victories.” It also described the next day as “the bluest Sunday of Vic Hanson’s life”. Hanson said “We gave everything we had and it simply wasn’t enough. It was a real he-man’s game of football from start to finish. The better of two teams won….We can’t expect to win them all and I suppose I shouldn’t be ashamed although I certainly did want this one more than the rest.”
The game was like the movie to a point. It had a little romance and a touch of comedy. Unfortunately, it was the same old story.
The hoodoo, unfortunately, continued.
