SWC75
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1932
“Many kind criticisms have been written the country over...but Andy Kerr isn’t taking the praise too seriously and is seeing to it his boys do not.” It must have been hard to ignore all those “kind criticisms” when you are a member of Colgate’s greatest team. The Red Raiders opened with a 41-0 win over St. Lawrence, then had a 27-0 win over Case, a 47-0 victory over Niagara and a 35-0 win over Lafayette. Their next opponent was NYU.
Professor Philip Badger became chairman of the athletic board at Chick Meehan’s school. He abhorred football and he abhorred Meehan, who resigned after the 1931 season. NYU’s brief period of power evaporated in his absence and Colgate gained revenge for their lone 1931 defeat, 14-0.
The Red Raiders then crushed Penn State, 31-0 and Mississippi College, 32-0. This left them one of two teams in the country that were undefeated, untied and unscored upon, the other being Howard Jones’ Southern California Trojans. “Rank your football teams any way you want to but when it comes to the top position there can be only two than can be taken into consideration and these are Colgate and Southern California. This pair has not only won each game played in clean, decisive, fashion but has not allowed a single point. As affairs now stand they will be opponents in the Rose Bowl game in California, the grand finale to the football season.”
Skiddy reported that there were many in Central New York who were football fans with no particular allegiance to either Colgate or Syracuse. He himself personally knew about 50-60 of them. They “began the season hoping this would be the year Syracuse finally beat Colgate. They felt that Colgate’s string of successes had been extended too long for the best interests of a happy relationship between the two schools.” But now “they argue this is the greatest of all years for Colgate and that the Maroon has not only surpassed all its own previous efforts but has excelled the performances of all Eastern schools the last several years. They do not want to see this wonderful record stop. They want Colgate to win and carry on to the Rose Bowl.”
Not everyone was quite as impressed. Some noted that the Red Raiders has played only a couple of “big time” teams and thought Pittsburgh was more deserving of the bid. Skiddy acknowledged this, saying Pitt “had a great football team” but they’d had a scoreless tie with Ohio State and given up 13 points to Army. Later they’d have another scoreless tie with Nebraska and gave up another 12 points to Penn. They also beat Notre Dame, Carnegie Tech and Stanford and wound up with a record of 8 wins, no losses and 2 ties, outscoring the opposition 182-25. But that is not the same as being undefeated, untied and unscored upon.
In light of all this, Syracuse just seemed like a bump in the road. The Orange with a “green” team, had stumbled their way through losses against pesky old Ohio Weslayan, Southern Methodist and Michigan State. They did beat St. Lawrence worse than Colgate did, 54-0 and beat Penn State as well. The week before the Colgate game they scheduled somebody called Oglethorpe, (they are from Georgia), and beat them 27-6. But the paper said they looked better losing to Michigan State by two touchdowns than they did beating Oglethorpe by three.
“Hanson’s aggregation this year qualifies as one of the unluckiest teams that has ever played football. It isn’t anything like a great gridiron force but with an even distribution of luck in its games it could easily have been undefeated today. ‘Bad Dreams’ have caused one panic after another in the ranks of the Syracuse players this year. After each fumble or intercepted pass or costly penalty there has been a mental depression all too evident. It has usually meant a score for the other team. This has not been due to timidity. The Orange youngsters have shown gameness to a marked degree but they have also shown the sin of inexperience by their tendency to ‘blow’ if the breaks go against them. If the breaks should go the other way and favor Syracuse there is no telling what can happen. Let those kids once decide luck is with them and they may go places.” If so, they would be the first team to go any place against Colgate in 1932.
Colgate to that point had outscored its seven foes by a total of 227-0. Equally impressively, they out first downed them, 140-20, including 23-0 against St. Lawrence. The paper called them “The Little Giants of the Chenango” and said “They are the general choice of football writers as the team which should receive the invitation to carry the Eastern flag into battle in California’s Rose Bowl contest of Christmas Day.” That may have been the problem, for the Rose Bowl game would not be played until January 2nd, 1933.
Skiddy again went to Hamilton in the week before the big game. He asked Andy Kerr if this was the best team he had ever coached. “I have had heavier teams which had outstanding stars. This team is unique. It has no stars. It is a unit. This is a fine football team and is the best I have ever coached in the fact it has quickly absorbed coaching. These boys have shown a consistent improvement each succeeding week. They seldom repeat mistakes. In these ways they comprise the best team I have ever coached.” But Skiddy reported there was no overconfidence in the Colgate camp. At their practices, “there was no kidding just ‘grim determination’. “ Tommy Doyle an assistant coach who had done nothing on Saturdays that fall except scout Syracuse, declared “Syracuse in several games has shown 20 minute spurts of football that has been as near to invincible football as anything he have ever seen on the gridiron. Tommy has sold Colgate’s officials and players with the idea that the Orange, if it maintains its best pace over a full 60 minute period, will be unbeatable.”
Vic Hanson echoed the same sentiments. “It, (Colgate), is a strong aggregation to go up against. The strongest team, as a team, that I’ve ever had to face or send a team against. …The odds are against us and I know it. But sometimes a fellow or a gang of fellows reaches up and comes through with a top notch effort when things seem blackest. If our players should turn in 60 minutes of football like that of their third period against Oglethorpe, their fourth period against Michigan State, their first period against Penn State I wouldn’t hesitate to declare they could match Colgate yard for yard and point for point all day long….How I wish I could turn back the hands of time for about two months. These boys have reached a point now where they know some football naturally. Now that I have them right, they are called upon to face the best team in the east, if not the best in all football. But we’ll give Colgate a battle.” It would be a battle between a team that played well sometimes and a team that played well all the time.
“Hanson wants victory in this game more than he ever wanted anything in his life. He has kindled the same spirit in his players. The finest thing about him as a teacher is his ability to build up the spirit of the squad. He can sell his ideas to the players. To him this game is everything and he has his players feeling the same way about it.” One such player was Francis “Dink” Tisdale, who was going to be given the fullback assignment for the game in place of injured Barney Nevins. Tisdale was shown in a practice photo running toward the camera with a ball in his hand with the caption “Can Colgate stop him?” From the look on his face, it seemed unlikely. Tisdale had a sneer that made it look as if the coaching staff fed him raw meat with a pitchfork. Just give the ball to the Dinkster and let him chomp his way through the Colgate line!
Andy Kerr, on the other hand, had the horses and intended to use them. “Kerr has always argued that a fresh second team is more effective than a tired varsity, (meaning the first team- actually the second team was part of the “varsity”, as well). but he has never practiced this doctrine as much as he has this year and it is expected that the varsity will see about 40 minutes of service and the reserves 20 minutes no matter how close the contest with Syracuse may be.” It sounds like the sort of game plan one might have against St. Lawrence.
An article appeared in the paper listing the heights and weights of all the projected starters for the two teams. Colgate, incredibly even for that era, had no player who weighed as much as 200 pounds in their starting line-up. A tackle named Ellis was their largest man at 5-11 198. Their line averaged 5-11 183 and their backfield 5-10 177. SU was a little bigger, their line averaging 6-0 192 and the backfield 5-9 178. They had the only guy over 200 pounds on the field, 6-3 220 tackle Joe Vavra.
The 1915 game was again invoked as readers were reminded that the only other Colgate team to go into a Syracuse game unbeaten lost 38-0 to the Orange. Also, in 1923, Syracuse had been unbeaten, untied and unscored upon, (actually, they’d given up a field goal in a 61-3 trouncing of William and Mary- or rather the football team representing that school), until Eddie Tryon returned a fumble for a score on the way to a 7-16 shocker that knocked SU out of the Rose Bowl.
Dr. Bernard Clausen, of the First Baptist Church in Syracuse, made a speech at Crouse College in which he recalled those games. He was a Colgate alum but had a strong spiritual feeling that something big was about to happen.. “For ten years I have been predicting Colgate victories with a fair record of success. This year, however, I have been compelled to predict a Colgate catastrophe. If you point out that Colgate has had a successful season thus far without a defeat or a goal line crossed and if you point out the drab record of Syracuse, I say that the situation is almost a certain set-up for a Syracuse victory. The history of the series shows two such upsets before. Once, while I was in college, the Colgate team came to Syracuse with a successful record only to be jolted by a 38-0 score. In 1923 Syracuse had a record such as Colgate enjoys this year but at Archbold Stadium Eddie Tryon picked up a fumble and the game turned into a riot, (sic), for Colgate. I make no pretense to analyze the technical side but I do know the spiritual side facts and I see this Saturday a Syracuse team emerging victorious 13-6.”
Another person with little familiarity with the technical side was a fortune teller Skiddy consulted. She refused to identify the winner but did offer this description: the ‘chieftan’ of the winning team, who used to play football himself, is a comparatively small man who feels he needs the victory badly and had been having headaches the last few days.” She predicted the final score would be 25-14, a high score for a game between two “big time” teams in those days and an indication, along with Dr. Clausen’s prediction, that Colgate’s record of perfection in preventing their goal line from being crossed would be ended even if their perfection in winning games continued. Skiddy pointed out that both Andy Kerr and Vic Hanson used to play football, although Hanson was much the better at it. Kerr, at 135 pounds, was “comparatively small” compared to the 174lb Hanson, who was “comparatively small” to a good many others. Both coaches wanted the game badly and neither was a stranger to headaches. Few coaches are.
There was a movement on to combat “the violence of former pre-game weeks”. Faculty and student leaders along with fraternities were enlisted to put a moratorium on campus raids. More dances and other campus “official” events were scheduled to blow off student steam. In addition a large pep rally was scheduled for Archbold Gym where Chancellor Flint of Syracuse and President Cullen of Colgate would both speak and bands and choruses of both schools would play various football tunes. “An anti rah rahism movement that struck the hill this season slowly lost itself in the confusion of merrymakers who thronged the streets wearing the Orange and the Maroon….In spite of the fact that Chancellor Flint of Syracuse advised against the use of traditional “Beat Colgate” posters a few of the fraternity and sorority houses exhibited belligerent displays….Sims Hall, the men’s dormitory, hung an effigy of “Johnny Colgate” on a flagpole….Meanwhile the Syracuse student body argued over the problem of to be or not to be indifferent about football games..” Benjamin Tynansky, former head student cheerleader, “bewailed the movement against collegiatism saying ‘one tenth of Syracuse students are going away for the weekend because they think it’s going to be a poor game. Such spirit is disgusting.’”.
Andy Kerr, as always was cautious. Addressing a pep rally at Colgate, he asked if there were any lovers of music in the audience. He got a loud “Yes!” answer. He pointed out that there was a place on the SU campus called Crouse College where they rang chimes when Syracuse won. He said that he wasn’t so sure Colgate players and fans might not be hearing that music if they underestimated Syracuse. Kerr certainly was in no mood to underestimate Syracuse, not after he arrived at the Colgate football field for practice one morning to find that it had been painted orange, even his elevated coaching box. “Efforts were made to determine if any Syracuse students were seen in Hamilton last night.”
Even with one-tenth the students gone, 25,000 people were expected for the game. One of them was Steve Sebo, the former SU back who had been stricken with tuberculosis. “Sebo’s stay at Saranac Lake has been financed by Orange alumni and football fans. The fund is sufficient to maintain him in the north country until after Christmas but it is not sufficient to cover the full time which physicians say he must have. Sebo came to Syracuse today at the quest of Syracuse faculty members and alumni who figured the Colgate-Syracuse game would be a rare treat for him and, at the same time allow them to discuss with him plans for replenishing of the fund.” Replenishing funds was a difficult issue in 1932.
Colgate came out in the new uniforms Andy Kerr had designed for them which they had worn all season and would wear at least until somebody beat them. They had white helmets and jerseys with red trim and pants. They also had the innovation of numbers on the helmets, which in the pictures in the paper gave them the look of a more modern team compared to SU, which appeared drab in the black and white photos that made blue and Orange look much the same.
On Sunday, Skiddy wrote, “The contest was one of the most surprising Orange-Maroon games ever played, a contest in which both teams found themselves baffled to a great extent by the defense of the foe.” Skiddy must have been the only one surprised by a Colgate win dominated by defense. Colgate had the ball most of the time. Their defense set up the first score in the second period when a blocked punt gave Colgate the ball on the SU five. There was a controversy about this. It was not fourth down and there was a rule at the time that if the kicking team recovered the ball before it went beyond the line of scrimmage, they still had possession with a new set of downs. The refs ruled that the ball had rolled just beyond the line of scrimmage and the call held up among various arguments and a chorus of boos. Two plays later Bob Rowe ran it over from the two and Colgate led, 0-7. On the subsequent kickoff, Dick Fishel returned the ball to the SU 44. The refs ruled Syracuse was offside and they did it again. This time Fishel returned it to the 20. But Colgate was offside. The by now exhausted Fishel sucked it up and returned the third straight kick-off to the SU 40. This one held but so did Colgate.
“Andy Kerr’s famous double and triple pass plays and his double spinner gained him little ground. An inspired defense gave him a decided surprise in that respect…On the worth of the Colgate defense, there can be no question. The Raiders smeared Syracuse plays as fast as they were tried.” The Red Raiders eventually won the game by going to the air. Skiddy noted that The Red Raiders completed the impressive total of 8 completed passes in 18 attempts. SU held Colgate to only 9 first downs, but 5 of them came through the air. Syracuse managed only 4 first downs, despite all of “Dink” Tisdale’s fearsome grimaces.
The clincher came in the fourth quarter when Whitey Ask, (Chris Berman would have called him “Ask And It Shall Be Given”), dropped back from the Syracuse 33 all the way to midfield, then launched a long pass that Verne Lee caught at the two. Lee then waltzed into the end zone and all hopes of a “Colgate Catastrophe” were ended. Kicker Claire Lyon missed the extra point but got another chance to kick the ball when a muffed pitch-out by SU produced a wild scramble for the ball in which an SU player was tackled and somebody kicked the pigskin toward the SU goal. The refs had another conference over that one and backed out of it by declaring fouls on both teams, thus negating the play. SU’s Louie Stark shanked a punt and Colgate took over at the 28. Lyon finished the possession by making “one of the prettiest kicks ever seen in the Syracuse-Colgate gridiron rivalry.” It didn’t need to be all that pretty from 22 yards away. It must not have looked very pretty to SU, which was now behind 0-16. Colgate got the ball one more time after intercepting a Fishel pass and was driving at the SU 23 as the game ended.
Kerr gave SU a somewhat left-handed compliment after the game, saying that they had played better than any of the other Syracuse teams he had faced since coming to Colgate. “Vic Hanson, Syracuse coach was not exactly a happy figure after the game. Hanson never has been and probably will never be a radiant loser. But as usual, he was a good sportsman.” Vic praised his own defense but said “my hat is off to Colgate for its wonderful defense and I particularly want to congratulate Bobby Smith, their remarkably fine captain and inspiration of his team…Andy Kerr has brought another strong football team to Syracuse for a victory and I congratulate him.”
Vic for years afterwards, on the banquet circuit, told a story about Dick Fishel that knocked ‘em dead every time. It’s related in Ken Rappoport’s “The Syracuse Football Story”. “Well, we’re down at Colgate and he goes over the goal line for an apparent touchdown but he fumbles the ball, see. I went nuts after the game and said, ‘For God sakes, all year long we’ve been stressing that you’re supposed to hold the ball with two hands. How in hell did you ever drop that ball in the end zone, of all places? He looked at me hard and said ‘Didn’t you know figure it out? Coach, it’s the pigskin ball. I’m a Jewish boy and I felt like I had to drop it!” Firstly, I found no mention of such a play in the write-ups of these games, (and Fishel was senior in 1932). Secondly, none of the SU-Colgate games in that era were “at Colgate”. Thirdly, I doubt that any player would have had to gall to make such a joke to the coach after such a play in such a game. If he did, I doubt Vic Hanson was laughing at the time.
Both teams had one more game on the schedule. SU played Columbia to a 0-0 tie in New York to finish at 4-4-1. Colgate had to go to Providence to play unbeaten Brown, who had already wrapped up the Ivy league title. They had been living on the edge all season. Winning four games by less than a touchdown. But they were 7-0 and Colgate was 8-0 and it was the “game of the year” in the East. Unfortunately, for the home team, it was no contest as the Red Raiders closed out a truly perfect regular season with a 21-0 rout. They had outscored their nine opponents by a total of 264-0. Southern California had fallen from the ranks of the “truly perfect” by giving up 7 points to California and 6 to Washington. Still, they were also 9-0, having outscored their opponents 166-13. The only other team with a perfect record was Michigan who won the Big Ten at 8-0, (123-13). But the Big Ten had an anti-bowl policy at the time. It seemed a natural thing to invite Colgate to Pasadena to play the Trojans for the national title. But it never happened.
The decision in those days was left to the athletic director of the western champions, in this case Bill Hunter of USC. His counterpart, Don Harrison of Pittsburgh, flew out to the west coast to plead Pitt’s case. He succeeded in convincing Hunter that Colgate was a paper tiger due to their schedule and that Pitt was actually the best team in the East. He also convinced Hunter that the Panthers were much better than they had been in 1929, when the Trojans massacred them 47-14 in Pasadena. Hunter invited Pittsburgh and the result was a second massacre, 35-0.
It’s possible that if tiny Colgate had lined up against the Trojans, the result would have been similar. USC won their first nine Rose Bowls, including two wins over undefeated untied, unscored upon teams, (Duke on January 1, 1939 and Tennessee in 1940). But in 1933, a supposedly overmatched Columbia team, which was only the second best Ivy League team behind Princeton, got invited west by the Stanford athletic director. Duke and Army had lost on the last week of the season. Pittsburgh had only one loss but the west coast wanted no part of them again. I’ve encountered no explanation of why Columbia was chosen over Princeton who had beaten them 20-0, other than that Stanford had a team loaded with sophomores and didn’t want a tough opponent. Lou Little’s Lions were four touchdown underdogs but their defense kept them in the game until a running back named Al Barabas, “robbed” Stanford on a pet play named KF-79. It was a play Andy Kerr would have loved, with the quarterback spinning and handing off to Barabas, then spinning again and faking to another back. Barabas ran the ball in from the 17 and Columbia had the biggest bowl upset of all time, 7-0.
Kerr had spent time on the coast, coaching Stanford. He’d lost twice to USC, 0-6 and 7-14. But one can see him coming up with something like KF-79. And one can see the Colgate defense making it count. As it was, they stayed home, undefeated, untied and unscored upon forever. Maybe it was better that way. We’ll never know.
But we do know that The Hoodoo continued.
“Many kind criticisms have been written the country over...but Andy Kerr isn’t taking the praise too seriously and is seeing to it his boys do not.” It must have been hard to ignore all those “kind criticisms” when you are a member of Colgate’s greatest team. The Red Raiders opened with a 41-0 win over St. Lawrence, then had a 27-0 win over Case, a 47-0 victory over Niagara and a 35-0 win over Lafayette. Their next opponent was NYU.
Professor Philip Badger became chairman of the athletic board at Chick Meehan’s school. He abhorred football and he abhorred Meehan, who resigned after the 1931 season. NYU’s brief period of power evaporated in his absence and Colgate gained revenge for their lone 1931 defeat, 14-0.
The Red Raiders then crushed Penn State, 31-0 and Mississippi College, 32-0. This left them one of two teams in the country that were undefeated, untied and unscored upon, the other being Howard Jones’ Southern California Trojans. “Rank your football teams any way you want to but when it comes to the top position there can be only two than can be taken into consideration and these are Colgate and Southern California. This pair has not only won each game played in clean, decisive, fashion but has not allowed a single point. As affairs now stand they will be opponents in the Rose Bowl game in California, the grand finale to the football season.”
Skiddy reported that there were many in Central New York who were football fans with no particular allegiance to either Colgate or Syracuse. He himself personally knew about 50-60 of them. They “began the season hoping this would be the year Syracuse finally beat Colgate. They felt that Colgate’s string of successes had been extended too long for the best interests of a happy relationship between the two schools.” But now “they argue this is the greatest of all years for Colgate and that the Maroon has not only surpassed all its own previous efforts but has excelled the performances of all Eastern schools the last several years. They do not want to see this wonderful record stop. They want Colgate to win and carry on to the Rose Bowl.”
Not everyone was quite as impressed. Some noted that the Red Raiders has played only a couple of “big time” teams and thought Pittsburgh was more deserving of the bid. Skiddy acknowledged this, saying Pitt “had a great football team” but they’d had a scoreless tie with Ohio State and given up 13 points to Army. Later they’d have another scoreless tie with Nebraska and gave up another 12 points to Penn. They also beat Notre Dame, Carnegie Tech and Stanford and wound up with a record of 8 wins, no losses and 2 ties, outscoring the opposition 182-25. But that is not the same as being undefeated, untied and unscored upon.
In light of all this, Syracuse just seemed like a bump in the road. The Orange with a “green” team, had stumbled their way through losses against pesky old Ohio Weslayan, Southern Methodist and Michigan State. They did beat St. Lawrence worse than Colgate did, 54-0 and beat Penn State as well. The week before the Colgate game they scheduled somebody called Oglethorpe, (they are from Georgia), and beat them 27-6. But the paper said they looked better losing to Michigan State by two touchdowns than they did beating Oglethorpe by three.
“Hanson’s aggregation this year qualifies as one of the unluckiest teams that has ever played football. It isn’t anything like a great gridiron force but with an even distribution of luck in its games it could easily have been undefeated today. ‘Bad Dreams’ have caused one panic after another in the ranks of the Syracuse players this year. After each fumble or intercepted pass or costly penalty there has been a mental depression all too evident. It has usually meant a score for the other team. This has not been due to timidity. The Orange youngsters have shown gameness to a marked degree but they have also shown the sin of inexperience by their tendency to ‘blow’ if the breaks go against them. If the breaks should go the other way and favor Syracuse there is no telling what can happen. Let those kids once decide luck is with them and they may go places.” If so, they would be the first team to go any place against Colgate in 1932.
Colgate to that point had outscored its seven foes by a total of 227-0. Equally impressively, they out first downed them, 140-20, including 23-0 against St. Lawrence. The paper called them “The Little Giants of the Chenango” and said “They are the general choice of football writers as the team which should receive the invitation to carry the Eastern flag into battle in California’s Rose Bowl contest of Christmas Day.” That may have been the problem, for the Rose Bowl game would not be played until January 2nd, 1933.
Skiddy again went to Hamilton in the week before the big game. He asked Andy Kerr if this was the best team he had ever coached. “I have had heavier teams which had outstanding stars. This team is unique. It has no stars. It is a unit. This is a fine football team and is the best I have ever coached in the fact it has quickly absorbed coaching. These boys have shown a consistent improvement each succeeding week. They seldom repeat mistakes. In these ways they comprise the best team I have ever coached.” But Skiddy reported there was no overconfidence in the Colgate camp. At their practices, “there was no kidding just ‘grim determination’. “ Tommy Doyle an assistant coach who had done nothing on Saturdays that fall except scout Syracuse, declared “Syracuse in several games has shown 20 minute spurts of football that has been as near to invincible football as anything he have ever seen on the gridiron. Tommy has sold Colgate’s officials and players with the idea that the Orange, if it maintains its best pace over a full 60 minute period, will be unbeatable.”
Vic Hanson echoed the same sentiments. “It, (Colgate), is a strong aggregation to go up against. The strongest team, as a team, that I’ve ever had to face or send a team against. …The odds are against us and I know it. But sometimes a fellow or a gang of fellows reaches up and comes through with a top notch effort when things seem blackest. If our players should turn in 60 minutes of football like that of their third period against Oglethorpe, their fourth period against Michigan State, their first period against Penn State I wouldn’t hesitate to declare they could match Colgate yard for yard and point for point all day long….How I wish I could turn back the hands of time for about two months. These boys have reached a point now where they know some football naturally. Now that I have them right, they are called upon to face the best team in the east, if not the best in all football. But we’ll give Colgate a battle.” It would be a battle between a team that played well sometimes and a team that played well all the time.
“Hanson wants victory in this game more than he ever wanted anything in his life. He has kindled the same spirit in his players. The finest thing about him as a teacher is his ability to build up the spirit of the squad. He can sell his ideas to the players. To him this game is everything and he has his players feeling the same way about it.” One such player was Francis “Dink” Tisdale, who was going to be given the fullback assignment for the game in place of injured Barney Nevins. Tisdale was shown in a practice photo running toward the camera with a ball in his hand with the caption “Can Colgate stop him?” From the look on his face, it seemed unlikely. Tisdale had a sneer that made it look as if the coaching staff fed him raw meat with a pitchfork. Just give the ball to the Dinkster and let him chomp his way through the Colgate line!
Andy Kerr, on the other hand, had the horses and intended to use them. “Kerr has always argued that a fresh second team is more effective than a tired varsity, (meaning the first team- actually the second team was part of the “varsity”, as well). but he has never practiced this doctrine as much as he has this year and it is expected that the varsity will see about 40 minutes of service and the reserves 20 minutes no matter how close the contest with Syracuse may be.” It sounds like the sort of game plan one might have against St. Lawrence.
An article appeared in the paper listing the heights and weights of all the projected starters for the two teams. Colgate, incredibly even for that era, had no player who weighed as much as 200 pounds in their starting line-up. A tackle named Ellis was their largest man at 5-11 198. Their line averaged 5-11 183 and their backfield 5-10 177. SU was a little bigger, their line averaging 6-0 192 and the backfield 5-9 178. They had the only guy over 200 pounds on the field, 6-3 220 tackle Joe Vavra.
The 1915 game was again invoked as readers were reminded that the only other Colgate team to go into a Syracuse game unbeaten lost 38-0 to the Orange. Also, in 1923, Syracuse had been unbeaten, untied and unscored upon, (actually, they’d given up a field goal in a 61-3 trouncing of William and Mary- or rather the football team representing that school), until Eddie Tryon returned a fumble for a score on the way to a 7-16 shocker that knocked SU out of the Rose Bowl.
Dr. Bernard Clausen, of the First Baptist Church in Syracuse, made a speech at Crouse College in which he recalled those games. He was a Colgate alum but had a strong spiritual feeling that something big was about to happen.. “For ten years I have been predicting Colgate victories with a fair record of success. This year, however, I have been compelled to predict a Colgate catastrophe. If you point out that Colgate has had a successful season thus far without a defeat or a goal line crossed and if you point out the drab record of Syracuse, I say that the situation is almost a certain set-up for a Syracuse victory. The history of the series shows two such upsets before. Once, while I was in college, the Colgate team came to Syracuse with a successful record only to be jolted by a 38-0 score. In 1923 Syracuse had a record such as Colgate enjoys this year but at Archbold Stadium Eddie Tryon picked up a fumble and the game turned into a riot, (sic), for Colgate. I make no pretense to analyze the technical side but I do know the spiritual side facts and I see this Saturday a Syracuse team emerging victorious 13-6.”
Another person with little familiarity with the technical side was a fortune teller Skiddy consulted. She refused to identify the winner but did offer this description: the ‘chieftan’ of the winning team, who used to play football himself, is a comparatively small man who feels he needs the victory badly and had been having headaches the last few days.” She predicted the final score would be 25-14, a high score for a game between two “big time” teams in those days and an indication, along with Dr. Clausen’s prediction, that Colgate’s record of perfection in preventing their goal line from being crossed would be ended even if their perfection in winning games continued. Skiddy pointed out that both Andy Kerr and Vic Hanson used to play football, although Hanson was much the better at it. Kerr, at 135 pounds, was “comparatively small” compared to the 174lb Hanson, who was “comparatively small” to a good many others. Both coaches wanted the game badly and neither was a stranger to headaches. Few coaches are.
There was a movement on to combat “the violence of former pre-game weeks”. Faculty and student leaders along with fraternities were enlisted to put a moratorium on campus raids. More dances and other campus “official” events were scheduled to blow off student steam. In addition a large pep rally was scheduled for Archbold Gym where Chancellor Flint of Syracuse and President Cullen of Colgate would both speak and bands and choruses of both schools would play various football tunes. “An anti rah rahism movement that struck the hill this season slowly lost itself in the confusion of merrymakers who thronged the streets wearing the Orange and the Maroon….In spite of the fact that Chancellor Flint of Syracuse advised against the use of traditional “Beat Colgate” posters a few of the fraternity and sorority houses exhibited belligerent displays….Sims Hall, the men’s dormitory, hung an effigy of “Johnny Colgate” on a flagpole….Meanwhile the Syracuse student body argued over the problem of to be or not to be indifferent about football games..” Benjamin Tynansky, former head student cheerleader, “bewailed the movement against collegiatism saying ‘one tenth of Syracuse students are going away for the weekend because they think it’s going to be a poor game. Such spirit is disgusting.’”.
Andy Kerr, as always was cautious. Addressing a pep rally at Colgate, he asked if there were any lovers of music in the audience. He got a loud “Yes!” answer. He pointed out that there was a place on the SU campus called Crouse College where they rang chimes when Syracuse won. He said that he wasn’t so sure Colgate players and fans might not be hearing that music if they underestimated Syracuse. Kerr certainly was in no mood to underestimate Syracuse, not after he arrived at the Colgate football field for practice one morning to find that it had been painted orange, even his elevated coaching box. “Efforts were made to determine if any Syracuse students were seen in Hamilton last night.”
Even with one-tenth the students gone, 25,000 people were expected for the game. One of them was Steve Sebo, the former SU back who had been stricken with tuberculosis. “Sebo’s stay at Saranac Lake has been financed by Orange alumni and football fans. The fund is sufficient to maintain him in the north country until after Christmas but it is not sufficient to cover the full time which physicians say he must have. Sebo came to Syracuse today at the quest of Syracuse faculty members and alumni who figured the Colgate-Syracuse game would be a rare treat for him and, at the same time allow them to discuss with him plans for replenishing of the fund.” Replenishing funds was a difficult issue in 1932.
Colgate came out in the new uniforms Andy Kerr had designed for them which they had worn all season and would wear at least until somebody beat them. They had white helmets and jerseys with red trim and pants. They also had the innovation of numbers on the helmets, which in the pictures in the paper gave them the look of a more modern team compared to SU, which appeared drab in the black and white photos that made blue and Orange look much the same.
On Sunday, Skiddy wrote, “The contest was one of the most surprising Orange-Maroon games ever played, a contest in which both teams found themselves baffled to a great extent by the defense of the foe.” Skiddy must have been the only one surprised by a Colgate win dominated by defense. Colgate had the ball most of the time. Their defense set up the first score in the second period when a blocked punt gave Colgate the ball on the SU five. There was a controversy about this. It was not fourth down and there was a rule at the time that if the kicking team recovered the ball before it went beyond the line of scrimmage, they still had possession with a new set of downs. The refs ruled that the ball had rolled just beyond the line of scrimmage and the call held up among various arguments and a chorus of boos. Two plays later Bob Rowe ran it over from the two and Colgate led, 0-7. On the subsequent kickoff, Dick Fishel returned the ball to the SU 44. The refs ruled Syracuse was offside and they did it again. This time Fishel returned it to the 20. But Colgate was offside. The by now exhausted Fishel sucked it up and returned the third straight kick-off to the SU 40. This one held but so did Colgate.
“Andy Kerr’s famous double and triple pass plays and his double spinner gained him little ground. An inspired defense gave him a decided surprise in that respect…On the worth of the Colgate defense, there can be no question. The Raiders smeared Syracuse plays as fast as they were tried.” The Red Raiders eventually won the game by going to the air. Skiddy noted that The Red Raiders completed the impressive total of 8 completed passes in 18 attempts. SU held Colgate to only 9 first downs, but 5 of them came through the air. Syracuse managed only 4 first downs, despite all of “Dink” Tisdale’s fearsome grimaces.
The clincher came in the fourth quarter when Whitey Ask, (Chris Berman would have called him “Ask And It Shall Be Given”), dropped back from the Syracuse 33 all the way to midfield, then launched a long pass that Verne Lee caught at the two. Lee then waltzed into the end zone and all hopes of a “Colgate Catastrophe” were ended. Kicker Claire Lyon missed the extra point but got another chance to kick the ball when a muffed pitch-out by SU produced a wild scramble for the ball in which an SU player was tackled and somebody kicked the pigskin toward the SU goal. The refs had another conference over that one and backed out of it by declaring fouls on both teams, thus negating the play. SU’s Louie Stark shanked a punt and Colgate took over at the 28. Lyon finished the possession by making “one of the prettiest kicks ever seen in the Syracuse-Colgate gridiron rivalry.” It didn’t need to be all that pretty from 22 yards away. It must not have looked very pretty to SU, which was now behind 0-16. Colgate got the ball one more time after intercepting a Fishel pass and was driving at the SU 23 as the game ended.
Kerr gave SU a somewhat left-handed compliment after the game, saying that they had played better than any of the other Syracuse teams he had faced since coming to Colgate. “Vic Hanson, Syracuse coach was not exactly a happy figure after the game. Hanson never has been and probably will never be a radiant loser. But as usual, he was a good sportsman.” Vic praised his own defense but said “my hat is off to Colgate for its wonderful defense and I particularly want to congratulate Bobby Smith, their remarkably fine captain and inspiration of his team…Andy Kerr has brought another strong football team to Syracuse for a victory and I congratulate him.”
Vic for years afterwards, on the banquet circuit, told a story about Dick Fishel that knocked ‘em dead every time. It’s related in Ken Rappoport’s “The Syracuse Football Story”. “Well, we’re down at Colgate and he goes over the goal line for an apparent touchdown but he fumbles the ball, see. I went nuts after the game and said, ‘For God sakes, all year long we’ve been stressing that you’re supposed to hold the ball with two hands. How in hell did you ever drop that ball in the end zone, of all places? He looked at me hard and said ‘Didn’t you know figure it out? Coach, it’s the pigskin ball. I’m a Jewish boy and I felt like I had to drop it!” Firstly, I found no mention of such a play in the write-ups of these games, (and Fishel was senior in 1932). Secondly, none of the SU-Colgate games in that era were “at Colgate”. Thirdly, I doubt that any player would have had to gall to make such a joke to the coach after such a play in such a game. If he did, I doubt Vic Hanson was laughing at the time.
Both teams had one more game on the schedule. SU played Columbia to a 0-0 tie in New York to finish at 4-4-1. Colgate had to go to Providence to play unbeaten Brown, who had already wrapped up the Ivy league title. They had been living on the edge all season. Winning four games by less than a touchdown. But they were 7-0 and Colgate was 8-0 and it was the “game of the year” in the East. Unfortunately, for the home team, it was no contest as the Red Raiders closed out a truly perfect regular season with a 21-0 rout. They had outscored their nine opponents by a total of 264-0. Southern California had fallen from the ranks of the “truly perfect” by giving up 7 points to California and 6 to Washington. Still, they were also 9-0, having outscored their opponents 166-13. The only other team with a perfect record was Michigan who won the Big Ten at 8-0, (123-13). But the Big Ten had an anti-bowl policy at the time. It seemed a natural thing to invite Colgate to Pasadena to play the Trojans for the national title. But it never happened.
The decision in those days was left to the athletic director of the western champions, in this case Bill Hunter of USC. His counterpart, Don Harrison of Pittsburgh, flew out to the west coast to plead Pitt’s case. He succeeded in convincing Hunter that Colgate was a paper tiger due to their schedule and that Pitt was actually the best team in the East. He also convinced Hunter that the Panthers were much better than they had been in 1929, when the Trojans massacred them 47-14 in Pasadena. Hunter invited Pittsburgh and the result was a second massacre, 35-0.
It’s possible that if tiny Colgate had lined up against the Trojans, the result would have been similar. USC won their first nine Rose Bowls, including two wins over undefeated untied, unscored upon teams, (Duke on January 1, 1939 and Tennessee in 1940). But in 1933, a supposedly overmatched Columbia team, which was only the second best Ivy League team behind Princeton, got invited west by the Stanford athletic director. Duke and Army had lost on the last week of the season. Pittsburgh had only one loss but the west coast wanted no part of them again. I’ve encountered no explanation of why Columbia was chosen over Princeton who had beaten them 20-0, other than that Stanford had a team loaded with sophomores and didn’t want a tough opponent. Lou Little’s Lions were four touchdown underdogs but their defense kept them in the game until a running back named Al Barabas, “robbed” Stanford on a pet play named KF-79. It was a play Andy Kerr would have loved, with the quarterback spinning and handing off to Barabas, then spinning again and faking to another back. Barabas ran the ball in from the 17 and Columbia had the biggest bowl upset of all time, 7-0.
Kerr had spent time on the coast, coaching Stanford. He’d lost twice to USC, 0-6 and 7-14. But one can see him coming up with something like KF-79. And one can see the Colgate defense making it count. As it was, they stayed home, undefeated, untied and unscored upon forever. Maybe it was better that way. We’ll never know.
But we do know that The Hoodoo continued.
