1916 Cumberland vs. Georgia Tech football game: Difference between revisions

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→‎The game: Reading the play by play it is clear the Tech achieved a first down on their third possession, so I'm removing the line that says no first downs were made in the game that were not TDs
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{{Short description|College football game regarded as the most lopsided game in American Football}}
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{{Use American English|date = November 2019}}
{{Use mdy dates|date = November 2019}}
 
{{Infobox college football game
| name = MostCumberland lopsidedvs. gameGeorgia inTech, college1916 football history
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| image = GT Cumberland 222 scoreboard.jpg
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The '''1916 Cumberland vs. Georgia Tech football game''' was played on October 7, 1916, between the [[Cumberland Phoenix football|Cumberland College Bulldogs]] and the [[Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football|Georgia Tech Engineers]] on the Engineers' home field of Grant Field in [[Atlanta]]. Georgia Tech defeated the Bulldogs 222–0 for the most lopsided score in the history of college [[Americancollege football]].<ref name="nyt">{{cite news| work=[[The New York Times]]| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/07/sports/ncaafootball/07tech.html |access-date=18 May 2015 |date=2006-10-07| title=In 1916, a Blowout for the Ages| last=Litsky| first=Frank}}</ref><ref name="dropped">{{cite book| title=You Dropped It, You Pick It Up| publisher=Ed's Publishing Company| location=Baton Rouge, Louisiana| last=Paul| first=Jim| isbn=99934-0-444-6| year=1983}}</ref>
 
Cumberland had disbanded its football program the previous year but was still obligated to play this game against Georgia Tech. The Engineers' [[head coach]], [[John Heisman]], had been the coach of Georgia Tech's baseball team when it was defeated 22–0 by the Bulldogs earlier in 1916, and was looking to avenge that game. Heisman insisted that the Bulldogs fulfill their obligations to play the game and threatened legal action if Cumberland backed out. Cumberland tasked [[George E. Allen]], its baseball captain, to assemble a football team for the game; he recruited his [[Fraternity|fraternity brothers]] and students from Cumberland's [[law school]] to play in Atlanta.
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Despite receiving the opening kickoff, Cumberland never achieved a [[first down]] in the entire match and opted to [[punt (gridiron football)|punt]] on multiple possessions; the game's infamous score can be partially attributed to 97 percent of the game's plays occurring in Cumberland territory, with 64 of those plays occurring in its [[Red zone (gridiron football)|red zone]]. Georgia Tech, instigated by Heisman, scored on every first down it gained. The imbalance of the teams was so severe that the final two quarters were shortened from their customary 15 minutes to 12 minutes.
 
This would be the last matchup of any sport between the two schools; Cumberland deemphasized athletics in favor of academic pursuits, while Georgia Tech has continued to compete at the highest level of college sports. Current [[National Collegiate Athletics Association]] (NCAA) rules preclude a rematch of this game. After World War II,{{citation needed|date=October 2023}} it became regarded as [[Unsportsmanlike conduct|unsportsmanlike]] to deliberately [[Running up the score|run up the score]] to such high numbers, meaning that [[List of 100-point games in college football|college football games of more than 100 points]] have been infrequent since the 1940s.
 
==Background==
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{{blockquote|I hereby <!-- misspelled "hearby" in the original --> offer you the sum of $500 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Atlanta for your football team on the condition that you honor your contract by participating in and completing the Cumberland-Georgia Tech football game ... However, if this offer is refused ... I shall be forced to demand that your school reimburse the Tech Athletic Dept. in the amount of $3,000 for losses from the projected net gate receipts ...<ref name="philly">{{cite web|url=http://articles.philly.com/1990-08-26/sports/25932112_1_cumberland-university-nick-coutras-georgia-tech |title=A Loss That Lives In Legend Cumberland Crashed In Football, 222-0 |date=1990-08-26 |access-date=18 May 2015}}</ref>|sign=|source=}}
 
[[George E. Allen]] (who was elected to serve as Cumberland's football team student manager after first serving as the baseball team student manager) therefore put together a team of 12–16 players,{{efnEfn|Conflicting sources report anywhere from 12 to 19 players (and of those 19, 3three got lost in Nashville and missed their train, leaving at most only 16 players).<ref name="philly"/>}} most of whom were his fraternity brothers or law students, to travel to [[Atlanta]] as Cumberland's football team.<ref name="dropped"/>
 
Another reason for Heisman's plan to run up the score was the practice among the sportswriters of the time to rank teams based upon how many points they scored. Since this statistic did not account for the strength or weakness of a team's opponent, Heisman disagreed with the amount of weight the writers tended to assign to it, and he may have unleashed his players on Cumberland to make his point.<ref>{{cite book| title=Football Hall of Shame| last=Nash| first=Bruce |publisher=Schuster Merchandise| year=1990| isbn=978-0-671-72922-6}}</ref>
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Georgia Tech led 63–0 after the first quarter and 126–0 at [[halftime]]. Georgia Tech added 54 more points in the third quarter and 42 in the final period.<ref name="dropped"/><ref name="pbp"/> Several players on the heavily-outmatched Cumberland side suffered serious injuries during the game, including quarterback Charles Edwards, who was thrice carted off with concussions.
 
Georgia Tech scored a total of 32 touchdowns, and Georgia Tech's left end James Preas kicked 18 [[point after touchdown|extra points]].<ref name= wp1916>"[http{{cite news|url=https://searchwww.proquest.com/docview/145495409/ |title=Makes a Record Score]". ''|newspaper=The Washington Post''. |date=October 8, 1916. p. |page=S3.}}</ref> Cumberland's only effective defense was an extra point blocked with a sort of [[Pyramid Play|human pyramid]] known as the "climb-the-ladder" play, topped with Vichy Woods, who suffered a gruesome facial injury on the play.<ref name=dropped/> Despite scoring 32 touchdowns, the Engineers did not complete or attempt a [[forward pass]]; all their yardage came on rushes, returns or defensive plays.
 
Several myths have developed around the game. Some have written that Cumberland did not have a single play that gained yards; in fact, its longest play was a 10-yard pass (on 4th-and-22<ref name="nyt"/><ref name="dropped"/> or 3rd-and-18<ref name="pbp"/>). The Bulldogs gained positive yardage on at least six plays, though they fumbled on two of them. One page on Cumberland's website says Georgia Tech scored on every offensive play, but the play-by-play account of the game refutes this and suggests a more likely scenario: that Georgia Tech scored on every one of its sets of downs. Thus, neither team made a first down that was not also a touchdown, as Cumberland made no first downs in the entire game.<ref name="pbp"/>
 
Cumberland purportedly committed 15 [[Turnover (football)|turnovers]]—nine fumbles and six [[interception]]s—during the game.
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== Records ==
Prior to the match, the record for a highest score in a football match was a 159&ndash;0 score by Newberry against BMI made in 1913, while the highest score in a college game was 144&ndash;0 by the [[1913 Florida Gators football team|Florida Gators]] against [[Florida Southern]] also in 1913. In the preceding 45 years of college football, only 36 games had exceeded 100 points, and only seven those were against teams also from a college.<ref name="pbp"/>
 
Since World War II, only a [[List of 100-point games in college football|handful of schools have topped 100 points]] in a college football game. The modern-era record for most points scored against a college opponent is 106 by [[Fort Valley State University|Fort Valley State]] of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] against [[Knoxville College]] in 1969. In the previous year [[Houston Cougars|Houston]] defeated [[Tulsa Golden Hurricane|Tulsa]] 100–6 to set the [[National Collegiate Athletic Association|NCAA]] record in major college football. In 1949 the [[University of Wyoming]] defeated [[University of Northern Colorado]] 103–0. The Division III football scoring record was set in 1968 when [[North Park University]] defeated [[North Central College]] 104–32, using ten passing touchdowns along the way.<ref name="northcentralcollege.edu">North Central College Football Record Book ({{cite web |url=http://northcentralcollege.edu/Documents/athletics/fb_record_book.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2017-10-05 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120307203748/http://northcentralcollege.edu/Documents/athletics/fb_record_book.pdf |archive-date=7 March 2012 |df=dmy-all }}).</ref>
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==See also==
* [[List of historically significant college football games]]
* [[1992 Troy State vs. DeVry men's basketball game]] – the highest scoring college basketball game in history
* [[List of historically significant college football games]]
 
==Notes==
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== External links ==
{{Commons category}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080609100108/http://www2.cumberland.edu/about/gotc/index.html The Game of the Century] at Cumberland University (via archive.org).
* [https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/10/7/13199052/georgia-tech-cumberland-college-222-0-game-history-records GEORGIA TECH 222, CUMBERLAND 0.] – 100th anniversary tribute by SB Nation
 
{{Cumberland Bulldogs football navbox}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cumberland vs. Georgia Tech football game 1916}}
[[Category:1916 college football season]]
[[Category:1916 in sports in Georgia (U.S. state)]]
[[Category:Cumberland Phoenix football games|vs. Georgia Tech 1916]]
[[Category:Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football games|vs. Cumberland 1916]]
[[Category:1916 in sports in Georgia (U.S. state)]]
[[Category:October 1916 sports events]]