The View From Wisconsin

I understand that the 65-0 shellacking of Temple came close to setting a Wisconsin football record for most points scored in a shutout by the Badgers. However, there appears to have been some confusion over where this game ranked among the most one-sided shutouts in college football history. True, there haven't been may such high-scoring shutouts in NCAA history, but it is far from the worst shellacking in the history of the game.

Back in 1916, Georgia Tech under head coach John Heisman was one of the country's best teams. Since there was no such thing as conferences or Divisions or anything like that, Heisman had to set up his schedule with any other team that he could arrange. The football manager at a small school based in south central Kentucky, called Cumberland College, was a former Tech graduate, and had agreed to send his team down to Atlanta to play Tech.

The only problem was, Cumberland didn't have many good players. Though Cumberland had managed to beat the Rambling Wreck in baseball the previous spring, they weren't at the same level as Tech in football. Georgia Tech was playing at what we would call Division I nowadays, while Cumberland was on the level of an NAIA school. The manager tried to stop off in Nashville on the way to Atlanta and recruit a few Vanderbilt players as "ringers" for the game. However, not only did he fail to get anyone of note from the Commodores squad, three of his best players ended up stranded in Nashville as they missed the train.

Cumberland didn't stand a chance; Tech was already up 63-0 before the first period was over. Because of travel constraints (and at the suggestion of Heisman), the two teams had agreed to shorten the game from the traditional four 15-minute periods, but even at the half, with Tech up by 126 points, Heisman didn't trust the Tech manager. Though the third and fourth periods were shorter than the first half, the Wreck managed to rack up 222 points. Cumberland didn't have a hope of getting a first down, much less any points. Meanwhile, Tech racked up 528 yards rushing, with 220 yards on kickoff returns and another 220 on punt returns. And even though Heisman was an innovator who developed the "T" formation and the "I" formation, Tech didn't attempt a single pass during the game.

The 222-0 destruction of Cumberland was the most embarassing loss ever in college football history. In fact, Cumberland College dropped football as a varsity sport, and didn't pick it back up for nearly 70 years. (The College of the Cumberlands began play in the NAIA in 1985.) Heisman was given the somewhat derisive nickname of "Ole Shut The Gates Of Mercy" for his piling on of the poor Cumberlanders.

Remember that the next time you hear people talking about Steve Spurrier running up the score at South Carolina.