Legends Of The Pen: The Syracuse-Colgate Gridiron Series
9/23/2010 12:00:00 PM | Football
In the mid-1950s, Colgate sports information director Walter Splain discontinued use of the word Syracuse in his weekly football newsletter's witty review of Colgate opponents' progress. Instead, it became "The Juggernaut To The North."
Soon what had been the traditional sheer chaos of Colgate Weekend at both campuses was juggernauted into oblivion. In each of the six years beginning with Jim Brown's senior season and ending with Ernie Davis's, Syracuse's highest score was inflicted on Colgate.
From 61-7 in 1956, to 34-6, to 47-0 to 71-0 (national-championship-bound), 46-0 and 51-8 in 1961. Close the curtain!
Shaving captives' scalps into mohawk S's or C's, singly or by the 1949 Colgate-band busful, no longer had meaning. Dropping orange dye into Colgate's campus lake from a rented plane, or painting SU statues bright red -- no longer motivated. Fraternity (and, at SU, sorority) houses' outsized front-yard displays of sentiment, meaningless. Downtown Syracuse hotels no longer safeguarded the weekend by removing upper-floor furniture of size that could be flung from the window.
In the half-century since, "little Colgate" bravely resumed the 47-mile drive "north" three times prior to this week-- Dick Biddle its defensive coordinator in 1981 and 1982, Doug Marrone a non-participant freshman tackle in the latter. Saturday, now winningest Colgate head coach in history, Biddle must hope to at least fend off still another of the SU season-high total.
Never behind in the series standings despite never on its home field since the 1890s, Colgate will lead by 31-29-5 at kickoff hour. There's the future option of retaining it forever -- unless the six-figure guarantee for again filling an SU open date is too irresistible.
Many Februarys ago, I enrolled at Syracuse as it was finishing a year with its intercollegiate sports suspended because of World War Two. In June 1944, however, Chancellor William Tolley reinstalled sports, war still raging in Normandy and the Pacific. Puzzling? Decreased alumni donations, conceivably?
Without a past letterman, with the Army forbidding participation by the 5,000 Army Air Corps on-campus trainees, the starting lineup was exclusively first-semester freshmen besides one wounded veteran, none from any distance. Their record was 1-4-1 going into the finale against Colgate (which hadn't dropped football in 1943). The three common opponents, Cornell, Penn State and Columbia, had outscored SU by 106-8, while subdued by Colgate by a combined 20-13.
