The game story of Georgia Tech’s 222-0 win over Cumberland, from the Oct. 8, 1916 edition of the Atlanta Journal:
TECH PILES UP BIG SCORE ON CUMBERLAND
World’s Record In Total Points Made by Tech
Almost inconceivable Score of 222 to 0 Was Piled Up by Yellow Jackets on Weak Cumberland Aggregation – Jim Preas Also Established a Record by Kicking 18 Consecutive Goals From Touchdown – Game Was a Burlesque
By Morgan Blake
Walking over the Cumberland football players, just like they had been so many paper dolls, the great Tech machine Saturday established what is undoubtedly a collegiate world’s record for total point scored. In four quarters of 12 and a half minutes each, or fifty minutes of actual play, the Yellow Jackets ran up 222 points, an almost inconceivable score in modern football.
There may have been higher scores than this made in the olden days, but we doubt it. Certainly in the last ten or fifteen years nothing approaching such a total has been reached.
The record so far in collegiate games, so we have been informed, was 153 amassed by Michigan, against some little team many years ago.
But Saturday Tech made 32 touchdowns and kicked 30 goals from touchdown. And in this connection it is very probably that Jim Preas established an individual world’s record for kicking consecutive goals. In the first half Tech scored 18 touchdowns and Jim kicked 18 goals.
He never even came close to missing one, and several of them were from very different angles. In the second half, Jim didn’t attempt any more and of the remaining goals tried, Strupper missed one and kicked one and Spencer missed one and then he and Fincher kicked the rest.
Another unique feature to the game was that the winners never punted the ball during the entire game. Not a forward pass was attempted and the big total was made on straight football entirely.
With all due regard to the Tech team, it must be admitted that the tremendous score was due more to the pitifully weak opposition than to any unnatural strength on the part of the victors. In fact, as a general rule the only thing necessary for a touchdown was to give a Tech back the ball and holler, “Here he comes” and “There he goes.”
As a Tennessean and well acquainted with football matters in the Volunteer state, the writer is willing to wager a few simoleons (and the Lord knows he has but few left after that baseball game today in Boston) that there are from eight to ten prep schools in Tennessee that could beat this Cumberland university anywhere from forty to sixty points.
The Lebanon boys were absolutely minus any apparently football virtues. They couldn’t run with the ball, they couldn’t block and they couldn’t tackle. At spasmodic intervals they were able to down a runner, but they were decidedly too light and green to be effective any stage of the game.
It was not a football game, but as a burlesque it was a very ludicrous and amusing pastime. In fact it was such a good joke that very few of the spectators left until the last whistle blew. Everybody enjoyed it but the Lebanon athletes and they didn’t seem to have any idea of what was going on at any stage of the melee.
It would be hard to single out any individual stars on the Yellow Jacket squad, although Strupper with six touchdowns, Spencer with five and Preas with eighteen consecutive goals from touchdown, would in the last analysis be accredited with the laurels of the afternoon, from a spectacular standpoint. The charging of the Tech line and the fierce tackling of the linesmen and ends must also be recorded in large letters. The forward men on the Tech skirmish line went over the Cumberland forwards just like it was not there. Time and again the big tackles and guards would break through and down the Cumberland back in his tracks. Jim Senter flashed in his old brilliant form in this respect.
The game was not even a stiff practice for the Yellow Jackets and in fact such burlesques do a team more harm than good.
The best thing under the circumstances is to draw a curtain of charity over the game and pass on. It is certain that the next Saturday Tech will meet upon a worthy opponent in Davidson and some definite information can be gained upon the real strength of the Yellow Jackets.
