For almost thirty year, from 1874 to 1903, Harvard's small college opponents acted their appointed roles to perfection--and lost. Since then, a mounting record of football upsets has caused the Crimson fan to regard these little teams as pitfalls rather than as stepping-blocks to a victorious season.

The most famous reversal occurred in 1921 when a small, ivyless team known as the "Praying Colonels' from Danville, Kentucky, made its second visit to the Stadium. The varsity eleven that year had already polished off two other minor oponents in a single afternoon. It had beaten B.U., 10 to 0, and Middlebury, 16 to 0, by splitting its squad in half for the season's openers. And it had, if fact, defeated these same "Colonels" from Centre College by two touchdowns during the previous season. But that day the tiny team from Kentucky ended a Crimson winning streak of 25 consecutive victories.

No Longer Invincible

Now, more than three decades later, although no longer able to sweep football doubleheaders, the varsity team faces much the same problem as it did in '21. This afternoon, an untraditional rival returns to the Stadium for a second visit, coming from Athens, Ohio, with that same thought of revenge that Centre's Colonels boasted of.

The Crimson football fan, however, no longer regards an upset victory over his team as a calamity. Reassured regularly by such anonymous teams as the University of Massachusetts (13 to 7 in '54) and Tufts (7 to 0 in '45), Harvard's gridiron followers now realize that the Crimson does not win them all, even against the little teams.

Virginia Wins 47-0

The main point of the Athletic Association's policy in scheduling these small college games has been to provide the football team with "conditioning contests." These games supposedly enable the coaches to experiment and to build the players up physically without too much fear of a loss. In the past, however, these obscure matches have produced an ironic toll of injuries, as well as occasional losses. Even now Crimson fans can remember how Captain Dick Clasby sat out last year's Princeton game after being injured in his team's 42-6 route of tiny Davidson College.

The most startling blow to Harvard's small college rivalry came in 1947 when the H.A.A. scheduled a game with a mediocre Virginia University team only to find the following fall it had become the powerhouse of the South. Virginia proceeded to roll up 250 yards rushing to the varsity's 63 and gave the Crimson eleven the second worse trouncing in its history, 47 to 0.

In addition the Cavaliers put out Harvard's Captain Vince Moravac for the rest of the season with a broken kneecap. The final score itself proved to be a sharp reversal of the Crimson's opening victory when more fortunate scheduling had provided cartoonist Peter Arno with the opportunity to quip about the Harvard graduate. On that occasion, the eleven whipped Western Maryland, 52 to 0.

By no means, however, has the varsity eleven habitually lost to its lesser opponents. Long before the disappointed Stadium crowd of 50,000 in 1921 had ever heard of Centre College their team had amassed scores up to 124 to 0 over smaller colleges.

In an editorial before the Exeter game in 1887 when Harvard frequently tangled with the larger prep schools, the Daily Crimson had written. "Exeter is by no means invincible as many seem to think, and if the team goes into the game with a fixed determination to win and not in a fainthearted spirit, there are good grounds that the squad may wrest a hard-contested victory from an Academy which now holds the foremost place in football among the preparatory schools of New England."

The day after the game however, the Crimson apologetically reported it had learned that the varsity and not the freshmen, as was supposed, had traveled to New Hampshire to play Exeter. In the meantime the varsity had trounced the Exonians in its scoring record, 158 to 0.

In 1926, when signal-stealing first made a team huddle necessary before each play, the littlest college in Harvard's football history contributed the Crimson fan's most awakening gridiron experience. That was the first year a Harvard varsity football team lost its opening game. And what's more, it was defeated by a squad of 24 players from Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pa.

The game had mainly been scheduled because Geneva's coach was the same popular "Bo" McMillan who had first led Centre College to immortal fame in the Stadium five years before. It was true that the Crimson's new coach Arnold Horween had expected a fierce battle, but he never actually considered the Crimson could lose. Then because of Geneva's small size, the only explanation of the loss that could be offered was the rather logical confession in the following issue of the Alumni Bulletin.

Carlisle Constant Threat