The editors admitted, "Colleges of the size of Geneva do not have to have as many candidates for their teams as Yale, Harvard and the great state universities have, but they have enough. Only eleven players need to be on the field at any time."
In the days when the Crimson eleven was accustomed to sweep all its contests except the game with Yale, who has spoiled nine undefeated varsity seasons, the most constant threat for an upset victory was Pop Warner's unorthodox team from the Carlisle Indian School.
In the last varsity game to be played on Soldiers Field in 1903, the Crimson barely managed to avoid an upset after Warner's legendary hidden-ball play had given the Indians an early lead. The Braves were returning a kickoff when the whole team came together on the seven-yard line and the ball was slipped up the jersey of Charlie Dillon, a Sioux Indian from South Dakota. Then a flying wedge was formed and Dillon scored to put Carlisle ahead, 11 to 0. Harvard finally did win, however, by a score of 12 to 11.
Four years later, using all their past chicanery, including forward passes, fake kicks and twisting punts, the Indians eventually did maneuver their upset. After ten consecutive losses to Harvard, they triumphed in the Stadium, 23 to 15. The game was played with ill feeling on both sides. Indian players Wauseka, Little Boy and Afraid-of-a-Bear were constantly on the verge of fist-fighting with the Crimson team. One Harvard player was, in fact, ejected from the game for slugging Wauseka.
Jim Thorpe's extraordinary place-kicking enabled the Indian team to upset the Crimson a second and last time in 1911. Thorpe kicked four field goals in all, including one from the Harvard 48-yard line to put Carlisle ahead 18-15. The two teams met just once more after that game.
The tale of the "Praying Colonels" of 1921 has now become almost synonymous with the word upset itself. The unusual team's pious customs were enough to warrant a contest in the Stadium, aside from the fact Centre College was becoming the favorite team of the nation.
It seemed that instead of retiring to the dressing room during the halftime rest, the Centre College players would sit about in a huddle at midfield with their blankets drawn up over their heads. Then the president of the College, a clergyman, would come down out of the stands and lead them in prayer until the laying resumed.
Centre's First Defeat
In their first visit to Cambridge in 1920 the Colonels attracted a crowd of 52,000 in the stadium and the Crimson whipped them, 31-14. The game, moreover, proved to be so popular Centre was immediately added to the varsity's 1921 schedule.
In an article before the second game, the following season, a Boston Herald sportswriter explained that ever since Centre College had gone in for "better" football teams in 1917 it had only lost two games, one of them to Harvard in the previous season, and one to Georgia Tech the week after the first loss at Cambridge. This second defeat came only because they had not been able to recover from the game on the previous Saturday.
The Daily Crimson, however, had labeled its team the favorite since it considered any team coached by Robert Fisher virtually impossible to beat.
But the inevitable came that Saturday in 1921 when the yellow-jerseyed "praying Colonels" clinched the game early in the third period on a 32-yard run. It was a bewildered collegiate crowd of 43,000 that went home wondering what the hell was the Centre College.
The result at the University had been something like the aftermath of the Amherst game in 1903 when for the first time in varsity history a visiting team won on Soldiers Field. The undergraduate attitude to that loss was adequately summed up in a Boston Globe editorial: "... Harvard has no excuses. The eleven was clearly outplayed in the second half and beaten fairly. To be sure, Amherst's score was in the nature of a fluke, but that fluke was enough to win."
Not all of the Crimson's ignominious defeats came at the hands of tiny, college teams, however.
The most questionable "upset" in the varsity's entire history was administered by a big underrated Pennsylvania University team, 12 to 6. The H.A.A. had previously asked about the possible ineligibility of Penn's star lineman, Lamson, a 25-year-old senior playing his seventh year of intercollegiate football.
Crimson Schedule Favorites
Aside from that, after the game, played on a bitterly cold day, it was said among some that the Crimson players, wearing short cleats, had been at a disadvantage during the contest. Hearing that Harvard had light, fast backs, Pennsylvania had sprayed the ground of Franklin Field in Philadelphia with hot water which made it extremely slippery. The varsity backs twice slipped and fumbled within their own 10-yard line.
On the winning side, the varsity's favorite schedule scape-goats have been the little three Maine colleges (Bates, Bowdoin and Maine.) These together have provided the Crimson with 51 victories without a loss. Williams, who has never beaten the University in 30 tries, has been another losing favorite, scoring a total of 24 points in all of ils matches with the Crimson.
To the Harvard alumni and undergraduates, games with the small, untraditional colleges have usually been acceptable affairs. There has always been discussion in the newspapers and at the Harvard Clubs on giving up The Big Three arrangement and such powerful opponents as Army and Stanford but no one has ever mentioned forsaking the Crimson's lesser, unknown foes.
In spite of the scattered upsets, these matches have usually provided the Crimson fan with an opportunity to boast, "I believe Harvard did win last Saturday."