On October 7, 1916, Georgia Tech and Cumberland University played a football game. Well, actually, it would be more correct to say that Georgia Tech played while Cumberland watched, as Tech emerged with a 222 to 0 victory over the traveling Tennesseans.
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| Cumberland University Football Team |
While the scoreline is evocative, the landslide victory was more a product of circumstance than anything else. Georgia Tech was coached at the time by John Heisman, the innovative and legendary football coach and namesake of the famed rophy, while Cumberland technically didn’t even have a football program in 1916. Football had fallen prey to budget cuts at Cumberland, and the student schedulers notified al the schools they were set to play that year of their team’s non-existence, but accidentally forgot to notify Georgia Tech. When it came time for the game, Heisman threatened to charge Cumberland with forfeiture if they didn’t send a team, which would have resulted in a sizable fine for the school. George Allen, a Cumberland student, was selected as head coach and put together a rag-tag group of guys to go down and play Georgia Tech. It was surely a memorable experience for the fourteen boys who traveled to Georgia that day.
By the end of the first half, Georgia Tech led 126-0. Allen’s team had fumbled on nearly every possession, and neither team would complete a first down throughout the entire game; Cumberland because they only completed a single ten yard pass, and Georgia Tech because they never didn’t score on a possession. The most famous legacy of the game, aside from the scoreline which stands as the most lopsided game in college history, was the conversation that occurred between two Cumberland players in the second half when one fumbled the ball. He said to his teammate, who was closer to the ball, “Pick it up!” to which his teammate responded “Pick it up yourself, you dropped it!”
While Heisman was decidedly ruthless in this game, he did agree to shorten the second half to fifteen minutes.There are several theories as to why Heisman decided to run up the score against Cumberland, and the most compelling relates to another lopsided victory. A year earlier, Cumberland had defeated Georgia Tech in baseball (which Heisman also coached) by 22 points to 0. Heisman could have simply let Cumberland forfeit the game, but used the threat of a fine as leverage to get his revenge with his much better football team. Regardless of the circumstance, this game will likely last a long time as one of the most one-sided scorelines in sports history.
