Fifth Down and Goal to Go; Dartmouth Spoils Cornell’s Title Hopes

By Jeffrey Hart | Friday, October 13, 2006

Editor’s Note: In 1940, the Dartmouth Indians defeated the nationally ranked Cornell Big Red. The circumstances of this victory, detailed below, comprised one of the strangest events in the history of collegiate football.

Though Cornell, by this point in the season, had done everything required of it, it slipped from first to second place in the national rankings because impressive performances by Minnesota had narrowly moved the Golden Gophers into the top spot. Still Carl Snavely and his three complete Cornell teams had little reason to fear a mediocre Dartmouth team as they walked out onto Memorial Field in Hanover on that chilly Saturday afternoon of November 16, 1940, but in fact, they were walking into the strangest and most startling upset in the seventy-one-year history of football, a game still talked about with awe in football circles. Dartmouth came into the game with losses to Franklin and Marshall, Yale, and Columbia, plus a win over St. Lawrence. The team’s performance had been sloppy all season, though with isolated flashes of brilliance. Cornell was one of the best teams in the nation—perhaps the best—and was undefeated. Cornell was a prohibitive favorite in the odds.

A small crowd of 8,000 was on hand in Dartmouth’s Memorial Field, almost filling the cement stands on the western edge of the field. The wooden stands across the way had only the center section filled. While the two teams warmed up on the field before the game, a light snow fell, but tapered off before the kickoff. The field was dry and firm because it had been covered overnight with a tarpaulin. Dartmouth’s Lou Young and Cornell’s Walt Matuszczak, the rival captains, walked to the center of the field and shook hands. Cornell won the coin toss and elected to kick off. Dartmouth’s sophomore back, Ray Wolfe, received the ball and on the first play of the game gave an indication of things to come. Taking the ball on his 10-yard line, Wolfe dashed upfield, avoiding tacklers, and would have gone all the way for an opening-seconds Cornell disaster except that the last Cornell defender managed to tackle him on the Cornell forty-five.

During the first quarter, the Dartmouth Indians smothered every effort of the vaunted Cornell attack. The line outplayed Cornell so decisively that the backfield was called upon for assistance on only three plays. The second quarter resembled the first, with Cornell unable to advance the ball beyond its own 33-yard line. In contrast, drives through the Cornell line kept Dartmouth constantly threatening to score. Wolfe, Kast, Hall, and Krieger moved the ball steadily, and quarterback Don Norton ran Coach Earl Blaik’s offense with a precision that was marvelous to see. Dartmouth was controlling the ball so successfully that the Indians did not attempt a pass throughout the first half.

After the intermission, the crowd held its breath. The Dartmouth coaches had devised a defense that had never been used before in football. Twice they had seen the Dartmouth team line up a yard and a half behind the line of scrimmage, while the Cornell team registered its amazement and lost its timing. Would Cornell solve its running problem during the second half? The answer, immediately, was no. Desperate on the ground, Cornell took to the air with an explosive forward pass offense.

The next day the Sunday headline read: “Cornell Tops Dartmouth 7-3 at Finish.” But that was not to be the end of the story. As William Richardson described it in the Times:

With less than three seconds to play in today’s Dartmouth game, Cornell’s prayer for victory was answered when Bill Murphy, who had gone in at right half only a few minutes before, leaped high into the air to catch Walt Scholl’s pass in the end zone. When the ball nestled in Murphy’s arms it sealed the doom of one of the fightingest Dartmouth teams in the history—a team that had outfought the famed Big Red almost from start to finish and was leading 3-0 as a result of a brilliant 27-yard field goal by Bob Krieger in the opening minutes of the last period of one of the most thrilling gridiron encounters that has ever been waged.

Underdogs at something like 4-to-1 after one of the poorest seasons in Dartmouth history, the Indians had amazed the 10,000 spectators huddled in Memorial Stadium by their fight and determination. But that one do-or-die catch of Murphy’s undid everything and left them on the losing end of a 7-3 score for which they will never have reason to be ashamed.

For one-half of the game . . . the Indians had outplayed Cornell as completely as any team had ever been out-played. And in the third period they had stopped an awe-inspiring Cornell drive by intercepting a pass in the end zone and then had surged back on the attack once again, finally taking the lead on Krieger’s perfect boot.

Then, with two and a half minutes left, Cornell started its final march that led to victory and controversy. Relying chiefly on aerials, the Big Red moved steadily to first downs on the 41, then on the 31, then the 18 and finally the 6.

Mort Landsberg drove for 3, and he and Scholl to the one-yard stripe, fourth down. Here Cornell was penalized, making fourth and six, and then Scholl passed and Ray Hall [of Dartmouth], thinking it fourth down, as did almost everyone else, knocked the ball down instead of catching it as he might have done.

His amazement was the same as everyone else’s when an official started to put the ball on the 20, meaning it was Dartmouth’s on downs, changed his mind and replaced it on the 6, from where Scholl passed to Murphy in the extreme end of the end zone.

Except for the extra point, that was the last play of the game. But had Cornell scored on an illegal fifth down? Captain Lou Young of the Indians and other Dartmouth players insisted that this was the case. “We have the crisis of a lifetime in the making here,” yelled the radio announcer. Most of the football writers’ charts showed that Mort Landsberg had rushed twice and Scholl once before the latter threw the pass that Hall knocked down behind his goal line. That amounted to four plays. Carl Snavely at first assumed that on one of the plays both teams had been called offside, thus nullifying one play, but the officials assured him that this had not happened.

Just before the scoring pass to Murphy, Captain Lou Young of Dartmouth and other players demanded that Referee W. H. “Red” Friesell give Dartmouth the ball, but Friesell refused and declined to discuss the matter afterwards. The next day, Asa Bushnell, head of the Eastern Intercollegiate Football Association, announced that even if an error had occurred, the score was on the board and changes were up to Cornell and Dartmouth. Dartmouth announced that movies of the game were being processed and would be shown in Hanover on Monday. Some 1,500 Dartmouth students staged a tumultuous “victory” rally.

And then it was a victory. On Tuesday the headlines announced the decision made the day before: “Dartmouth 3, Cornell 0, Official Admits Error.”
Friesell confirmed yesterday that it was illegal in a special report sent to Asa S. Bushnell, commissioner of the Eastern Intercollegiate Football Association. It was as follows:

Since the conclusion of Saturday’s Cornell—Dartmouth football game at Hanover I have made careful and thorough study of all evidence having to do with the final series of plays which led to Cornell’s touchdown and 7-to-3 victory just as time expired in the fourth quarter.

On the basis of numerous charts kept by the press and motion pictures taken by both of the competing colleges, I am now convinced beyond shadow of doubt that I was in error in allowing Cornell possession of the ball for the play on which they scored.

This mistake was entirely mine as the game’s referee, and not shaped in or contributed to by any of the three other officials. I realize, of course, that my jurisdiction ceased at the close of the game and that the football rules give me no authority to change even an incorrect decision such as the one described, but I do want to acknowledge my mistake to you as commissioner of the Eastern Intercollegiate Football Association and, if you see fit, to the football public as well.

In Hanover of course, the jubilation was unrestrained. Captain Lou Young; the scat back, Ted Arico; the other backs, Wolfe and Hall, had outplayed far more celebrated men like Scholl, Landsberg, and Murphy. The heretofore lowly Indians had upset the team that had crushed Ohio State. Some 2,000 Dartmouth students rallied behind the Dartmouth band on Monday evening, and the band made the rounds of the dormitories, as students, faculty members, and townspeople gathered at the main intersection of the small town, and calls went up from the crowd for the appearance of the football heroes from within the senior society Casque and Gauntlet. One by one they did appear, to the accompaniment of ear-splitting cheers from the crowd. “I am tickled to death with the result,” said Lou Young, the first to appear, “and the fellows deserve it. They are a grand bunch and by that I mean from the varsity through the jayvees to the freshman. It was a squad victory and is a great tribute to Coach Blaik and the whole staff.” Bob Krieger, who kicked the winning field goal, got a thunderous ovation, and Arico, Hall, and the others were not forgotten by the crowd. After the players had all appeared the band swung off down the main street playing “Far Above Cayuga’s Waters.” The band and a snake-dancing crowd then moved up and down the streets of the town as merchant and businessmen watched from doors and windows.

The next day, Cornell President Edmund Ezra Day, a Dartmouth graduate, told a rally in Ithaca that Cornell did not want any football victory through a “long count,” a reference to the famous Dempsey-Tunney fight of 1927. He told the throng that the final scoring play, which had been disallowed, was still a great play. “At Hanover I saw the greatest football finish ever played out by a great team. The score may come off, but the play remains.” He continued: “If we hadn’t made that decision, we’d have been explaining that game as long as football has a place in intercollegiate athletics—and I want no long count in Cornell’s athletic history.” As Cornell began practicing for its final game against Penn and Frank Reagan, Captain Walt Matuszczak reported to the infirmary with a stomach disorder.

Dartmouth’s coach that year, Earl Blaik, a West Point graduate, had left the army after the First World War and prospered in real estate, but he was increasingly drawn to football and coaching. In 1927 he responded to the call to return to West Point as an assistant coach. The great success of the Army teams brought Blaik to the attention of Dartmouth’s president, Ernest Martin Hopkins, who lured him to Hanover as head coach in 1934. With Blaik, who demanded 110 percent effort—“You have to pay the price” was his motto—Dartmouth became a serious contender in major football. He broke a long string of losses to Yale, the “Yale Jinx,” and with players like Bill Hutchinson and Bob MacLeod running the ball—“as good as any backs anywhere,” Blaik said’’—gave Dartmouth a taste of football glory during the 1930s. After the season of 1940, Blaik was prevailed upon to return to West Point, with mixed feelings about leaving Hanover, and there he coached the wartime powerhouses of Blanchard and Davis and the postwar national championship teams. In the history of modern football, he belongs in the pantheon along with men like Frank Leahy and Ara Parsegian of Notre Dame, Joe Paterno of Penn State, Columbia’s Lou Little, and Vince Lombardi and Don Shula of the pro game.

But Blaik’s career extended well beyond football brilliance. He was a man of intelligence and character, a friend and confidant of Dartmouth’s president, Ernest Martin Hopkins, who was an educational leader of national and even world reputation. After Blaik retired from coaching at West Point, he had a major corporate career as vice president of AVCO. He was close to Douglas MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, Robert Kennedy. He believes firmly that MacArthur never intended to run fro president in 1952. Leaving LaGuardia Airport by plane to die in Walter Reed Hospittal in 1964, MacArthur ordered the plane halted on the runway to say goodbye to Blaik, who had been delayed by traffic.

The 3—0 Dartmouth victory over Cornell owed much, of course, to the determination of the players themselves, but it would not have been possible at all without some brilliant strategy on the part of Blaik, particularly on defense. Blaik has written two memoirs, You Have to Pay the Price (1960) and an expansion of this book entitled The Red Blaik Story (1974). His own account of the 1940 Cornell game is an important addition to football history. Here it is in Blaik’s words:

In 1940, we slipped a little more. Yale beat us, 13-7, for the first time since 1934. We had lost three other games and had no rankings whatsoever as we approached the next to the last game on our schedule: Cornell, at Memorial Field, November 16. Since midway in 1938, Cornell had won eighteen straight, was ranked No. 1 nationally and was at least a 4—1 favorite over us. Snavely himself told Allison Danzig, veteran expert of the New York Times and a Cornell alumnus, that of his three powerful teams of 1938 through ’40, the ’40 team was the best until weakened by injuries, especially on the left side of the line. All but one of these injuries were incurred in the first quarter of our game due to the rugged play.

In preparing for that game, I had two problems: the first technical, the second psychological.

We put together an elaborate defensive pattern, which may well have been as complicated as any devised up until then. We played our ends normally on the line but posted our tackles and guards a yard and a half off the ball. The linebackers, playing shallow, approximated the same depth as the tackles and guards. The plan was for these six men to sit there, forgo early commitment, angle off in the direction of the ball, and by quick reaction give up the short gain and no more.

Now, part of the reason why Cornell seldom hit straight ahead was that the fullback, or No. 3 back, in their single wing, Mr. Landsberg, was speedy and nifty at darting through a trap hole rather than powerful. On certain plays, however, Landsberg exchanged places with Captain Walter Matuszczak, Cornell’s No. 2 or blocking back. This gave them more straight-ahead plunging power and also enabled them to utilize Matuszczak’s powerful blocking sweeps.

They also had a dangerous counterplay from this series, on which Walter Scholl, the tailback, faked a run to the strong side, stepped and tossed a “back diagonal” pass to Landsberg in the weak-side flat. With Landsberg’s speed, it was a potential long-gainer or game breaker if called at the right time, and had proved effective. To cover it, Bob Crego, our weak-side backer-up, who was later to give his life in World War II, was instructed always to play Landsberg, come what may, when he shifted to the No. 2 spot.

So much for the outline of our defensive plan.

We naturally worked at building our men psychologically for a supreme effort. We did not have to sell Cornell’s stature. Their record, rank, reputation, and what they had done to us the year before took care of that. There was no problem getting our men keyed up for the game.

On Friday afternoon, we repaired to our regular pre-game bivouac, the Bonnie Oaks Inn on Lake Fairlee outside Fairlee, Vermont, not too far from Hanover. Saturday morning, we went through our usual routine: an early walk and breakfast. The players were then ordered to rest in their rooms until called by Bevan to have their ankles taped. Any boisterousness was supposed to be out of order. They were supposed to relax.

I had written in our pre-season football brochure: “the mysterious Indians on one occasion will rise to great play.” This was the day. Our defense did the job we wanted. In the first half, we stopped them cold. In the third period, they marched, but we stopped them by an end-zone interception. Then we marched ourselves, and early in the final period we got close enough for end Bob Krieger to place-kick a 27-yard field goal.

With only four and a half minutes to play and the ball on their 48-yard line, Cornell took to the air. One pass was allowed for interference on the 18-yard line, but we were of no mind to complain. It was the “back-diagonal” pass to Landsberg. For once, Crego forgot to pick him up right away. Our phone spotters, sensing it immediately, jumped up and yelled, although Crego couldn’t possibly have heard them. Crego, however, realized his mistake as the play developed. He saw that Landsberg was sure to get to the ball before he could, and that would likely spell touchdown and game. But Crego also saw that he had enough of an angle to tackle Landsberg and take the penalty, which he did. It was quick thinking. In light of what followed, it probably saved the game.

From the 18, another pass from Scholl to the right halfback Bill Murphy gave Cornell first down on our 5. There was less than a minute to play as Landsberg hit the line for two. On second down, Scholl drove to the 1. On third down, Landsberg was piled up for scarcely any gain. The ball rested less than a yard away from our goal line. There was time for two more plays at the most.

Now began a series of events which proved to be a weird prelude to an emotional Donnybrook and an aftermath never duplicated in football history.
To stop the clock, Snavely called out, so Cornell was penalized 5 yards for delaying the game. This placed the ball on our 6-yard line.
On fourth down, Scholl passed into the end zone. The ball was batted away from Murphy, the intended receiver. William H. (Red) Friesell, a referee of long-proved excellence, put the ball on the 20-yard line, apparently in our possession.
But then, after a consultation requested by Captain Matuszczak and other Cornell players thought there had been a double-offside penalty called on the pass which had been batted down in the end zone.
Captain Young protested vigorously to Friesell that there had been no such penalty, and two of the other officials backed him up. But Friesell, apparently confused, continued to allow Cornell possession on the 6-yard line and another down.
There were six seconds left—time for Cornell to get off one play. They huddled and decided to go for a touchdown and victory rather than a field goal and tie. Two seconds remained on the clock when Scholl passed to Murphy in the end zone, and this time Murphy caught it. Nick Drahos, Cornell tackle, kicked the extra point. The game was over and Cornell had won, 7—3.
The coaches on both sides and the fans thought that was it. But our players, two officials, and the writers covering the game knew that Cornell had scored on a fifth down. The writers so reported it. The news swept down from the press box, through the crowd, out onto Memorial Field, into Davis Field House and on through Hanover like wildfire. Students began parading, proclaiming a Dartmouth victory. They paraded throughout the weekend, every hour on the hour. One of the parades ended up in front of our house.

When the situation was brought to the attention of Jim Lynah, Cornell’s athletic director, he stated that if the officials discovered that there had been five downs, the score would be recorded as Dartmouth 3, Cornell 0. Dr. Ezra Day, president of Cornell, concurred.

President Hopkins and I drove Referee Friesell across the Connecticut River to the White River Junction station. He admitted to us he had apparently made a mistake.

On Monday, after Cornell officials had studied the films, which showed five downs and no evidence of a double-offside, they called Asa Bushnell, Executive Secretary of the Eastern Intercollegiate Association, who then forwarded the information to Friesell.

Friesell issued a statement, expressing his regret. Bushnell then stated that no official had jurisdiction to change the outcome of the game and that any further action would have to come from Dartmouth or Cornell.

When this was reported to Cornell, they sent us two wires. One from Jim Lynah read:
IN VIEW OF THE CONCLUSIONS REACHED BY THE OFFICIALS THAT THE CORNELL TOUCHDOWN WAS SCORED ON A FIFTH DOWN, CORNELL RELINQUISHES CLAIM TO THE VICTORY AND EXTENDS CONGRATULATIONS TO DARTMOUTH.

A second from Coach Snavely read:
I ACCEPT THE FINAL CONCLUSIONS OF THE OFFICIALS AND WITHOUT RESERVATION CONCEDE THE VICTORY TO DARTMOUTH WITH HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU AND THE GALLANT DARTMOUTH TEAM.

And we wired Cornell:
DARTMOUTH ACCEPTS THE VICTORY AND CONGRATULATES AND SALUTES THE CORNELL TEAM, THE HONORABLE AND HONORED OPPONENT OF OUR LONGEST UNBROKEN RIVALRY.

As the year 1940 drew to a close, sports experts delivered a wide-ranging assessment of what had gone on in the various athletic seasons. One conclusion was: “Cornell Figured in Greatest Upset: Defeat by Dartmouth Voted Most Surprising Event in 1940. Tigers’ Pennant second. Bimelech’s Setback in Derby and Stanford’s Football Rise Next on Shock List.”

Fifth Down and Goal to Go; Dartmouth Spoils Cornell’s Title Hopes

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