College Football's All Time Greatest Dynasties - No. 29

Coached by Ben Schwartzwalder

Very few college football teams have ever been immortalized in the celluloid of Hollywood. But 1959's Syracuse Orange were not like most college football teams. Winning the school's first and only National Title, the 1959 football season was made all the more dramatic by what took place off the field as much as on.

That story, of how Ernie Davis overcame racism in the pre-dawn of the Civil Rights Movement (plus early stages of leukemia) to become the first black recipient of the Heisman Trophy, is rendered in heartbreaking poignanance in the 2008 Universal Pictures movie "The Express". 1959 also stood as the pinnacle of one college football's earliest dynasties.

Ben Schwartzwalder, a decorated World War 2 veteran, took over as Syracuse's head coach in 1949, having successfully cut his college coaching teeth at Muhlenberg College. A once proud football program, Syracuse languished in the first few years after the War, having three separate coaches compile an 11-29-1 record before Schwartzwalder's arrival.

A tough, no-nonsense West Virginian (who'd parachuted into Normandy during the D-Day invasion) Schwartzwalder immediately lifted the Orange out of its mire with seven winning seasons in his first ten while steadily transforming a frequently prone defense into one capable of blanking such collegiate gridiron luminaries as Army, West Virginia, Pittsburgh and Nebraska.

The arrival of running back Jim Brown in 1954 also marked an uptick in offensive production, seeing point totals of 41, 49 and 61 in individual games -- just seven seasons after the Orangemen amassed only 89 points in an entire 9-game season.

By 1958, with Ernie Davis now on the roster, Schwartzwalder's team had overhauled into a bona fide defensive and offensive juggernaut, rampaging through its schedule with scores like 55-0 over Cornell, 38-0 over Nebraska, 42-0 over Boston University and 47-0 over Colgate. 1958 was not a complete success, as Syracuse dropped a one-point decision against Holy Cross and a 6-21 loss to Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. But all the elements for a National Title run the next season were in place. And a dynasty had officially begun.

Starting the 1959 season in late September, Syracuse hosted a trio of high-caliber opponents in Kansas, Maryland and Navy -- the Terrapins having enjoyed their own dynasty at the beginning of the decade. Syracuse beat them by a combined tally of 95-27, including a 29-0 shutout of the Terps themselves.

Syracuse then hit the road to Worcester, Massachusetts to take on Holy Cross -- a school which Schwartzwalder's teams were normally accustomed to beating, but who'd managed back-to-back wins against the Orange in 1957 and 1958. Coach Schwarzwalder knew that if his team had a National Title in them, they'd need to squelch this thorny little bud of team early. Negative thirty yards rushing and six points (to Syracuse's 42) left the Crusaders wondering what sort of bright orange truck ran them over.

By this time, the national media finally noticed the path of destruction Schwartzwalder's team wrought through a part of the country not often known for college football titans. After steamrolling West Virginia (Schwartzwalder's alma mater) 44-0, Sports Illustrated described the team as a "superlative piece of machinery".

Pittsburgh -- a true Eastern juggernaut -- became the '59 Orangemen's sixth victim, and third shutout of the season -- 35-0. But a trip to Happy Valley to face Penn State finally put a scare into Syracuse. A battle of unbeatens, the Nittany Lions wracked up their own impressive path of carnage, but ultimately succumbed to Syracuse's blistering ground attack, 18-20.

Syracuse went home to heal its bruises while pasting Colgate with 71 points (the most scored by an Orange team since 1916) while the defense landed its fourth shutout of the year. And Boston University became shutout number five in a 46-0 massacre.

Schwartzwalder's squad wrapped up its regular season in Pasadena where they slaughtered an otherwise gracious host, UCLA -- 36-8. The Bruins were, perhaps, still high on their recent victory over crosstown rival, USC.

That made Syracuse 10-0 with just one game left to wrap up a National Title:

The 1960 Cotton Bowl

1959's Ole Miss (with ten wins and eight shutouts) might have been a more formidable foe for Syracuse to prove its mettle against than a 9-1 University of Texas. But the Orangemen went to Dallas for the postseason and into what was a virtual home-game for the Darrell-Royal-coached Longhorns.

Playing both sides of the ball, Ernie Davis, still two years removed from his Heisman-winning senior season, scored the only points of the first half. First, an 87-yard touchdown reception. And then a one yard run across the goal line, plus a two-point conversion run.

A quick racially-enflamed brawl preceded the halftime festivities and then, in the second half, while leading Texas 15-6, Davis took an interception 12 yards down to the Longhorn 24 while playing defensive end. Switching back to offense, Davis promptly jockeyed his way to the three-yard-line. Then he caught a two-point conversion pass after a second back took the ball in for six.

Up by 17, a waning third-quarter goal-line stand by Syracuse ended any serious threat of a Texas comeback. The Longhorns got one more score in the fourth to make the final tally 23-14.

At 11-0, 1959 Syracuse was, at the time, heralded as among the best college football teams ever, having shut out five of its opponents and allowing only three of them double digit scores. In all, the 1959 Orangemen outscored its opposition 413-73 (a 38-7 per game average).

Despite being a better season personally for Ernie Davis in 1960 (rushing and catching for over 1,000 yards and scoring ten touchdowns), Syracuse as a whole took a step back, winning 7 games, but losing two -- including a 0-10 revenge shutout at home by Pittsburgh. Still, the Orange racked up some gaudy numbers against the likes of Boston U, West Virginia and Colgate. But, in all, 1960 was a subdued end to a three-season dynasty in which Schwartzwalder's teams posted a 26-4 overall record, while shutting out ten of those opponents and holding 19 of the 30 to single digits.

For more college football dynasty profiles, please check out my main page.

College Football Dynasties.

And for a run down of college football's more calamitous history, please enjoy my compilation of --

College Football's Biggest Slumps