Kyle Smith

Oct 7, 1916: Georgia Tech beat Cumberland College 222 to 0, the most lopsided game in college football history. Cumberland, a small school in Tennessee, had actually dropped its football program. But it was under contract to play Georgia Tech and would have to pay a penalty if it didn't show up. A student manager threw together a team of about 16 guys, a lot of them fraternity members who'd never played. Georgia Tech's coach was John Heisman. He had his own reasons to run up the score. That spring, Cumberland's baseball team had beaten Georgia Tech 22-0, and Heisman was convinced they had used professional ringers. Heisman also didn't like sportswriters ranking teams by how many points they scored, and he wanted to show how meaningless running up the score was. Tech led 63-0 after the first quarter and 126-0 at halftime. The second half was shortened to save everybody. Cumberland never got a single first down. Some of the Cumberland players were said to be hiding on the sidelines trying to avoid going back in. Twenty years later, the trophy for the best player in college football was named after Heisman.