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Unfortunately, I can not find much about the Oak Ridge team before the season. This was the first game Oak Ridge played of the season, and just the second game of A&M. Though the Farmers had originally planned to have played at least three games at this point (with canceled games against Bingham and Chapel Hill), they had played just one. This particular game had been arranged since at least October 4th; the Farmers added the nearby prep school to their slate after arranging a game against Guilford in Greensboro (The (Raleigh) Morning Post, October 4th, 1900, p. 5).

A&M, coming off a recent tough 0-5 loss against Guilford the day before, was hoping for a win to put their season on track. Oak Ridge, on the other hand, had everything to lose, having defeated A&M the previous year 0-10 and claimed the title of Champion of North Carolina Schools and Colleges. With those facts in perspective, the insistence of A&M to play Worth and Dalton, two players who had been forbidden from playing the previous day's game, makes some sense. Worth and Dalton had both recently transferred out of Guilford College, where they had been impact players on their team the year before; the North Carolina Athletics Association required that people who transferred colleges wait a year before playing again. Though no formal summary of the game exists in the present day, the two players likely helped a great deal in the victory for the Red and White.

Reportedly, Oak Ridge also recognized that the two players should still be sitting out, and played the game under protest, with the knowledge that the case would be brought to the members of the board of the NC Athletics Association and voted on. Despite the tension at the start of the match, the game was reportedly "a pretty one." The Farmers were described as "excelling in interference," while for Oak Ridge, Tomlinson and Kirkpatrick were "the stop," with Kirkpatrick making a 40-yard touchdown run and a 45-yard run at another point in the game. The game was reportedly "fairly clean" and free of violence or disagreement (The Greensboro Evening Telegram, October 12th, 1900, p. 1; News and Observer, October 12th, 1900, p. 5; The (Raleigh) Morning Post, October 14th, 1900, p. 5; The Wilmington Messenger, October 16th, 1900, p. 3).

Despite the Morning Post writing that the "very strong" A&M team was made up of "bona fide students" who "fear[ed] no other defeat," that proved not to be the case. At a meeting on November 13th, the 8 members of the NC Athletic Association voted 5-1 (A&M and Oak Ridge abstaining from voting for their obvious conflicts of interest) that the game was to be ruled out. Reportedly, the game was not given to Oak Ridge (as many people thought it should have been), but instead simply made to not count. Despite the disagreement, the process was "entirely friendly" throughout. Though it was not explained why A&M chose to play the men in one game and not the other, A&M reportedly "honestly believed" that the men should have been eligible. The likely explanation is that Guilford outright refused to play the match had Worth and Dalton been on the field, while the Blue and Red of Oak Ridge put up less of a fight (The Greensboro Evening Telegram, November 14th, 1900, p. 1; Charlotte Daily Observer, November 12th, 1900, p. 3; News and Observer, November 13th, 1900, p. 2).