11/23/1900 - Oak Ridge Insitute

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After the Oak Ridge and A&M teams first met, Oak Ridge filed a protest to the North Carolina Athletics Association that Dalton and Worth were ineligible from playing on A&M's team. The Athletic Association agreed, and voted to rule out the game. The two teams were reportedly "ordered to play [the game] over again," with Dalton and Worth both sitting out. In addition to the lack of Worth and Dalton, both teams had shaken up their line-ups since they last met. "There have many changes taken place [sic] on both teams," wrote one paper, "so that it is impossible to make a guess at the outcome of the game, but both teams declare they are stronger than when they played before." Both teams were also "flushed with recent victories" and were hoping to continue their forward momentum (The (Raleigh) Morning Post, November 23rd, 1900, p. 5; News and Obesrver, November 23rd, 1900, p. 5; News and Observer, November 22nd, 19001, p. 5).

Since they had last met, Oak Ridge's team had played an up-and-down schedule. About two weeks after playing A&M, the Blue and Red defeated the William Bingham School of Mebane 23-0. On November 3rd, the Oak Ridge team was defeated by the Davidson Medical College team in Winston-Salem 0-6 at Piedmont Park as a part of Winston-Salem's Piedmont Fair and Semi-Centennial Celebration. About two weeks later, on November 16th, the Cadets defeated Chapel Hill High School 76-0, and the next day Madison High School 57-0. The day before they played A&M, Oak Ridge and Horner Military School faced off in Durham, at Trinity's football grounds, for the right to state champion of high school teams. Oak Ridge won the game 5-0.

That gave the high schooler's the claim to champions of the state's high school teams with a 4-1 record, discluding the ruled-out game against A&M. While clearly better than most of their high school counterparts, the boys from Oak Ridge had struggled against collegiate competition. Papers at the time predicted the game would be a close game, and those predictions turned out to be right.

The reported changes to A&M's lineup were as follows: Gardner played his second game as fullback, a position he would excel at; Welch moved from half back to the right end; Worth, who had played quarterback previously, was replaced by Thompson (News and Observer, November 23rd, 1900, p. 5).


Roster

A&M Oak Ridge
Welch RE Brown
Turner or Wright* RT Jones
Calvert RG Adams
McKinnon C Kirkpatrick
Doughton or Bowden* LG McCline or McClair
Wright or Turner* LT Ross
McCanless LE Bell
Thompson QB Leach (Capt.)
Newton RHB Dock
Lougee (Capt.) LHB Tomlinson
Gardner FB Cook
SUB Dale
SUB Heath
SUB Manship
SUB Dye
SUB Trogden
SUB Townsend

Source 1, Source 2

*"Doughton" is probably just a mis-heard version of Bowden, who played LG in nearly every A&M game in 1900. As for Turner and Wright, Turner had played LT and Wright RT all year


Period Time Description NCSU ORI
1st Score at End of 1st Period 21 0
FINAL Remainder of game not reported. 21 0

NCSU Opponent
Rushing TDs (Assumed) UNKNOWN (4) none
Passing TDs N/A prior to 1906 N/A prior to 1906
Receiving TDs N/A prior to 1906 N/A prior to 1906
Defensive TDs (Assumed) none none
PATs UNKNOWN (1/4) UNKNOWN (0/1)
2PT: N/A/ prior to 1958 N/A/ prior to 1958
FGs none none
Safety: none none
Game Notes:
Kick Off Time: 3:30 PM - 11/23/1900 - Oak Ridge Insitute
Length: 40 (25 / 15) - Duration: unk
Attendance: unknown
Location: Fair Grounds - Raleigh, NC
Temperature: 82
Weather: clear
Wind: ???

A detailed description of the game does not survive. The game was reportedly "fast and snappy," with all four of A&M's touchdowns and their singular goal coming in the first half, which was 25 minutes long. The second half of the game was only 15 minutes long, and though Oak Ridge "regained some lost ground and made considerable advances," the Blue and Red were unable to turn those advances into points. Reportedly, "the crowd was small, but appreciative" of the efforts of the two teams. The weather was "too warm for snappy ball playing," with that day reported as being "the hottest November day on record," with temperatures reaching a high of 82 degrees (News and Observer, November 24th, 1900, p. 8).

Both existing accounts of the game credited the line plunging of Tomlinson and Dock for Oak Ridge, with the rest of the team's work being described as "steady" but in general "outclassed by their stronger opponents." For A&M, the stars were Newton and Lougee for their long runs, the line plunging of Garner and Wright, and the work of Lougee, McKinnon, McCanless, Welch, and Calvert at tackling. The return of Lougee was likely a positive feature of the game; Lougee had apparently been hurt at some point in the season and sat out of the game against Georgia (The (Raleigh) Morning Post, November 24th, 1900, p. 2; News and Observer, November 24th, 1900, p. 5).

Last updated: 6/4/2024