1921 Centre Vs. Harvard Football Game - The 1921 Game

The 1921 Game

The teams met for the second straight season in Harvard Stadium, on October 29, 1921, with 45,000 fans packing the stands. Harvard again entered the game undefeated, and had not lost a game since the 1918 season.

The game was a scoreless tie at halftime. Early in the third quarter, Centre's All American Blocking Back, "Red" Roberts told Bo McMillin, "it's time to score, ride my hump", and McMillin rushed for the lone touchdown of the game. The Praying Colonels' defense held off the Crimson's powerful offense from there for a 6–0 victory. Following the game, students from MIT who came to cheer against Harvard carried McMillin off the field and tore down the goalposts. The Colonels had shocked mighty Harvard, becoming the first school ever from outside the East to beat one of the Ivy League's "Big Three" of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

Back in Danville, Kentucky, overjoyed students painted the "impossible formula" C6H0 (Centre 6, Harvard 0) on everything in sight (including a few cows). At least one marking still remains, on the side of the Centre post office. The paint was protected from the weather for decades by the roof of a nearby building. That building was torn down in the 1990s, revealing a well preserved C6H0 from 1921.

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