My Favorite College Football Story: The Little College That Could

When it comes to college football’s national championship, never again shall we see what happened in 1919. 

In 1918, World War I and the misnamed ‘Spanish Flu’ conspired to keep many schools off the gridiron. Even the iconic Rose Bowl was played between military teams (Navy and Marines). But what happened the next year also made headlines–headlines that we’ll never see again.

Five teams vied for college football’s mythical national crown that year (there weren’t playoffs in those days), and four teams were household names: Illinois (Big Ten champ), the Texas Aggies (Southwest Conference champ), Harvard (Ivy League champ), and independent Notre Dame.

Centre’s Bo McMillin (photo, unknown author, Centre College Digital Archives, courtesy of Wiki Commons)

Here’s the team profile: 9-0, averaging 54 points a game, holding five teams scoreless, and no opponent scoring more than seven points. The squad had big road wins at Indiana, Virginia, and West Virginia, and shellacked the University of Kentucky, 56-0, at home. All of this was accomplished at a school with an enrollment of fewer than 250 students. Incredible!

It’s Centre College of Danville, KY. Established in 1819, the college got its name for literal reasons: Danville is located near the geographic center of the Commonwealth.

1919 wasn’t the only year the Colonials made football noise. Centre went 57-8 from 1917-24, including consecutive undefeated seasons in 1918 and 1919. And after the team beat Harvard in 1921, CC claimed that it had won another national championship.

It used the same 1919 formula–routing teams and giving up few points (including nine shutouts). And Harvard wasn’t the only big name CC vanquished that year. The Colonels also beat Clemson, Virginia Tech, Kentucky, Auburn, and Tulane in the regular season, and then, CC embarked on the unheard-of quest (in today’s terms) of playing in two bowl games. Center beat Arizona in the first, but luck ran out against Texas A&M in the Dixie Classic (precursor to the Cotton Bowl). The loss cost CC the national crown.

That wasn’t the end of CC’s football prowess, though. On consecutive Saturdays in 1924, Centre beat Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. Wow!

West Virginia’s Ira Rodgers (Charleston Gazette)

But 1919 was the extraordinary year, even though it started as a tall climb. Playing a smattering of lower-level teams didn’t help CC’s cause, winning big against Hanover, Xavier (OH), Transylvania, DePauw (not DePaul), and Georgetown (KY, not DC). Heads turned when Centre won at Indiana and Virginia (combined scores of 56-10), and the road victory against West Virginia in Charleston sealed the deal.

The nation’s eyes were riveted on the Mountaineers because they had the nation’s best player, Ira Errett Rodgers, 1919’s leading scorer. West Virginia got out to a first-quarter lead and went into halftime ahead 6-0. The second half was a different story—a story about Centre’s patented formula of playing shutout ball. The Colonials scored two TDs, the Mountaineers were scoreless, and Centre won the game, 14-6.

As legend has it, CC’s captain Bo McMillin had the team pray before kickoff, figuring that God’s intervention might help. Whether or not it did is a moot point, but what happened next is not. From that day forward, Centre College teams would be known as ‘The Praying Colonels.”

Today, Centre plays Division III football in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Association. The team went 5-5 last year 100 years after it had made college football history. Centre still plays Hanover, but big-name squads are long-gone from the schedule. Fans see Millsaps, Sewanee, and Rhodes instead.

And for this season? Well, there was nothing. The War and Flu didn’t sidetrack the Colonels of 1918 (Centre went 4-0 that year), but in 2020 the COVID pandemic did.

McMillin scores winning TD v. Harvard, Oct. 29, 1921 (photo, Jobe Newspaper Network)

2021 will be another story–and yet another time to celebrate Centre’s former status as a national football power. 1921 is the year that The Praying Colonels had that big road win against previously undefeated Harvard. Played in front of 45,000+ fans, the upset made national headlines. “David Shunks Goliath,” is the way the New York Times put it. Years later, Bleacher Report ranks it as the #2 upset of all time. FanSided has it #6.

And if you go to Dansville, KY these days, you’ll discover that memories linger. On the side of the old post office, you’ll see what looks like a chemical formula for a concoction of carbon and hydrogen, C6H0.

No chemistry formula is this. It’s about football: Centre 6, Harvard 0.