Georgia Tech marks 105 years since winning most lopsided college football game

ATLANTA — It’s been a record Georgia Tech has held for more than 100 years — and it’s not clear if it will ever be broken again.

On Oct. 7, 1916, Georgia Tech’s football team played Cumberland University at Grant Field, now part of Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta.

Tech’s coach, John Heisman, led the team to victory over Cumberland. But it was a victory never seen before.

Tech beat Cumberland 222 to 0. The team scored a total of 32 touchdowns.

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It is known as the most lopsided college football game in history, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

The game had no first downs — Cumberland did not make any, and Tech scored every time it had the ball, according to Georgia Tech.

In 2014, an Atlanta man and Georgia Tech graduate won the bidding for a most prized piece of college football and school history – what is believed to be the game ball in that historic game.

“It’s not mine,” said Ryan Schneider, a 46-year-old patent attorney. “It’s for the school.”

Schneider claimed the ball with a bid of $40,388, the 19th bid in the 19-day online auction conducted by SCP Auctions. It squashed the previous high for a football in the auction house’s online records, a football autographed by the 1966 Green Bay Packers, winners of the first Super Bowl, which went for $26,046.

Schneider, a married father of three who lives in Buckhead, grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, but has long been acquainted with one of the most famous games in college football history. He said he remembered at the age of 7 or 8 reading about the game and seeing a picture of the same ball in the Guinness Book of World Records. Years later, he ended up at Tech, following his father Edward’s footsteps. He earned his degree in mechanical engineering before going into law.

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“But everything still revolves around what I learned and experienced at Tech,” he said.

Schneider kept his plan secret, only obliquely telling his two young sons his plan late in the bidding.

“We’re a pretty open family,” Schneider said. “The kids are rabid Tech fans and everything. It just wasn’t about anybody but me at the time and me giving back to Tech. Frankly, if I had told my wife or kids, they probably would have told me I was completely insane, which they did tell me afterwards.”

Schneider donated the ball to his alma mater. It now resides in Georgia Tech’s Arthur B. Edge Intercollegiate Athletics Center.

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The ball was auctioned as a fundraiser for the LA84 Foundation, a non profit that funds youth sports in southern California.

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