Georgian Team Wins the 1929 Championship

 In another article celebrating The Reflector’s Golden Anniversary, we’re covering the loss of the California Golden Bear’s in the 1929 Rose Bowl, leading to the Georgia Tech Golden Tornado being acclaimed as the 1928 National Champions in College Football.

College football in the 1920s was far more popular than professional and the California Golden Bears with Coach Andy Smith was to the early years of the decade what Notre Dame with Coach Knute Rockne was to the later half. Between 1920 and the third game of 1915, the Bear’s Wonder Team didn’t lose a game and won four national championships.  They didn’t win it, or the Pacific Coast Conference championship in 1924 based on two tied scores.

Andy Smith died of pneumonia shortly after the 1925 season. Smith was replaced by assistant coach, Nibs Price, who was also the school’s very successful basketball coach, Price had been hired away from San Diego High just five years before. In 1916, his SDHS football team had won the high school national championship. At Berkeley he worked his way up to head coach in two college sports simultaneously.

The Basketball team’s success only increased, With All-American, George Dixon, they won the 1927 National Championship. The 1926 Football team gave Price a disastrous gridiron debut, but the 1927 through 1929 teams were a highly respectable 20—6 and 3.

In the 1928 season, they didn’t finish in first (USC) thanks to a loss to the Olympic Sports Club of San Francisco, a semi-pro team sporting several former All-Americans, including Mort “Devil May” Kaer and Harold “Brick” Muller. Price played only second stringers in order to rest their starters for conference play against Oregon. The Rose Bowl declined to invite USC, however, and as it was the only bowl game in 1929, it was out of luck to play a quality team like fellow undefeated Boston College. USC has still claimed a share of the championship not based on votes, but by later analysis by statisticians. It is the first of USC’s 17 national championships.  

As both teams were built around their   defenses, the bowl game was a scoreless slugfest. The first score was midway through the second quarter. The Golden Bear’s center, Roy Riegels, picked up a fumble by Tech's Stumpy Thomason. Just 30 yards away from the Golden Tornados' end zone, Riegels was somehow turned around and ran 65 yards in the wrong direction before being caught and tackled by his own teammate, Benny Lom.  Stuck at the one yard line, Price called for a punt but it was blocked and resulted in a safety.

In the third quarter Tech’s Stumpy Thomason scored a touchdown, but the extra point failed. In the fourth, a pass by Benny Lom was caught for a touchdown. The two point conversion was not, however, an option in college football until 1958, so with a successful kick, the final score was 8 to 7. A game still remembered because of one play by Wrong-Way– Riegels.