1918 VPI Gobblers football team
The 1918 team went 7–0 and claims a South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SAIAA) championship.
[2][b] Led by second-year head coach Charles Bernier, the team allowed only two touchdowns during its seven games.
VPI's star player was Henry Crisp, a man without a right hand, who was ineligible for military service in World War I.
A huge military offensive was planned by the Allied countries in the spring of 1919, so all non-disabled men of ages 18 to 20 were scheduled to be enlisted in the fall of 1918.
In an early September meeting between college and War Department officials in Plattsburg, Missouri it became clear that the training regimen envisioned for the soldiers could be incompatible with participation in intercollegiate athletics.
VPI leaders attempted to schedule games with two groups on the dates that opened: 1) military bases, which were fielding teams of young men who were football players that were away from their home campuses or had recently graduated after playing football; and 2) college teams that had SATC programs, whose students were encouraged to participate in athletic programs along with the more traditional athletes.
This not only enabled colleges to justify the inclusion of football in the SATC regimen, it also helped fill the gaps left by some of their star athletes.
[11] [26] VPI opened the season at Miles Field with a 30–0 win over Belmont Athletic Club, an organization in Roanoke, Virginia.
Originally the Gobblers were scheduled to face another military team, the Aero Squadron of Richmond, but there was a change during the week before the game.
[27][28] Camp Humphreys was a semi-temporary cantonment built on the Belvoir peninsula in Fairfax County, Virginia in 1918.
After fighting to a 0–0 draw after three quarters, Bock and Crisp each scored a touchdown as the Gobblers beat the Generals 13–0.
VPI beat the North Carolina Tar Heels 18–7, but the game is not counted as official by UNC.
(University of North Carolina officials did not recognize the 1918 football team as a varsity program because it was under the auspices of the SATC).
[22] VPI, who outweighed UNC by 15 pounds per man, drove to the 10-yard line in the first three minutes, but was unable to score.
The Norfolk and Western Railroad ran two special trains for VPI and VMI students to attend the game in Roanoke.
Coach Bernier wrote a story in the 1919 Walter Camp-edited Spalding Foot Ball Guide praising Crisp, one of the team's captains:[32]"Uncle Sam could not use a one-hand man, so Henry Crisp, much to Tech's good fortune, played the next biggest game [referring to football compared to war fighting], and to him, more than anyone else, goes the glory for a driving, consistent attack.
This big fellow, playing in the back-field for the first time, literally mowed them all down..."[32]Crisp was also selected captain of coach Bernier's All-South Atlantic team, and was joined on that team by the Gobblers' James Hardwick (end), Walter Wrangley (tackle), and Charles Quarles (center).
