1917 Davidson Wildcats football team

1917 Davidson Wildcats football
ConferenceSouth Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association
Record6–4 (1–2 SAIAA)
Head coach
CaptainGeorge M. King
Home stadiumSprunt Field
Seasons
← 1916
1918 →
1917 South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association football standings
Conf Overall
Team W   L   T W   L   T
Georgetown $ 2 0 0 8 1 0
Richmond 2 1 0 4 2 1
Washington and Lee 2 1 0 4 3 0
North Carolina A&M 2 1 1 6 2 1
VPI 2 1 1 6 2 1
Maryland State 2 1 1 4 3 1
Davidson 1 2 0 6 4 0
VMI 1 3 1 4 4 1
St. John's (MD) 0 1 0 0 1 0
Johns Hopkins 0 1 0 0 3 0
William & Mary 0 3 0 3 5 0
  • $ – Conference champion

The 1917 Davidson Wildcats football team represented Davidson University in the 1917 college football season. Led by third year coach Bill Fetzer, the Wildcats competed as a member of the South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SAIAA). Despite a record of 6–4 (1–2 SAIAA), some would call Davidson the second best southern team that year.[1] Davidson defeated Auburn 21 to 7, in one of the great upsets in Southern football history,[2] and scored the most on the 1917 Georgia Tech Golden Tornado, for many years considered the greatest football team the South ever produced,[3] in a 32 to 10 loss. Following the Auburn game the Davidson team was first referred to as "the Wildcats.

The team included a 17-year-old Buck Flowers, and two other All-Southerns in Wooly Grey and captain Georgie King. The backfield consisted of Flowers, quarterback Henry Spann, halfback Jack Black, and fullback Buck Burns.[4]

  1. ^ Bernie McCarty (February 1988). "Georgia Tech's 1917 backfield, better than the Four Horsemen Part 1" (PDF). College Football Historical Society. 1 (3). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016.
  2. ^ "Buck Flowers: He Could Do It All — Well". Daily Item. Sumter, S.C. October 15, 1969. p. B2.
  3. ^ Wiley Lee Umphlett (1992). Creating The Big Game. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 141. ISBN 0313284040.
  4. ^ "Niches in the Wildcat Hall of Fame". The Davidsonian. March 6, 1924. p. 5. Retrieved August 23, 2016 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon