The Worst Team in Texas College Football History
In April 1920, the Brownswood Bulletin began projecting great things for the communities two hometown colleges, Howard Payne and Daniel Baker. Both, it noted, had rich traditions of turning out graduates of the highest caliber, not to mention fielding athletic teams that kept local interest high in both schools. For the coming football season, the newspaper edited lauded about Daniel Baker College hiring a coach with “a record of great triumphs on the football field.” Coach Sylvester Paulus must have had no idea the paper was referring to him and even less idea that he was walking into a season that would be one many in the West Texas town have never forgotten.
As the 1920 college football season approached, Daniel Baker, one of two Presbyterian schools in Texas fielding football teams, found itself deep in its own territory. While other teams throughout the state had been preparing for the season for some time, as of September 22, Daniel Baker had been practicing for only a week.
Coach Paulus reportedly offered his Hill Billies a vigorous workout in two-a-day practices, but even the local newspaper recognized the difficulty of getting a team ready to play powerhouse Southern Methodist University (SMU) in less than two weeks. In fact, the Bulletin referred to the majority of the squad as “raw material.” That was one truth the newspaper did write about the coming season as most of the small school’s players had never set foot on a gridiron prior to the first day of practice. Still, the local sportswriter wrote, people expected the team would develop rapidly and be playing “good football before many days have passed.” The hometown prognosticators went so far as to warn the mighty Methodists at SMU that they might be surprised at the strength of the team Daniel Baker would field. It was the first of several poor predictions the Bulletin would make during the 1920 football season.
When game day at SMU arrived, Brownwood rooters were in high spirits; after all, the previous afternoon, the local high school football team had manhandled Santa Anna High School in a 27-7 win. No doubt residents of Brownwood expected destiny would be on their side throughout the season, regardless of whether victory on the high school or college gridiron was at stake. But destiny wasn’t on the Hill Billies side that weekend, as SMU and its All- Southwestern quarterback Jimmuy Kitts, “swamped” Daniel Baker, 70-0.
“Daniel Baker’s colors were dragged into the dust and trampled upon vigorously by the Southern Methodist University football team…,” the Brownwood Bulletin account of the game began. The Hill Billies were “bewildered” and “outplayed” the writer noted, the former probably being the best description of the defeat. Even when SMU played its second team in the third quarter, there was little to celebrate. Brownwood fans had little to speak of in terms of promising signs of the game. But Daniel Baker’s season was only getting started. Could it get any worse?
A week later, Daniel Baker again went on the road, traveling to College Station to take on the Texas A&M Aggies. The sting of the 110-0 Aggies victory over Daniel Baker five years earlier had not yet eased (the margin of victory still stands as the largest for Texas A&M over an opponent over a century later). Locals, while not expecting a win, did expect the Hill Billies to give the Aggies a hard-fought contest. The Bulletin had predicted the team would return home with a reputation for playing “fast” and “hard.” Despite the result, a 94-0 defeat, the newspaper encouraged both the team and local fans that the game was, as predicted, both fast and hard-fought. Coach Paulus echoed the Bulletin’s sentiments.
“My boys put up the gamest fight I ever saw,” he said, “and I’m proud of every one them.” Paulus went on to note that the Hill Billies fought “like Tigers” and the Aggies had to work for every point they scored. The coach even claimed that after the final gun, Aggie fans rushed onto the field and carried the defeated team off on their shoulders as they shouted praise on the “splendid fight” the visitors offered. With two weeks to prepare for Austin College, Paulus announced he would show some “wrinkles” the Sherman team had not yet seen. Even The Daily Texan in Austin showed some fear of Daniel Baker, noting the Hill Billies were a “strong aggregation and in the best condition for the game.” Whether that sentiment remained after Daniel Baker’s 109-0 loss to their Presbyterian counterparts at Austin College is unknown. Even among like-minded institutions, the football field apparently brought out the worst in both teams.
After beginning the season without scoring a point in three games, Daniel Baker’s squad still had spirit for its next opponent in the team’s home opener, St. Edwards. The Hill Billies had “handily” beaten St. Edwards a year earlier, but the Bulletin noted the Austin team was stronger than before. The account of the game proved the newspapermen correct. St. Edwards played loosely in handing Daniel Baker a 32-0 defeat. “The team as a whole performed well,” the account read,” but costly fumbles at critical points in the game gave the visitors two touchdowns…” Roy White, it noted, was a tower of strength for the Hill Billy backfield.
Hosting Meridian College, the Hill Billies were credited as showing “much better form” than their opponents, but “a lack of punch” resulted in another shutout, this one on by a score of 15-0. The game was followed by an 81-0 loss at the hands of Abilene Christian College on a day when the dusty town’s religious-based school’s football team wasn’t feeling particularly charitable. Finally, to close out the season, Daniel Baker traveled to Houston to take on the Rice Owls. Little was reported on the game’s outcome in the Brownwood Bulletin or anywhere else, but some sleuthing turned up another loss as the Hill Billies fell to the Owls 48-0.
But wait! All was not yet lost to salvage something from the horrific season the Daniel Baker eleven had endured. In a fit of bravery, Coach Paulus arranged for a home finale pitting the current Daniel Baker squad against a team of alumni in a scrimmage. Surely, the Hill Billies could take down a handful of players, some of whom probably hadn’t touched a football in years! Spirits were high in the grandstands for the contest, but the on-field action wasn’t particularly exciting. In what for the 1920 Daniel Baker club was a closely fought game, the alumni defeated the 1920 Hill Billies 14-0. Perhaps the alumni thought a little vinegar in their wounds would wake up the new squad.
The Brownwood Bulletin had little commentary to offer as the season came to a close. In fact, not a word about the season was printed until late December when it was announced that Coach Paulus was considering naming his team captain for the 1921 campaign. When the season did arrive, Coach Paulus, the same coach the Brownwood Bulletin lauded as a coach “of many triumphs” was nowhere to be found. As it turned out, someone gave the Bulletin a bit of misinformation about the coach. Paulus never had much in the way of triumphs on the gridiron. A year prior to his arrival in Brownwood, it turns out he’d coached his alma mater, Hanover (Indiana) College to an uninspiring 0-6-1 record. Perhaps the tie was against the Hanover alumni team. Nevertheless, several years later he turned up as head coach with the University of Wisconsin-Stout. In two seasons, he managed a 2-10-2 record. The coach who years earlier met such preseason praise with Daniel Baker ended his career with a 2-23-3 overall record.
While one would think nothing about the 1920 Daniel Baker club is worth remembering, the Hill Billies did leave a mark on football — and at the game’s highest level. That season, the team was led by fullback Roy White. White, possibly seeing little hope to achieve anything at Daniel Baker, transferred across the street to Howard Payne the following season, and from there on to Valparaiso in Indiana. And what do you know, in 1925, Roy White turned up on the NFL’s Chicago Bears roster. In fact, he played five seasons in Chicago, including one for the city’s American Profession Football League’s franchise. And to his credit, White scored 12 touchdowns over the course of his professional career — 12 more than his first team, the Daniel Baker Hill Billies scored in all of 1920.
With a century’s hindsight, one has to question why teams like Texas A&M, SMU, Austin College, and the rest of those on Daniel Baker’s schedule that season felt the need to put the undersized, outmanned, and outright pitiful Hill Billies squad to an old-fashioned shellacking. But football was different in the 1920s. In many cases, the game was a kill or be killed competition. And most of the teams played their second and third squads when the games to out of hand. No Daniel Baker players died playing the game that season, after all. In fact, “only” 11 college football players died from injuries sustained on the field in 1920, a substantial decrease compared to previous seasons. As we’ll soon discover, the decline in deaths didn’t impact one Brownwood citizen’s opinion of the brutal sport.
Before we get to that, let’s just say to the spoil sports in colleges across Texas that you undoubtedly destroyed the self-esteem and promising futures of some members of the 1920 Daniel Baker eleven. It’s only out of state schools like the Universities of Oklahoma and Arkansas that Texans should take pleasure in sending home with their tails between their broken legs!
Three touchdowns short of 500-0! Have Mercy!
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