October 7, 1916

On this date, Georgia Tech set the record for the largest win in college football history, beating Cumberland College with a score of 222 to 0. John Heisman, the man from which the Heisman Trophy's name derives, coached Georgia Tech, and purposely ran up the score for various reasons. Earlier the same year, Cumberland's baseball team crushed Georgia Tech 22-0 in a very controversial game, after Cumberland allegedly hired professional baseball players to play for them. Heisman also despised the collegiate rule that football teams were ranked upon how many points they scored. Heisman wanted to win by a landslide to both get revenge against Cumberland, and to also prove his point that ranking teams by the points they scored was faulty. A huge factor in the large margin of the score (222-0) was how bad the Cumberland football team was. The college had disbanded their team previously, but were required to play Georgia Tech, or else they would be fined. So, Cumberland gathered a team of 14 inexperienced players. This record was so outlandish that it will likely never be broken.