page_title: Bo McMillin
section_title: 1921
hierarchical_section_title: Bo McMillin / Centre College / 1921
caption_attribution_description: English: Bo McMillin in the 1921 Centre vs. Harvard football game
context_page_description: Alvin Nugent "Bo" McMillin was an American football player and coach at the collegiate and professional level. He played college football at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, where he was a three-time All-American at quarterback, and led the Centre Praying Colonels to an upset victory over Harvard in 1921. McMillin was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a player as part of its inaugural 1951 class.
  McMillin was the head football coach at Centenary College of Louisiana, Geneva College, Kansas State University and Indiana University, compiling a career college football coaching record of 140–77–13. In 1945, he led Indiana to its first Big Ten Conference title and was named AFCA Coach of the Year.
  After graduating from Centre, McMillin played professionally with the Milwaukee Badgers and Cleveland Indians—two early National Football League teams—in 1922 and 1923. He later returned to the NFL, coaching the Detroit Lions from 1948 to 1950 and the Philadelphia Eagles for the first two games of the 1951 season before his death. McMillin's career NFL coaching mark was 14–24.
context_section_description: 1921 was an exceptional season for McMillin and Centre College. He was a consensus All-American, with an extraordinary October 29 effort against Harvard. After losing the year before, McMillin had promised that Centre would beat Harvard in 1921 (despite the Crimson's undefeated record since 1918). Before 43,000 fans, McMillin dashed 32 yards for the lone touchdown in a 6–0 Centre victory which ended Harvard's 25-game winning streak. Fullback Red Roberts told him, "It's time to score—ride my hump". McMillin dodged three of Harvard's secondary on his way to the end zone. Harvard coach Bob Fisher said after the game, "In Bo McMillin, Centre has a man who is probably the hardest in the country to stop".
  MIT students who attended the game to cheer against Harvard tore down the goalposts and hoisted him on their shoulders and for decades afterward, it was known as "football's upset of the century". Tulane coach Clark Shaughnessy later wrote that the win "first awoke the nation to the possibilities of Southern football." Students painted the "impossible formula" of C6H0 around Danville, and the campus post office has a last vestige of the graffiti on its side. On the return celebration in Danville on Monday, Governor Edwin P. Morrow remarked "I'd rather be Bo McMillin this moment than the Governor of Kentucky." 
  The week before, Centre had defeated Transylvania 98–0 in a game where Spalding's Football Guide reported that McMillin ran back a kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown. The season ended with a 14–22 upset loss to Texas A&M in the Dixie Classic, when Texas A&M's 12th-man tradition originated. McMillin blamed himself for the loss. The day before the game, McMillin got married.
  In an attempt to name Heisman Trophy winners retroactively before 1936, the National Football Foundation selected him as its 1921 recipient.
caption: About to score against Harvard.
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