A Century of Headlines 1900-1999: November 11, 1912.

'Varsity defeats Michigan in most spectacular game ever played To Richard Marshall belongs the credit for the victory. With a minute to play and the score standing Michigan 21, Pennsylvania 20, Marshall caught Thomson's punt on the fifty-two yard line and following the splendid interference which instantly formed, picked his way through the entire Michigan team, shaking off man after man. Three times was he pocketed, but each time eluded his pursuers and rushed on for the most spectacular touchdown ever made on an American gridiron. · Richard Marshall's tackle-breaking, game-winning, 52-yard run to glory against Michigan was perhaps the brightest moment in Penn's half-century of football prowess. Tens of thousands of spectators carried players off the field and danced around the campus for hours afterward in a city-wide celebration of football. A goal post in the river and some postgame partying? It doesn't even come close. Come autumn, college football was America's game and Penn was Philadelphia's team. The Red and Blue annually stood among the nation's dominant squads, playing a schedule packed with the likes of Michigan, Army and Penn State. There were other glory days for Penn on the gridiron -- after leading the nation in attendance throughout the 1940s, there was a last gasp of national recognition in 1959 when the Quakers beat Princeton on national television and tied No. 4 Navy at Franklin Field. But never since has Penn truly been a football school, let alone the football school.