Once upon a time, around the turn of the last century, football was the exclusive domain of fancy Ivy Leaguers. The field and the game recognizable to us came out of Yale, after all. 

Gradually, mid-Atlantic and midwestern colleges began to produce some high profile teams but Texas football wasn't a blip on the national radar yet. 

Our universities were relatively young. We had college football teams but they weren't making headlines outside of Texas. A single team in the run-up to World War I would change all that. 

During the Mexican Revolution, the National Guard was mustered into service. The 36th Division, comprising mostly Texas Guardsmen stationed at Corpus Christi, harbored a sleeping giant: the Second Infantry football team.

To stave off the boredom and maintain the morale of more than 150,000 men in readiness to fight, nearly every camp along the border established a football team to compete against each other in Army leagues. 

A brutal contact sport played without protective gear served as an effective release valve for the men's restless energy and the headlines generated by the games kept public perception positive.

The Second Texas brought together young men who had distinguished themselves playing for U.T., A&M, Baylor, and Rice. In one explosive season, they showed the nation the kind of team Texas could produce.

The Second Texas squad played a six-game regular season in 1916. They clashed with all-stars from across the country. The result? A total shut-out season: 322 - 0. 

You read that right right. Not a single point was scored on the Texas underdogs. 

The Texas boys dominated national headlines and top Army brass  smelled an opportunity. Two more games were stapled to the end of the season to keep the hype train chugging along. 

The first of the two would be a Texas showdown of epic proportions. A young West Pointer from Denison named Dwight D. Eisenhower, stationed at Fort Sam Houston, was tasked with selecting the best from the 20,000 Guardsmen in San Antonio and coaching them to victory. 

The purpose of Eisenhower's hand-picked 12th Division All-Stars was simple: they were to shatter the streak of the undefeated Second Texas. On the roster were seasoned players who hailed from America's top football colleges. 

The face-off went down in Austin in the middle of a blue norther. Snow fell in the capital as Ike's All-Stars failed to trounce the Second Texas.

But the 12th Division team did what no other had achieved. They scored a touchdown on the undefeated Lone Star men. The Second Texas walked away from that game with a record of 356 - 6.

Ain't as pretty at 356 - 0, is it?

The final game played by what folks at the time called the World's Greatest Football Team was a shut-out against a New York roster of all-stars designed to take down the Second Texas, just as Ike's was. The final tally for the season was 432 - 6.

That blasted "6," that one touchdown remained a burr under the saddle of every man who played on the Second Texas team.

Most of the men who played on that monumental team shipped off to serve valiantly in World War I. Several became generals, a few had professional athletic careers.

This is their book. In readable prose and historic images, it chronicles the team and the men who made it the World's Greatest Football Team. 

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