86
YALMm ADUMNI wHEkiuy
they had written it on a blackboard “We
are here to play a Yale game. We have
no idea of being beaten. This famous
Harvard eleven has gained nothing from:
us before the game opens, and it is as
much our purpose to win from them
as though we had heard much less about
them.” The way the Yale captain
kicked wrote this message more clearly
than anything else. It was not more the
length and drive of his punts than the
calmness and assurance with which he
did his punting. Then perhaps the quar-
ter’s sure work added its emphasis to this
message. Fincke had been out of sorts
for ten days, playing poor football.
Now he was safe, quick, self-reliant.
The line had done what those who knew
the individuals who made the line would
do. They had driven at it with a fierce-
ness that was up to the highest standards
of Yale’s aggressive creed. It was a
kind of football that Bacon used to
play, and Hinkey, and Heffelfinger, and
Rhodes. I had the good fortune, as we
all went to Boston Friday afternoon, to
sit near a man in whom the principles
of football have always seemed instincts.
“System is: all right,” he said, as we
tried to forecast what would happen just
twenty-four hours later on,” but I want
first the right individuals. We have got
them in that line. Almost every line has
some lumber in it,—people who weigh
up to about what is wanted, but who are
the slow, waiting kind. rom the time
the ball is snapped, that line is fighting.”
A GOOD SYSTEM.
One’s confidence in that principle of
football selection and development, did
not diminish at any time during Satur-
day’s game. Indeed, it was confirmed at
the very outset. It is a wonderfully
promising thing to have your eleven
together the middle of October, and to,
mold it and trim it and fit it and drive
it for a full month or more. There are
things to be said in favor of that system
that errs, if it errs, on the side of keep-
ing the lists open to twenty-five hundred
students until even a few days before
a great contest, making a place and a
“VY” a prize for every man of pluck and
muscle and head. It may have been
“THobson’s choice” at Yale this year, but
I think something of this system would
have been followed even had it been
easy to do very differently.
The proposition had been first of all
to check Harvard, whose friends had.
counted so very confidently on a’ score
from ten to twenty greater than Yale,
and, lo, this green eleven had driven
those veterans back. Harvard was on
the defensive. Every exchange of punts
had netted Yale ten yards or more,
but part of the time this was offset,
and more than offset, by the way in
which that ball was taken by Daly and
his interferers, through half of the Yale
team.
And then after all this came that ter-
rific Harvard charge beginning some-
where around the forty-five yard line
and going down relentlessly line after
line. All the tremendous weight of the
Harvard aggregation seemed in their
charge at genter. The Yale line was
overborne time and time again, and then,
fairly in the air over that mass of heads
and heels, the huge Ellis went hurdling,
measuring at least his length in advance,
often twice or three times that. Many a
time he came up standing on the
other side of the line. Some said
the magnificent defense of the Yale
Captain ... was... rough = football... Did
it ever occur to them how they would .
stop a man coming in the air about
the height of their heads, throwing him-
self head on? Would they dive under
him and let him fall on them. The
wav in which McBride welcomed
Ellis was not only inevitable, from that
style of play, but it was perfectly within
the laws of the game. The all-seeing
Dashiell observed it very minutely. He
asked McBride once just how he nursed
that head when it came over and the
Yale captain’s hands went up palms
open, which told the story. This lay
criticism of a player, who has done as
much as any captain ever did to keep
the standards of the sport clean and fair,
cannot stand fora minute. It was rough,
killing work, taking the line on a hurdle,
| second half.
but the chances were more against those
who formed the hurdle than against the
hurdler. It was a trifle hypercritical to
question the defense against such a play.
Of course, Ellis wore out and had to
leave the game before it was nearly over,
but that was Harvard’s lookout. She
played her prize card and lost, and oh
the glory of that losing! It cannot be
described.
It was rather cruel, considering the
nerves of the average American audi-
ence, to have that stand followed a
minute later by Burnett’s try for
goal. Burnett would have made that
goal if it had not been a Yale-Harvard
game. He could probably go on to
Soldiers Field to-day and make twenty-
five like it in succession. He lost it
before he kicked. That is on the
authority of the great American expert
of kicking. That fussing and fiddling
and fake swing went one too far. The
awful tension of the moment in thirty-
five thousand nervous systems must have
had some effect on the kicker, if there
is anything in mental telepathy. |
And then it went back and forth for
the rest of the half—Yale, snappy, swift,
fierce, out-kicking her opponent.
THE SECOND HALF.
With great joy Yale came on for the
Faith in the fighting qual-
ities of the Eleven and suddenly in-
creased confidence in the positive and
aggressive virtues of Mr. McBride’s
men, restored that Yale confidence
which some of her rivals have always
called conceit.
“We've done Fair Harvard up before,
We'll do her up again.”
The modest theme of the Yale war
song was the hope and even expectation
of the Yale four thousand. It must
be admitted that the confident faith
of the thirty thousand people who wore
red ribbons and red chrysanthemums
had changed to anxiety. The feelings
of both were a bit overdone. But that
is what makes football so painfully deli-
ciOUs.
It was in this second half that Yale
showed her offensive, as well as her de-
fensive power. But that magnificent
Harvard Eleven showed also their pluck
and great. science of defense. Yale drove
along, one, two and three yards at a
time, and gained her fifteen feet,—which
Mr. Curtiss calls equal to a mile at such
times and agonies—once, twice and three
times. And then that incomparable
quarter of Harvard, the field captain of
the Crimson, called his men together
and used his fist in gestures. And the
Yale drive was blocked. McBride’s
determination to keep up that drive and
his’ faith that 1t might yet pieree the
impregnable or bound into victory, was
evidenced by his willingness to surren-
der fifteen yards that he might attempt
again the handicapped distance. The
Yale heart leaped as Brown crashed
and Chadwick and Keane dove and the
splendid Crimson line shivered and now
and again broke.
But it was not enough. Yale’s of-
fense had not reached the point of her
defense in perfection. And the Harvard
resistance proved invincible. Why
weren't one or two trick plays intro-
duced? No oonecan say. But who will
criticise? It takes a colder pessimism
than the writer of this article can sum-
mon to say anything in derogation of
the work of Yale’s fighters. They could
not quite do it and they felt badly about
it. But their thousands of friends said:
“Well done for a green team! Well
done for any team.”
And then there were those last three
minutes. (The chronicles hereinafter
set down tell other details, and in them
you will learn of the remarkably well
executed double passes,
back of punts by that quarter, Daly, of
which the history of football can hardly
show the equal.) But those last three
minutes had brought the fight into
Yale’s territory, because the Yale backs
had muffed punts and the Harvard ends
had recovered the fumbles.
Why should the Yale Captain, who
plays every other department of the
game so superbly, be asked also to
handle punts? It is a fair question.
The man who made one of the great
records of the gridiron in his kicking
last Saturday, and without whose de-
and running |
fence the Harvard onslaught could not
have been stopped, might reasonably be
spared this detail.
The play had worn down four of Har-
vard’s men and with what fiendish
flerceness the new men now jumped
into the attack! Would Harvard yet
do it? No Yale man’s heart was regu-
lar in its action as the try for the goal
from the field was made in the last few
seconds! Again let the writer ask the
reader to look below and see diagram.
It is beyond this pen to tell the sus-
pense of those one hundred and eighty
seconds.
A COMPARISON.
The fact that they played out to a
tie such an unusual contest as that of
last Saturday without disclosing on
either side any particular weakness, is
in-itself a very high compliment to the
members of both elevens. Much has
been said in this rambling sketch of the
Yale work, because so little of good
work from Yale had been recognized
before this season. The Harvard Eleven
has for a month been before the eyes
of the college world as a team conspic-
uous for individual merit and perfect
system. Its members have been quoted
as examples of what football players
ought to be in their positions, but if.
place would permit, it would still be a
delight to linger on the virtues of their
players.
When was the work of Campbell
paralleled? Yale and Harvard together
could not offer many candidates for
an answer to this question. His play
was not only hard, surely holding the
runner, or the man who had hoped to
run, but it was conspicuously clean.
Not once but several.times did he have
the opportunity for what might be called
excusably rough work, in handling
Yale’s light quarter outside the lines;
he never yielded to the temptation. The
hard play and his own tremendous activ-
ity wore out this great end before the
game was over; but he had made a
record. Hallowell at the other end was
not as often in evidence because he was
sent back so frequently for the kicks.
His kicks did not nearly equal those of
McBride, but they were always safely
slanted and it was practically impossible
to block them. ee
YALE ENDS DID GOOD WORK.
The Yale men who played against
these two finished ends had only a frac-
tion of their training this season. Con-
sidering the short time that Hubbell and
Snitjer had been in the harness, their
work was extraordinarily good. From
any standpoint, it was highly creditable
work. They did miss, now and then,
the long double pass. That is a matter
of greenness, more than anything else.
It takes long and constant play to
instinctively know where the play will
go. When it came to. the close end
plays, both ends were equal to the
emergency and Hubbell again distin-
guished himself for tackling back of the
line, and taking the runner from behind.
The Yale ends did not prevent Daly
from running back the punts from five
to perhaps twenty-five yards. But there
is no such man in the country as Daly,
for this work, and the interference that
he was given was remarkably well exe-
cuted. Besides all this, the Yale ends
had to get down under very much longer
kicks than those which the Harvard men
were required to follow. They kept up
with the ball surprisingly well. Think
of the short time for the straight pass
from center to fullback, and the short
time that such driving punts as those of
McBride were in the air, and then think
of following them fifty and sixty and
even seventy yards. The record on one
hundred yard sprints will help you, and
then remember that ends almost invari- |
ably have to dodge and tussle a bit to
clear for their run.
It is not possible in this space to com-
pare man for man the play between the
ends. It is not uncomplimentary to
Harvard and it is certainly not uncom-
plimentary to Yale, to say that hardly a
Football
Pneumonia
Don’t get it. You are going to
the Princeton game on Saturday
and no man can tell what stress
of November weather you may
meet, But you can be prepared
for anything. The right under-
clothing, the right sweater, a
warm rug—these are good in-
vestments just now.
CHASE & CoO.
New Haven House Block.
Henry Heath Hats.
Yale sympathizer who was at all familiar
with football, would change the swift,
aggressive, undismayed tackles, guards
and center of the Blue for even the
superb line of muscle and experience and
headwork which they met. It would
seem to a layman that the tackles made a
record for the year. As for guards,
Olcott was quite sufficient and more so,
while Brown brought back the days of
Heffelfinger. Time and again he broke
up the Harvard play back of the line,
once for a loss of over ten yards. The
Harvard captain, good as he was, did
not seem able to seriously trouble his
play.
HALE AGAINST SUPERIOR WEIGHT.
At center there was Hale of Yale,
with about 185 pounds against Burnett
of Harvard with 227 pounds; Hale of
Yale, who had played center in Fresh-
man year sometimes on his class eleven,
and had played the position three or four
days on the University eleven this Fall;
against Burnett of Harvard, who had
the most extended and varied experience.
If Hale had another year to play, Yale
would guarantee to raise the standard
of center play at football. This splendid
athlete improved with every play. At
first, weight somewhat overbore him,
but less and less was the difference felt.
At last, the difference was in Yale’s
favor. Hale was not only playing a
center game, but he was playing a tackle.
He finished his principal business early
in every play and then went roaming
around the field looking for more to do.
He was almost as frequent a tackler as
anyone in broken field.
This account has spoken of Daly at
quarter, but his work needs no elabora-
tion. On the other end, Fincke of Yale
was sure, fumbling the ball only once and
then under very trying circumstances,
and showing a coolness which greatly
helped Yale.
Both of Yale’s pair of backs played
excellent football; of the first two,
Sharpe handled punts remarkable well,
while Richards was fierce and sure in
his defense. His wrestling of the ball
at the two yard line from Ellis was a
truly remarkable -thing. For _ this
pair were substituted Keene and Chad-
wick later in the play, only because
they were required for the kind_of play
that had been decided uron. For that
particular effort, McBride could work
better with them than with the other two
men. There was certainly nothing to
regret from the Yale standpoint in com-
paring the halves of the two elevens. _
As to McBride, he was the pride oi
Yale and her tower of strength. His
play was the glorv of the afternoon.
iS &
KNOX Hats are “Fit” all the Season.
