Football

In Princeton's Osborne Field House, Coach Fritz Crisler hung a large cardboard panel with the photographs of the Columbia players pasted in formation positions. As each Princeton man passed the board on his way to practice he would pause to eye one of the pictures and rehearse what he proposed to do to the original when Columbia and Princeton met last week.

As a rule coaches save such fire-kindling measures for the Big Game of the season, but last week's game was a big one for Princeton. Not because the rivalry between Princeton and Columbia is second oldest in U. S. football.* Not because Columbia had thrashed Princeton last year for the second time in their 15 games together. But because last week's result would largely decide whether Princeton, which had not won a major game since 1928, was really on its way back to the upper crust of Eastern football. In early season games Princeton had looked surprisingly powerful, but had yet to be acid-tested. What Columbia's Coach Lou Little feared most was Princeton's prodigious army of reserves, many of them sophomores from last year's undefeated freshman team. His strategy was to fight for an early lead, dig in and hold on. He predicted: "The first period will tell." The first period had hardly begun when Princeton made a touchdown. Columbia's Halfback Maniaci was running back the kick-off when two Princeton tacklers hit him so hard they jarred the ball loose. Princeton grabbed it, put it over the line in five smashing plays. In that period and the next, Princeton's linemen charged and blocked so fiercely that a flashy 153-lb. sophomore halfback named Garry Le Van easily made two more touchdowns, one of them by running back a punt 45 yd. behind brilliant interference. In the second half Columbia dug in courageously as if it were winning, refused to let Princeton score again. 20-to-0.

"A punt, a pass and a prayer'' is the formula by which Michigan has remained at the top of the Western ("Big Ten") Conference for the past three years. Last week, before a Big Ten record crowd of 95,000, Michigan out-punted, outpassed, needed no prayer to outplay Ohio State with simple maneuvers, 13-to-0.

In Cleveland's cavernous Municipal Stadium, lately abandoned by the Cleveland baseball club because it is practically impossible to hit a ball over the fence, Army jolted a favored Illinois team by punching a touchdown across in the first quarter. Unable to pierce Army's line, Illinois cut loose with 18 forward passes, completed twelve of them for gains of 159 yd., only to be stopped short of scoring. An Army field goal was erroneously disallowed because the player holding the ball let both knees touch the ground. 6-to-0.

In 1926, while Notre Dame was preparing to smother Carnegie Tech, the late Knute Rockne jaunted confidently to Chicago to see the Army-Navy game. Coach Rockne nearly had a stroke as he read bulletin after bulletin from Pittsburgh telling how a Carnegie quarterback named Howard Harpster was running wild through Notre Dame, 19-to-0. Two years later Harpster, All-American quarterback, helped Carnegie to repeat. Last week, as youngest coach in major football (26), he sent his team against Notre Dame once more. In the first minute of play Carnegie handled Notre Dame exactly as Princeton handled Columbia (see above). Carnegie tacklers jarred the Notre Dame receiver loose from the kickoff, rammed and passed to a touchdown. Thereafter Carnegie had little trouble keeping the game safe from lumbering, fumbling Notre Dame, 7-to-0.

While it failed to work for Notre Dame, the Notre Dame system worked neatly for Yale. Twice it let Captain Bob Lassiter lead long marches down the field for touchdowns against Brown. But Yale suffered many a scare. Three times Brown ripped deep into Yale territory, once to the 1-yd. line. The fourth time, in the last period, Brown pounded through for a game loser's finish, 14-to-6.

Surprise of the week: Eleven Oregon State college players, unrelieved by substitutes, held powerful Southern California to a scoreless tie, broke the latter's string of 25 consecutive victories. U. S. C. made twelve first downs to Oregon State's one, gained 238 yd. to Oregon's 62. U. S. C. came nearest to scoring with a forward pass which Oregon Halfback Franklin intercepted on his goal line.

Washington's Governor Clarence D. Martin shouted himself hoarse as an underrated Washington State team fought California to a tie, 6-to-6.

While Cornell ran back a Syracuse punt to the west side of the field, the Cornell right end crept over to the opposite side and lay down, unobserved by Syracuse-- the old, old "shoestring"' play. In a flash Cornell snapped a forward pass to the end who trotted over the goal-line with nobody near him. But two brilliant forward passes for 80 yd. in the last three minutes pave Syracuse its first victory over Cornell since they began to play in 1891, 14-to-7. Minnesota's sophomores jolted big, strong Pitt with its first defeat of the season, 7-10-3. Tulane's Halfback Bucky Bryan received the second-half kick-off behind his own goal line, sloshed 101 yd. down a muddy field through the entire Georgia Tech team for the winning touchdown. 7-to-0. Dartmouth came from behind in the second half, whipped a forward pass in the last few minutes to beat a butter-lingered Pennsylvania team 14-to-7. Four times Harvard hurled itself against Holy Cross on the 1-yd. line. Four times Holy Cross's massive linemen held, then backed Harvard clown the field in ten plays for the winning touchdown, 10-to-7. Indiana ended a rainy day against Northwestern with a net yardage of minus one. 25-to-0.

* Oldest: Princeton v. Rutgers, 1869.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.