Football

In every section of the U. S. last week the onetime rah-rah sport of football reached a state bordering on mass hysteria. In North Carolina, where once only alumni cared who won the Duke-North Carolina game, last week's clash between the Blue Devils of Durham and the Tar Heels of Chapel Hill divided 3,000,000 North Carolinians into two camps. Sober businessmen, tobacco farmers and textile hands, many of whom never saw a college campus, bet like drunken sailors on either Carolina (undefeated but tied) or Duke (defeated only by Pitt).

For the 51,000 who were lucky enough to get into Duke's Stadium, this year's game was something to see. There were four triple-threats on the field: Duke's two famed McAfee Brothers and Carolina's equally famed "Sweet" Lalanne and George Stirnweiss. At half time, Carolina was leading, 3-to-0.

Then, in the first few minutes of the third quarter, a Blue Devil, coming out of nowhere, blocked a Carolina punt. The ball bounded off his chest, rolled crazily toward the end zone and, before the bewildered crowd got to its feet, rolled over the goal line with a Blue Devil atop it. From that moment on, Duke played diabolical ball. They intercepted passes, smothered ballcarriers, finally scored another touchdown to shatter Carolina's dreams of the Southern Conference championship and a Bowl-game bid. Duke 13, North Carolina 3.

In the East, Ivy League rooters crowed lustily for Cornell last week. Against Dartmouth, Carl Snavely's boys showed that their early-season victory over Ohio State, mightiest of the mighty Big Ten, was no flash in the pan. Playing as no Cornell team has played since the famed Gil Dobie machines of 1921-22-23, they made a good Dartmouth team look like wooden Indians, scalped them 35-to-6, chalked up their seventh successive victory this season.

In Oklahoma, every farmer knows the Sooners' record. In the last two years they have not lost a game, except to Tennessee in the post-season Orange Bowl game last year. Last week every rural radio was tuned in to the Oklahoma-Missouri game at Columbia, Mo. Oklahomans wanted their beloved Sooners to stop Missouri's fabulous Paul Christman. Stop Christman they did, but discovered that his less publicized teammates were good too. By the margin of an unsuccessful kick (7-to-6), Oklahoma was nosed out of the undefeated ranks and the Big Six title.

In Southern California last week, the major issue was whether undefeated U. C. L. A. (University of California at Los Angeles), with its three Negro headliners, could beat Santa Clara (beaten only by the powerful Texas Aggies). In Los Angeles' Coliseum, 50,000 fans watched a bruising game that ended in a scoreless tie and increased the humble Uclans' prestige as a formidable West Coast team--a threat to the University of Southern California's Rose Bowl aspirations.

Iowa's football hysteria last week made all other sections of the country look like Quaker meetings. At Iowa City, auto horns tooted all night. Citizens toted players around on their backs, danced in the streets, shouted "Anderson for Governor." Reason: the University of Iowa, in its first year under Coach Eddie Anderson (onetime Notre Damer) and with practically the same team that won only one game last year, had just won its sixth game in seven starts this season.

Paced by smooth-passing, slick-running, drop-kicking Nile Kinnick, the little band of Hawkeyes (Anderson uses only five or six substitutes a game) came from behind to lick mighty Minnesota, 13-to-9--their first victory over Minnesota in ten years. At the start of the season, even the most loyal Iowa rooter expected nothing more than a second-division Conference place for the Hawkeyes. Last week Iowa was in second place, with a chance to tie Ohio State for the Big Ten title.

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