Bowl Bids

In 1929, two years before his death, the late, great Knute Rockne was asked to name the best football coach in the U. S. "Modesty forbids," chuckled Rockne. "But if I can name the two best football coaches in America, one of them is going to be Clark Shaughnessy."

Last week U. S. football fans were ready to admit that Rockne was right. Taking over a feeble Stanford team that had failed to win a Pacific Coast Conference game last year, Coach Shaughnessy and his T formation (a sort of button-button -who's -got -the -button offensive ) transformed the wooden Indians into the most formidable team on the Coast.

Without suitable material, of course, Shaughnessy could never have turned the trick. The classic, old T formation, revived and effectively used by the professional Chicago Bears (whom Shaughnessy used to watch with envious eyes during his seven frustrated years as University of Chicago coach), requires three fast-starting backs. Stanford's Norman Standlee, Frankie Albert and Pete Kmetovic filled the requirement to a T.

Last week, when Stanford faced California in the West's Big Game, Clark Shaughnessy's Indians were the toast of the Coast. Undefeated and untied in eight games, they had rolled up 162 points to their opponents' 65, had clinched the Conference championship, had one cleated foot in the Rose Bowl. Before a roaring crowd of 80,000, they completed their amazing jump from cellar to Rose Bowl, outplaying California (13-to-7), just as they had outplayed San Francisco, Oregon, Santa Clara, Washington State, Southern California, U. C. L. A., Washington, Oregon State. Amid the loudest whoops that had been heard in Palo Alto since Ernie Nevers' day, the Indians sat down to a powwow, tried to decide whom they wanted to tackle at Pasadena on New Year's Day.

Fortnight ago, they had practically agreed to invite Texas A. & M. The Aggies, led by Jarrin' Jack Kimbrough, a 220-lb. steam roller, had mowed down 19 opponents in a row, were considered the best team the Southwest had ever seen. But in 57 agonizing seconds last week, the Farmers saw their $100,000 bid to the Rose Bowl vanish. At Austin, where no Texas A. & M. team has beaten Texas since 1922, the old jinx spurred a team of Longhorns that had been twice beaten this year to paralyze their old rivals with a lightning-swift stab. With Fullback Peter Layden tossing two magnificent forward passes and then plunging over the line, Texas chalked up a touchdown--that turned out to be margin enough to win the game, 7-to-0.

Tennessee, Southeastern Conference champion, undefeated not only this season but last season and the season before, was another top-ranking candidate to represent the "East" in the Rose Bowl. But they too let Stanford down. After walloping Vanderbilt, 20-to-0, last week for their 32nd victory in a row, Bob Neyland's Volunteers--who went to the Rose Bowl last year, the Orange Bowl the year before--decided that they wanted to see gay New Orleans, voted to accept New Orleans' bid to the Sugar Bowl (with a $75,000 guarantee for their university).

Boston College, victorious in all its ten games this season, might have been invited to the Rose Bowl. But immediately after squeaking by Holy Cross (7-to-0) last week, B. C. jumped at the chance to match its tricks against Tennessee's in the Sugar Bowl.

That left slim pickings for Stanford. After a day's deliberation, the Indians invited Nebraska's Cornhuskers, Big Six Champions, defeated only once this season --by mighty Minnesota. Minnesota, undefeated and untied, is prohibited by Big Ten rules from playing post-season football games.

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