Army's Obsession

Ann Arbor, Mich., which had come to regard itself as the capital of the college football world,* found it hard to take the Army team seriously. Local opinion was that West Point had been incautious, if not downright foolhardy, in scheduling a game with the University of Michigan's rebuilt postwar juggernaut, pride of the Western Conference and No. 1 ranking team of the land. But since somebody had to be Michigan's 26th consecutive victim, and Army was sure to put up a stout fight, some 97,000 went out to the university stadium to see the massacre.

On the second play of the game, Michigan's spinning fullback gave the ball to a halfback who smacked Army's line for two yards. When the players unpiled, blond, 188-lb. Chuck Ortmann, Michigan's passing ace, was lugged off on a stretcher. That was the first omen of calamity. Then it seemed as though the big stadium had begun falling in.

Ten Plays to Pay Dirt. From its 11-yd. line a few minutes later, grim, white-jerseyed Army began to march. Quarterback Arnold ("The Pope") Galiffa took a knowing look at Michigan's four-man line and tried his pony backfield (Fischl, Cain and Kuckhahn) off the flanks. Michigan's defense, rated the most ingenious in collegiate football, spread out; Galiffa hit the center with a new play (called a "Galiffa keep") designed especially for Michigan. He deftly mixed in three completed passes. In ten plays, Army had a touchdown. At halftime the Cadets had a 14-0 lead, and it was plain to be seen that the upset of the season was in the making. It was also obvious that the purposeful outrage being committed by the Army had been planned with surpassing care.

For eleven months Coach Earl Blaik of Army had been obsessed with one thought: beat Michigan. His scouts had charted Michigan's last two games of 1948 and brought their G-2 reports to headquarters atop the gym at West Point. Movies of two previous Army-Michigan games (in 1945-46) were not enough for the campaign that Blaik planned. He rounded up newsreels of Michigan playing other teams and spent much of the winter studying them in slow-motion with his staff of assistants.

Cracking the Code. Their big problem was to crack Michigan's defense code--a highly complex system of interrelated maneuvers which football savants describe by such terms as "angles," "loops," "converging" and "dealing in." If Army could unscramble the pattern so as to sense, a few seconds in advance, what combinations Michigan was likely to use in certain situations, it would give the team a priceless edge. Blaik cracked the code thoroughly enough to devote most of spring and autumn practice to drilling his boys in Michiganisms.

On one field at West Point, Blaik's offensive unit blocked against Michigan defense until it began to look as if Army was going to play a one-game schedule in 1949. From studying movies, Blaik learned that 230-lb. Alvin Wistert, Michigan's All-America tackle, stood solid as a steel lamppost against high blocks but fell "like a shock of wheat" before low ones. On another field, Blaik's defense unit drilled against Michigan pass plays until even the bystanders got tired of watching it.

Last step in Blaik's plan was to bring the Army team to a physical and emotional peak between the hours of 2 and 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 8. He did, although two defensive guards and Fullback Gil Stephenson, his star ballcarrier, were nursing injuries. Then the players were on their own, blocking and tackling fiercely, while Blaik watched tensely from the sideline, burning up nervous energy. Between the halves, he wandered calmly among his athletes, making a quiet suggestion here & there.

In the third period Michigan finally discovered a seeming Army weakness--at the guards--and began to roll, scoring one touchdown and threatening another. Then a thin, 155-lb. safety-man, Cadet Tom Brown, played taps for Michigan by intercepting a pass in the end zone in the last six minutes of play. Final score: Army 21, Michigan 7. When Army's team came home to the grey-walled Point, the Cadet corps put on a welcome so thunderous that it almost drowned out an eleven-gun howitzer salute.

*Excluding South Bend, Ind.

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