Omaha daily bee., 1902-10-12
FROM THE CRIDIRON
Everybody Winning Games, but Real Test
Gets Nearer Every Day,
BIG GAMES WORRY THE COACHES MUCH
Nebrnsra suHers severely as the RE-
suit of the Colorado Match. and
Booth Has Two Biz
Holes 90 FIJI.

suit of the Colorado watch. ana
Booth Has Two BiE
Holes to Fiji.
Everybody is still winning at foot ball. OF
course. That is, all the big teams. Though
some Of them are being scored on, to date
the important eleYens in the different parts
n the eountry are an undefeated. That is
TO be expected, for with the season just
entering upon its third zeal week OF play
the leading varsity squads are still in the
midst Of the usual preliminary schedule OF
matches with Inferior opponents. the &C
knowIedged training school for the big con-
tests to come, and at the same time the
basis for much unreasonable dope as to
the final standing Of the teams.
But this condition OF preamble cannot
last much longer. Every week brings the
impending but long delayed collision OF the
real giants nearer at hand. and as a general
rule the big smash will come about NO
vember1. That date will be the first OF
a series OF four Saturdays and a Thanks
giving day which will write the real foot
ball history Of the year. For those crucial
twenty.seven days are the elevens training,
and 10 that period Of the gridiron schedule
are the eyes Of the rooters turning, and
their expectations yearning.
e.. 49,
In the Big Four all the teams are now
rolling into condition and form and the
different units are beginning TO acquire that
knowledge of their duties termed head,
which feature alone will count as much
as anything else in determining who shall
be the choices for the first team places
as regulars. BY next week. or the one
following at the latest, It will be possible
- IL A.. -.-r4 va1ra1nnaIa for all
the Big Four ~elevens, but as yet there is
stiIl much speculation as to many positions
on the different teams. Princeton and Yale
and pennsylvahia, however. seem all far
Their toward a picking" now than their
rival, Harvard, as each Of the three has been
playing only a regular eleven and the nee
essary substitutes recently, while the Grim
son continues to run through a roll Of
from twenty-five to thirty men for each
game.
From the preliminary play in the Big
Four district thus far Coach Williams OF.
the Quakers draws the. deduction that the
smaller schools are steadily rising in foot
bali prowess. How he, can evolve this
conclusion from a comparison of Big -Four
figures, Of this year with those of last is
dihRcult-to understand. Take Pennsylvania,
Yale, Harvard and Princeton, for instanee,
In theirJgames of Saturday, octoher'4. The
Quakers beat State. II to 0; last year
their victory was. by a score Of % to 8,
manifestly a much stronger shqwing by
state, since It scored. This ,sRBson Yale
Raati Amherst 90 to 0, last yesp, only 6 to o.;
the deduction is plain. Again. Harvard
has Just defeated Bates 20 to o, while in
1901 the score was: Harvard. 16; Bates, g..
Thus the weak team scored on Harvard
a year ago. while this year it was away
outscored and was w~hitewashed. Only the
Tigers OF them all has failed to better its
showing, and in the game against Lehigh
the score was so big 20 to o, that It can
not be said to fail much below that Of
'O1, s5 TO o. so~h Coach. Williams is to
figure that the. insignificant school teams
are growing steadily better he must base
the opinion on a proposition that the Big
Four teams are about so per cent improved
this year Themselves,
The hFst faint chance for the critics to
draw any comparison between the big
teams, however, has come during the last
week, and It is by all odds the most inter
esting feature OF the gridiron developments
THIS resulted from the game between Har-
vafd and Amherst OF last Wednesday. In
which the Crimson won by only 6 to 0 from
n lteam lndA rare ueltdbtu IL atuiuos
previous by 20 to 0.
Il Is very easy TO announce that com
pafative scores count for nothing. but when
the parallels are so sharply drawn as in
thb instance you cannot prevent the rooters
from drawing a rather pointed inference.
The whole meaning of these two games is
that Just now Yale has a much better team
in weight, training and development than
Harvard. That promises nothing for one
month from now, however. and Yale's great
excess Of weight over Harvard would natur-
alty make. the Blues stronger when both
teams are still raw. However, the action OF
the Yale men was decidedly superior to
that Of the Crimson representatives in this
game.
Though each team found Amherst a hard
proposition, Harvard was really outpIsyed
a good portion Of the time. while the Blues
scsred twice In zach half. The .Crlmsons
could not score at all till the middle OF
tho second half, when the sole touchdown
wss made The Amherst eleven is light,
and for that reason had a better chance
against the Harvard team than against the
SOLID ton Of men who constitute the Blues
eleven. 1T is interesting to know as col
lateral that Charlie Gould. Yale's captain
Of3last year. Is coaching Amherst, and II is
a elneh that he urged his team TO every
effort against. the Crimson defenders on
Cambridge ,held. The pluck of the smaller
college men against odds. in weight was
said to be marvellous.
a. -t ''
In the midwest Conference College cir
elss are chiefly interested in the fact that
both Of the teams picked to be the leaders
for the season, Wisconsin and Michigan.
have been scored against already and beth
by teams which last season not only failed
20 erase the cipher, but we're beaten by
much larger scores. In the case OF the
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