The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-11-09
YOST PROUD Of
HOLDING MINNESOTA
Declares Gophers Played the
Best Game He Has Seen
In the West.

ANN ARBOR, Mich, Nov. S.-Mlch-
igan expects to win the Wisconsin and
Chicago games. The battle with Min
nesota has given the team confidence,
which was wholly lacking before this
wear. Yost says of the Gopher con-
test: Il am prouder of holding Min
nesota to a tie than of any coaching
| ever did on a Western gridiron. Min
nesota played the best game of foot
ball have seen west of the Alleghen-
les. l have a letter from a Michigan
alumnus in Minneapolis, which states:
You had pitted against you every ex-
Yale football star of the Northwest,
who. for weeks before the game, trav-
eIed to every point of the compass to
learn something about football that
would help to defeat Michigan.
Yost freely admits that this work
produced the best team he has ever
opposed, and that two weeks before
the game Minnesota could have beaten
his team over 20 to 0.
In defense Minnesota was stronger
than had expected Yost said. II
was a SO per cent stronger team IMAM
Minnesota had last year."
Yost began this week to make shifts
in the line, and, also, whole afternoons,
Immediately after the Minnesota game,
We're devoted to punting and drop
kicking under the instruction of John
Duffy "A drop kick!" Yost says. Why
they say that Chicago didn't earn the
credit of the victory over Wisconsin.
But if drop kicks look SO easy, why
aren't there more drop kfckers.
Michigan's drop kicking school has
not been satisfactory. Twelve kicks
minute. made from the twenty and
thirty-yard lines two hours daily, re-
suited in only one safe goal minute.
Yost is ready TO take his medicine it
EckersalI can defeat the Wolverines,
but he is preparing to eheckmate Eek
ersall in more ways than by return
drop kicks. While one out of fifteen
drop kicks have succeeded, fifteen place
kicks have been made to one failure.
Another rival to Ecllersall promises
to be his old teammate, Mary Wolf,
who could not punt thirty yards last
year. In all respect to Sweeley, Michi-
gan trainers admit that in practice
this week Wolf has out-punted the
great star. Standing on the side lines,
he sends the ball across the entire
gridiron, the outside field space, over
fence and running track, and into the
bIeachers. VOLTS presence on the team
is only a question of arranging school
work If he succeeds he will be the
third member of last years Hyde Park
team to make a big eleven this year,
Eckersall and Hammond being the
other two.
Back to Rudiments.
Yost has put his men back at learning
some rudiments of football which he had
no time to teach before the Minnesota
game. The men chase a dozen punts
which fill the air all the time, and every
ball has to be played safe" Though
the ball rolls half the length of the field,
it is not touched until both arms can be
clapped about it. Norcross can spend
the entire two hours of punting practice
without missing or juggling a single ball.
1t was failure to play safe against Min
nesota, Yost says, which put the ball in
Michigan's territory during the entire first
half and finally gave Minnesota a sure
chance to score.
During the week Yost has devised new
practice which the rooters never saw be-
fore. He gets his regulars to running in
a circle at top speed. A few seconds
apart, they crash into dummy" which
is suspended by it's heck like hanged
man. The suspending rope being long,
the dummy sways violently, so that a
man must calculate its position while he
plunges at it, and perhaps must leap
high in the air to butt it.
Yost calls the drill blocking practice.
He treats the swinging dummy as dodg-
ing football player attempting to tackle
a Michigan man, and he orders every
player as he nears the dummy to block
one side or the other. To think quickly
which shoulder will knock the Whirling
effigy in the necessary direction is fully
as good practice as smashing against live
opponents. Yost has made but one rule
about blocking. that his men must never
use the hand, nor let even the forearm
touch the dummy. He aims at clean play.
Schacht is the most tal5ed-of Minneso-
ia player in Ann Arbor Michigan men
wonder what chance he has of making the
all-Western team as tackle. Schacht,
they assert, came into the Wolverine line
standing perfectly erect, with his team
mates behind showing his burly form.
Usually he could get no farther than
Miehigans scrimmage line, where he fell
over forward for a gain. Michigan play
ers never saw this kind of football before
but they admit that it was usually good
for a snug gain. Schacht, they say. is
the best man for keeping his feet they
ever met.