Daily Kennebec journal., 1908-11-28
The East Seems
T0Lead theWest,

game between the Army and Navy at
Philadelphia tomorrow, the football
season of 1908 will be brought to
close, leaving the ranking of the teams
and the selection of the various all
American" elevens to occupy the fo.-
lowers of the sport
Perhaps the chief thing demonstrated
by this years contests was that the
so-called minor colleges are no longer
to be despised Heretofore the big
teams, such as Yale, Harvard. Prince
ION and Pennsylvania have usually
tnyed with their smaller opponents,
running UP points almost at Will Now
all this is changed. The Navy tied
Harvard and Brown held the Crimson
to a six-to-two score this fall; Dart
mouth defeated Princeton, while Syra-
,use and West Poin: held the men from
New Jersey to a nothing to nothing
tie and Yale was able to score but one
touchdown against beth Syracuse and
the Army. These are a few instances
of the strength of the lesser elevens.
Another fact brought out is that the
"new" football has come to stay AS
now played the game is far more open
and hence more interesting to the spec
tators and less harmful to the players.
Punting, field goal kicking and trick
plays have reached a greater develop
ment than ever before, while the for
ward pass, an innovation which came
with the new game, is generally admit
ted to be one of the prettieSt plays in
football. Many of the bitterest detrac-
tors of the new football at it's inception
two years ago are now among its most
ardent supporters. In the minds of the
EXPERTS. it has ceased to be an expert
ment
it can hardly be said that the re-
vised game has reached as high a de-
velopment in the West as in the East.
Michigan, which for years had one of
the strongest teams in the country
under the former rules has recently
suffered four successive defeats by
Eastern colleges, being decisively
whipped by both Pennsylvania and
Syracuse Her material has been poor
and she has been handicapped by rig
id faculty restrictions, but this, it is
generally thought. cannot account al
together for the slump. Chicago held
Cornell to q tie this season, but Cor
nell was easily defeated by Pennsylva-
MIA two weeks later. Minnesota took
the Indians into camp by score of II
to 6, but Carlisle had already been
beaten II to 0 by Harvard. Then the
Indians are notoriously erratic and are
said not to have played up to their
standard at Minneapolis. However,
comparative scores are unreliable and
many Western followers of the sport
maintain that the teams in that section
are still the equals of those in the East.
The ranking of the teams this year
as always is difficult and largely mat
ter of personal opinion. There can be
little dispute, however, that the choice
of the nations best eleven lies between
Pennsylvania and Harvard, both Of
which went through the season unde-
feated.
There is little basis for a comparison
between these two. Pennsylvania has a
veteran team and from the records of
the season showed greater knowledge
of the new, game than Harvard, but
whether this proficiency would have
availed much in a contest with the
Crimson team it is hard to say. Prob
ably most critics will rank as the six
leading teams in the East exclusive of
the Army and Navy, Harvard, Penn
sylvania. Yale, Dartmouth. Brown and
Princeton in the order named.
In the West there is no question of
Cnicago's leadership She has won ev-
cry game played except that against
an Eastern college, Cornell. Next prob
ably would come Wisconsin and Mime
sofa.