The morning journal-courier., 1908-11-28
REVIEW OF SEASON
Army and Navy Game To day Brings Football Season of
 1908 to Close.
NOW FOR FALL L-AMERICANS'
Selections of Members of Team to Oc- cupy Minds of Sport Followers
 Minor Colleges Prominent.

New York, Nov. 27--With the an- nual 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 followers of the sport,
 Perhaps the chief thing demonstrat- ed 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, and Pennsylvania have usually toyed 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 to 9 score this fall; Dartmouth defeated Princeton, while Syracuse and West Point held the men from New Jersey to nothing to nothing ties, and Yale was able to score but one touchdown against both Syracuse and the Army. These are few instances of the strength of the lesser elevens. An other 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 spectator and less harmful to the player. Punting, feld-goal kicking and trick plays have reached a great CT development than ever before, while the forward pass, an innovation which came with the new game, is generally admitted to he one of the prettiest plays in football. Many of the bltterest detractors of the new | football at it's inception two years ago are now among It's most ardent sup | porters. In the minds of the experts | 1t has ceased to be an experiment.
 It can hardly be said that the revis- ed game has reached as high devel- opment In the west as in the east. Michigan, which for years had one of the strongest teams in the country un- der the former rules, has recently suf- fered four successive defeats by. east ern colleges, being decisively whipped by Both Pennsylvania and Syracuse. Her material has been poor and she has been handicapped by rigid faculty restrictions, but this, 1t Is generally thought. can not account altogether for the slump. Chicago held Cornell to a. tie this season. but Cornell was easily defeated by Pennsylvania two weeks 1 later.
 Minnesota took the Indians into camp by a score of il to G. but Carlisle had already been beaten r to by Harvard Then the Indians are noto- riously cratic and are said not to have played up to their standard at Minne- apolis. However, comparative scores are unreliable and many western fol lowers of the sport maintain that the teams in that section are still the equals of those in the east The rank ing of the teams this year, as always. 1 is difficult and largely a matter of per- sonal opinion. There can be little dis pute, however, that the choice of the nations best eleven lies between Penn sylvania and Harvard both of which went through the season undefeated. There is little basis for a comparison between these two. Pennsylvania has veteran team and from the records of the season showed greater knowl- edge of the new game than Harvard, but whether this proficiency would have availed much in contest with
 the Crimson team it is hard to say. Probably most critics will rank as the six leading teams in the east (exclu- sive of the army and navy) Harvard, Pennsylvania, Yale Dartmouth, Brown and Princeton, in the order named Tn the west there is no question Of Chl- cagos leadership. She has won every game played except that against an eastern college, Cornell Next proba- bly, would come Wisconsin and Minne- sota,