New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1909-10-24

rat Least Noo'ooO Persons Will See the Eight
leading Games. 1t Is Estimated by Experts.

me Football season NOWADAYS is coma
lining entirely new. different in a bundrao
ways from the same thing not moro ,bo,
nVe or six years ago. II really ts Geo.
son. ior one thing, and not simply a climax
OF long period OF practice. and That
essential difference is the expression In a
way OF all the changes that have baan
made sihce 1865. There is no longer, In the
oiu sense OF the word, a big Four" and
the OId days when the big teams could go
through six weeks without seeming the
danger of defeat are gone forever 7,ba+
Is all due TO modern football, to the new
spirit Of the game. which. after three vears
OF trial. is emerging in this, its fourth sea
eoh' INTO one that attracts thousands where
me old smashing, concentrated game drew
hundreds.
a lew years ago the idea of crowded
stands at Cambridge for any Harvard
game, save those with Yale or PennsvI
Nsnla, would have seemed ludicrous E,,+
IN 1858 Harvard alumni couldn't pet ses+s
enough for the contest with Dartmouth
and the same condition prevails this year
New football. Of course. is the EXPLANATION
Inc game is a cleaner, freer. mora onen
one, easier to follow, easier TO understand
more abundant in sensational work that is
sun good football, and naturally such i'm
0---~-aNS Aldk6 IOT greater interest
Is no rash estimate to say that az Last
zloVO0 persons will see the eight leading
games Of the season IN the East. and when
The many other contests that will atfrac.
Dig crowds are considered, It IS easy
enough TO figure that something like "a
million and a half enthusiasts will have
seen one or more college football games
each before the season ends.
certainly this IS q season to Justify bI9
CROWDS. Never have the early games been
so interesting IN themselves and so full
OF promise OF what is 20 come. Cornell
plainly a big team. has been beaten.
princeton and Harvard have escaped de-
Feat by the narrowest OF margins and the
small teams IN general have gone about
the business OF destroying regulations with
bosinesslike alacrity that has startled
& good many people
This Is the year OF the forward PASS
and the onside kick. Born in 1906. these
plays. after & more or less precocious
infancy, seem 20 be full grown al last
and they are going 70 have a big part in
the important games this year. open as
the game is, these plays are made SO |
swiftly and pass so rapidly from initia- |
uon 70 completion that there are prob |
ably thousands who are as unfamiliar |
ago.
The forward pass is distinctly Ameri. |
can innovation. Its prohibition was in |
herited by the American game from Eng |
Iish Rugby. which never contemplated such |
q play as has been evolved here and there /
vas never any good reason for enforcing the |
rule on this side OF the water However |
me rule was changed at a period Of basket /
Dan ascendancy and the long basketball !
TOSS was adapted 10 the uses of the grid
IRON without delay. The simplest form
OF the play is q throw by the quarter
back down the field and 70 one side. with
the end Of the attacking team trying 10
recover the ball II is strategicaIly va
Fied q good deal. however as last Satur-
day, when Captain Coy OF Yale made a
forward pass that resulted in a tourh
Gown against West Point He took the
ball as II 70 kick, ran few yards TO the
right and thsn threw the pigskin thirty
yards down shs Geld 20 his waiting end,