Los Angeles herald., 1910-10-13
MAJOR GRIDIRON
TEAMS. COME BACK
Biz Four Gradually Rounding Into
Form, Although Progress
Is but Slow

with the third week of the active
football season gone, the theories of
the minor teams having better chance
than ever before to play on equal terms
with the major elevens appear to have
come to naught. To be sure the season
started with a surprise In the defeat
of pennsylvania, but those things used
to happen when the mass plays and
flying wedges were the big assets in a
team with a more or less restricted
repertoire of plays. Looking over sat
urday's results, however, one might
imagine himself back in the real old
days of football. While the season is
still in it's swaddling clothes, it is quite
safe to predict that there will not be
many more upsets furnished by minor
teams.
Traditions of the gridiron that have
been building for years go a long way
toward maintaining prestige season
after season for the "big four" School
boys who have particular ability in
this autumn sport are more likely to
choose Yale. Harvard, Princeton or
Pennsylvania than other colleges that
have not the same stories to tell of
their wonderful dolngs in days gone
by on the chalk marked field. This is
a reason why it will always be hard
for the little colleges eyer to depose
the "big four" or make any serious in
roads into the prominent place they
hold in football. Events so far have
proved that the game is still one for
big, strong, active men, and the larger
universities that have more Of this
type to draw on appear to be as GER
tain of maintaining their rank in foot
ball as in previous years.
NEW CODE HELPS PLAY
While the new rules have done a lot
TO help the game, observation OF 1t as
played at present does not show the
radical differences that many expected
would make it a sort of hybrid thing.
The absence OF longitudinal lines in the
marking of the field. which made 1t
look like a checker board in the last
years recall old times. The division
into periods does not make so marked
a change either The short fntermls-
sions between the first and second and
third and fourth periods with the men
remaining on the field look for all the
world as it used to when time was
taken out for injury. The game GER
tainly goes along faster now because
of the restrictions placed on the
amount of time to be. taken out in a
game, and that is q welcome feature
for the spectators.
The one thing that seems strange
about the periods is the placing Of the
ball at the beginning of the second and
fourth in the same relative position
as at the end of the first and third.
The three-minute rest, of course, WORKS
the same for offense as the defense,
but If the ball be close to the final
line when play is resumed 1t VIII al
ways seem unfair to the spectator, par
ticularly the one that is roofing for
the defending side.
The general play Saturday did not
reveal much of a startling nature In
the way of innovations, and the race
of football looks just about the same
as of yore. That the teams are sun
in a pretty crude state was made evi-
dent by the great amount Of fumbling.
Clean handling of the ball is one OF
the primary lessons taught the squads,
and it looks as though the lessons had
not been learned particularly Wen.
Yale's backs were very crude In their
Judgment and handling of punts, Har-
ward indulged in an orgy Of Juggling
on occasion, and Princeton and Penn
sylyania were also guilty of infrac-
tions against this essential. 1t Is an
early season fault, however, and Is not
over hard to remedy.