The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-29
WEEKS FOOTBALL SCHEDULE
 WILL GIVE FIRST INDICATION
 OF SQUADS RELATIVE FORCE
Four Interesting Southern Struggles scheduled-In East Big Four Takes On Teams of Admitted strength-Effect of New Rules Will Be Made Known-Real Sea-
 son is Now Well Under Way
By c. ". GREER

ulate their offensive and defensive systems
 and to perfect their early plays. The rel alive strength of these systems must be
 tested under fire before they are used | against their stronger opponents, and this
 the games Saturday will do.
 And so it is seen that these games
 will mark the first real test of strength of the American gridiron squads Of | course, room must be given for their de- velopment, but this development is com ing to every team in pretty much the | same proportion. Their work next Sat urday will be in many cases crude, but it will represent in the rough the latent possibilities that the respective squads
 will show in the big games which are now | only sort time off.
 The Southern Games | In the south the chief contests of in- terest which will be played next Saturday are the Alabama owenton, the Auburn Mercer, the anderbilt-Maryvile, the Georgia-Chattanoog and the Georgia | Tech-Citadel games
 Birmingham college will travel to Tus- l caloosa, where they will meet the Grim | son Warriors of Hubby" Graves With one preliminary game stored away, and with a months practice behind it, the Crimson machine should show some of | it's real class in this contest. The local | college will take well coached and de- | termined bunch of footballsts to meet the State university squad, but that l Graves huskies will win is generally con | ceded.
 | There is little doubt but that a rough estimate of Alabama's strength can be l had from this contest, as her efforts then will be to get into operation the defensive and offensive tactics which will be used l in the early games with $. l. A. A. op- f ponents.
 | In the Mercer Baptsts, Auburn proba- ply meets Il stronger team than any of her southern association contemporaries. It will be remembered that Mercer played the University of Georgia a 5 to 3 game during the middle part of last season, and while she is not as strong this year as last, her team will be above the aver , age prep school lineup, and the Auburn lads may have to extend themselves a bit to make a creditable showing. Whether Georgia Tech is to have a backfield that will cope successfully with others of the south can be told to some degree by its work in Saturdays game with Citadel. Techs backfield is said to be her weakness this season, and after one preliminary practice and months preparation. her showing against Citadel will indicate to some degree the probable extent to which it's team can be devel- oped.
 NdnuerD1it meets the last MaryVllle bunch, and will probably find more trouble in piling up a score than she has had in former years. Vanderbilt is weak in her line this year-how weak, is yet to be learned-but this will handicap her backfield in the early games. Her line will in all probability be comparatively heavy, but 1t is inexperienced, and until Stone and McGugan can instil some az gressiveness into 1t that will take the place of experience, her backfeld will show the lack of such assistance in their scoring.
 The University of Georgia squad should have comparatively easy time with its Chattanooga opponents. Georgia has number of experienced men both In the backfield and line which gives her an evenly balanced team, and she should not have much trouble running up score on the Tennesseeans, unless they are put ting out an exceptionally fast aggrega- tion this season.
 Eastern Games Good
 In the north it will be seen that the aggregations of the larger colleges are