Evening capital and Maryland gazette., 1912-11-15
NAVY TO FACE AGGIES
OF NORTH CAROLINA
Only Two Weeks More Before
Battle With Soldiers.
STILL In BAD SHAPE.
Efforts to Whip Middies Into Winning
Form Have Borne Little

The Navy football team, now on
the home stretch of its sea qon, and
with but two weeks remaining before
the big struggle with the West Point
cadets at Philadelphia, is still in an
unsettled condition, and there is no
lodging the fact that dismay per-
vades the Navy camp.
With team organized, then torn
to pieces and patched up again, the
coaches are confronted with the
same problem that faced them at
the sCart of the season--a squad of
the heaviest and most athletic fell
lows that ever donned Navy MOLE
skins but finding it difficult to whip
a team with form.
Despite the fact that there
was a good nucleus of veterans
from last season, who ordinarily need
ed but little drilling to work them
back into shape, no combination of
players that the coaches have tried,
has measured up to the standard of
former Navy teams.
With an attack that has lacked the
usual aggressiveness, and showing lit
tie proficiency in the modern style of
play, the Middies have nothing to
look back on but a lamentable poor
article of the game, and. in conse-
quence, one of the poorest records
ever made by Navy eleven. this in
Guiding defeats at the hands of Le-
high, Swarthmore and Bucknell, and
all by decisive scores.
At this late stage, the coaches are
sill forced to experiment with the
multitude Of candidates for the sew
eral positions, ia order to draw out
the best that is in then. Hard prac-
tice. with much scrimmaging, has
been the order of things this week,
but as before, there has been a con-
stant shaking up of the team, partic-
ularly in the arrangement of the back
field. The shifts that have been
made include every backfield man,
except Captain Rodes. who, in spite
of his generally poor showing against
Bucknell last Saturday, is being re-
tanned at quarterback. Heavily
built, Rodes is a strong defensive
player, but as a football general, or
being able to render substantial aid
to his teammates in offensive tactics,
Rodes far from measures up to the
requirements of the position, in the
opinion of many who have watched
the development of Navy football
teams for years.
Just what is responsible for con-
ditions existing il the squad no one
GEMS to be able to conceive. 1t is
safe to assert that none of the men of
last years squad, is playing up to
his old-time form. Is has been per-
sistently reported that the waole
trouble is the result of personal dis
gruntledness amolg several members
of the squad. Certain it is they are
not working together in the manner
that they should, nor has there been
any smoothness of play in any of the
games this season.
Tomorrow the Middies will 90 up
against team that, in a measure, is
an unknown quantity. The opposing
force will be the North Carolina Ag-
ricultural and Mechanical College, of
which little has been heard this year.
The Aggies were here for the first
time last season, and they gave the
Middies good game. They showed
a variety of open plays that proved
ground gamers, for they could do
nothing in rushing the heavy Navy
forwards.
Win or lose tomorrow one thing is
certain and that is that the coaches
will be able TO form some definite
idea as to the final makeup of the
team.