New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-11-22
system Triunphs in Football.

system Triumphs in Football.
The one-sided score at the Harvard
Stadium on Saturday represented not so
much Harvard victory over Yale as a
triumph of the newer football over the
older football. At Princeton two weeks
before a team playing the new game skill
fully defeated a team playing the new
game somewhat less skilfully. At Cam
bridge an eleven playing the new game
superlatively overwhelmed an eleven whose
only strength lay in an imperfect mastery
of the fundamentals Of the older game. 1t
was an uneven struggle, to which there
could be but one outcome.
The new football has come along very
fast. When Percy Haughton began to re-
construct Harvard's playing system
about seven years ago-he faced the prob
lem of creating a scoring attack. The
rules handicapped the offence and made 1t
an enormous task to carry the ball by the
use of running plays beyond an opponents
15-yard line. Harvard won from Yale in
1908 through a field goal. Yale won in
1909 through two field goals. In 1910 and
1911 scoreless games were played. In
1912 the New Haven team cracked, and
Harvard got her first touchdown against
Yale under the new rules. She didn't get
another until 1914, and until Saturdays
game no touchdown had been scored
against Yale on the home grounds under
the new playing system. Yale has not
scored touchdown against Harvard since
1907
But all the time Haughton had been
building up an offence that would carry
the ball across the goal line in the teeth
of the mastery defence in which the big
Eastern football teams have always been
grounded. Sol Metzger. the Pennsylvania
player and coach, formerly The Tribune's
football expert, declared after the 90 game
with Yale in 1911 that Haughton had prac-
tically worked out his problem. 1t was
true prophecy, as the games of 1912
against Princeton and Yale proved.
The West about this time had devel-
cped the forward pass as an aid to scor
ing and in the East drop-kicking Of goals
from the field was resorted to universally
as an alternative to carrying the ball over.
Nevertheless, Haughton kept on solidifying
and strengthening the running attack. He
got into it the final punch which it had so
long lacked. and now he has carried il so
far that for the last Two seasons Harvard
has been able to defeat both Yale and
Princeton without depending on points
made through goals from the field.
Compare the old scoreless and touch
downless games of six years back with
the quick scoring action of to-day! At
Princeton this year Harvard scored from
mdfeld on three playa line buck, for
ward pass and masked run. At Cam
bridge she scored from her own territory
on a single run and made other touch
downs in short series of running plays
Even the forward pass was hardly needed
&c supplement the deadly concealed run
ming attack.
This new football is the product of keen
intelligence and ripened team play. The
complication and mystifcation of the at
tack give it its power. Football is now
far more than ever a game of skill. 1t
has risen far above the old level of brute
force, of individual strength crudely ap-
Piled There must be brains behind the
playa nice adjustment of means to end.
A good team is highly developed organ
ism which reaches its. fullest efficiency
gradually and comes with a rush at the
last
Strategy, coordination and intense ap-
plication are the things that count in the
new football. Individuals do not make a
team. 1t must have a common spirit and
common guidance. The cogs must fit in
the machine That is the chief lesson. of
the game of Saturday. The better the
system, the better the eleven. Harvard's
victories this year again vindicate the new
/ football. They should have no sting for
defeated rivals, to whom equal discipline
and application will also open the way to
success.