The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1915-10-30
NEARLY ALL THE
ELEVENS HAVE
BEEN SCORED ON
And Big Varsity Football Teams Have
Several Times Succumbed To the
representatives Of Smaller
Colleges.

New York, Oct. Bottle present foot
ball season offers remarkable example
OF the all-round improvement made by
the average college eleven IN playing
strength and gridiron strategy. A decade
ago it was an extraordinary event when
the minor varsity team scored upon its
big university rival. To-day The eleven
which can show clean slate at the sea-
sons halfway mark is rarity. The
radical changes made in the rules dur
ing the past few years is responsible, to
some extent, for this increase in scoring
power, but the fact remains that the
smaller college combination is no longer
unfamiliar with the full possibilities OF
football.
In list Of more than one hundred in
stitutes less than dozen have gone
through the season to date without be-
ing scored upon and when this number
is restricted to those colleges which year
in and year out make high class and
consistent football showing, the number
can be counted upon the fingers OF one
hand. In the East and Middle West all
but three have met opponents capable OF
crossing their goal line or goal bar. The
select trio with clean states is composed
Of Vanderbilt, Colgate and Washington
and Lee. Wisconsin and Syracuse have
escaped with but one field goal registered
against them, but the Others are far
from being SO fortunate.
Among the elevens which have tasted
the bitterness of defeat are Yale, Har-
ward. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Dartmouth,
Virginia, Army, Navy, Brown, Syracuse
and Rutgers. A peculiar angle OF the
situation is that the group OF undefeated
teams includes many representing col
leges which were seldom heard from in
the football of few years ago. Among
these same teams will be found the con-
auerors of the big varsity elevens which
until recently ran rough.shod over the
little fellows in the so-called practice
games, preliminary to the championship
contests.
A careful study of the records OF ten
years ago win show that at this period
OF the season the leading university
teams OF the East and Middle West were,
as a rule, unsecured upon and had run
up totals that ranged all the way from
one hundred to two hundred points. At
the mid season mark of 1905 Pennsyl-
yania and Cornell were the only big elev-
ems which had been scored upon. Five
years later the progress of the minor
college team was shown by occasional
scoring against their big rivals, with a
rare defeat as promise of greater re-
yersals TO come.
While the gridiron leaders are still to
be found among those colleges which have
been making football history for many
years, their margin of superiority Is be-
ing cut down each season. The top point
scores are no longer restricted TO few
big eastern and western universities as
was the case five or ten years ago. Van
derbiIt leads to-day with Wisconsin and
Colgate close at the heels of the south
erners, while Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
Army. Navy, Chicago and
other institutions with long and famous
gridiron history are under or just over
the hundred point mark.
The following tabulation shows the
number of games played, won and lost
up to Saturday, Oct. %, together with
the points scored by and against the more
successful elevens of the season TO date: