The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-11-19

the one now drawing to a., close, no
game on the Eastern gridiron came
in for more attention than the Penn
sylvanfa-Michigan contest Saturday.
True, Penn is not the best team In
the East, by any means, nor is Mich
igan the best in the West, but Penn
syMania is an excellent example of
the development of an eleven under
adverse conditions. From a Al to
O defeat early in the season by Geor-
gia Tech, Penn has kept everlasting
ly at it until Coach Bob FolWel1 has
turned out a team which has done
remarkably well under conditions
which call for military drill, no train
ing table, no early season practice,
shorter practice hours, and limited
Goa aching.
Z Michigan, of course, had to work
under much the same handicap The
Maize and Blue captain, Smith, is In
the service of Uncle Sam, and no
player was elected to succeed him,
as was the case at Brown when the
captain elect. Mark Farnum, Joined
the 'colors. Both Smith and Farnum
will live in the college records as the
leaders of the 1917 elevensl at Michi-
gan and Brown. Fielding Yost met
with great success with the green
eleven which, he built up, but like
other Western e1epens in the past,
the Michigan team was over-rated. It
was not as good a team as advance
reports made it. <a5
Michigan went onto franklin Field
a decided fayorite over Penn, but
when the elevens clashed it was easily
seen that the Wolverines were not as
good as the Quakers- The loss of
Weston was a heavy one to Michigan,
but it was no harder blow than the
loss Of Straus to Penn. The fight on
the field between these two players
was the most fragrant outburst Of its
kind that has been seen in an import
ant game in long time Umpire
Dave Fu1tz's prompt measure Of dis
CLINE in disqualifying the players put
quick stop to the smuggling.
The two first downs which Michi-
gan made in the game came in the
first period, when Weston was the
leading spirit Of the rushing How
ever, four successive first downs by
Penn came in that same period with
Stratus leading the attack
Michigan Lacked Versatility.
Michigan has nothing in the way of
open game tactics 1t relied on old
smashing plays to gain, which
| did not work out against a fighting
line such as Penn had. The Wolver-
ines attack was always apparent,
never tricky or never c1everly exc
cuted. They could not use the for
ward pass at all The shift plays
and fake formations of Penn were
simple enough tactics but Michigan
failed to diagnose them.
There was some good football and
| much bad football in the Michigan
Penn clash. In fact, it has been
much that way in all the games this
season. None of the e1evens have the
finish Of the best teams of past sea-
sons. They lack that polish which
comes from constant expert coach
ing. Under the war conditions, the
best teams are probably better than
was expected but they are far from
being high-class gridiron machines
| 1t was the spirit and the aggres-
siveness of Penn rather than supe-
rior football knowledge which carried
it to victory. It happened to be one
OF the tenperamenta1 Howard Berry s
good days. The conditions under
which he kicked two of his three field
goals were very favorable and the
other kick was a beauty from a diff
cult angle. But Penn's scoring pro-
cesses this season have been neither
consistent nor reliable. The chief as
set of the eleven is its fine defense
The work of Wray at centre, Of May
lnard and Thomas. the tackles, of Mil
Ter and Van GinRel the ends, and of
Light the half back. in stopping the
MICHIGAN backs with deadly tackling.
was defensive football OF high order.
1 Dartmouth's downfall in the game
4 with Tufts was "a great surprise, be
cause. after the stiff fight that the
Hanover BOYS gave Penn. it looked as
If the Green would have no trouble
with Tufts. which a few weeks ago
was beaten So to Q by Syracuse One
Explanation of the Green's tumble is
that the team was all used UP after
the Penn ordeal and had nothing in
reserve. Early in the season the
Brown-Dartmouth struggle, which is
to. be played next Saturday, gave
tests of the season. but much of the
lustreg has been stripped from the
game because both teams have suf-
fered decisive defeats.
Colgate is another team which has
Como stale after a good beginning
Syracuse gave the Hamilton clever
: a. bad dr,fbbin@. and Colgate's cracl
! backfeld. which was ranked as one
of the best last season. has been eff.
fectively sl1ibdued this year.
, Annapolis ended the season by run
ming up the largest score of the yea
Z against vt1anova. The Navy. eleven
under D0bie's coaching. has devel
. oped into an unusually fast and pow
erfu1 team. An effort is being mad,
by the Navy officials to arrange {
1 VI,