New-York tribune., 1921-11-23
Hugo Bezdek's
Nittany Lions
Still Unbeaten
Coach Warmers Pitt Grew to
Attempt to Redeem Dis
assrous Season Tomorrow
By Ray Mccarthy

.,reshald Of the Eastern football
championship. But blocking the door
% that coveted goal is the man-killing
Panther. and to get by State College
will hsve to do some skillful maneuver-
;ur tomorrow afternoon. There is no
doubt tnst If the Nittany Lion can out
vii his chief rival in this struggle,
which promises 10 be extremely
ferocious. il will have the right to
claim the Eastern title. 1t has gone
through one CT the toughest sched-
sithout having suffered defeat.
But beating the Pittsburgh eleven
vii be the hardest job good old Hugo
Bezdek will face this fall. Nobody
Knows that better than Bezdek himself
Pittsburgh faces situation similar
70 what Harvard faced before the
Yale game In spite of sound coach
;ng system. system that has been
consistent winner for the last FIVE
wears. it stands to wind up its most
disastrous season in years.
A Penn State victory would certain
II be q fearful blow to Pitt. Warner.
with an experienced team containing
several stars. was expecting wonder
fpl season this year. The contrary
has been the case. Therefore you can
wager your old straw hat Warner is
going to leave nothing undone to win
shrf came tomorrow.
State has q great team, to be sure.
But it Is meeting one of the best in
the East tomorrow That statement
goes. despite the fact that Lafayette,
Nebraska, Washington and Jefferson
have all beaten the Panthers. We
don't know exactly what the cause of
these defeats was. Probably Pitts op-
uonents we're superior. Each game was
lost by the narowest OF margins. But
we know that Warner is a good coach,
that he has q fine array Of veterans,
including the nifty little Tommy Davies
and the ubiquitous Herbert Stein, than
whom there Is no better center in the
business.
Regarding the relative strength Of
the two elevens we shall have more
to say later. Just at present all know
ing football men realize that there will
be a battle at Pittsburgh tomorrow
which viii be thriller in every sense
Of the word.
A question we often hear debated
which is applicable 20 baseball as
we'll as TO football, is. "Do the
coach develop the team ard men" You
can site many examples to prove either
side Of this case. There is Glenn
Warner, for instance. admitted by all
70 be one OF the greatest teachers in
the zane, working with experienced
players this year including several
stars and suffering one of the worst
seasons ne has had in years.
There is Hugo Bezdek working with
q practically green eleven and bringing
it through the hardest kind of schedule
90 the final battle undefeated. There
is Buck" O'Nein, also ranked as great.
who is finding that Columbia is one of
the best places in the world for q
is Frank Cavanaugh at Boston College.
Last year he had marvellous machine.
This year il isn't so good by any means.
There is John Heisman at Pennsyi-
vania. Down in Georgia John was
wizard while handling Georgia Tech.
There is Gilmore Dobie at Cornell
last year tizzle, this year wonder.
We leave you to figure it out for
yourself. Our opinion is that good
coaches are few indeed. but that the
best of them need the material. If
you haven't got the players your
system isn't going 10 work out.
However, to our way OF thinking you
can generally tell whether a team is
well coached or not by its smartness
or by the manner in which it takes ad-
vantage of the little things that crop
out in q game, the "breaks" as they are
called.
For instance. in the harvard Yale
game last Saturday O'Hearn made the
mistake of failing to touch down the
ball after a free kick had failed Ma
comber was down the field and nailed
the ball over the line for what would
haye been a Harvard touchdown had
it not been that the ball went out of
bounds. 1t is easy to see that Macom-
Der had been taught more than the
rudiments of this pastime.