New Britain herald., 1922-12-02
LA ROCHE COMPARES
 FOOTBALL SYSTEMS
Yale Freshman Coach Discusses Yale-HarVard GridirOn Methods

Ihester La Roche, freshman coach at fale and one Of several former Eli SUITS who recently have been men .ioneo as possible succtssors to Tad Jones when the latter resigns h,s post draws the following interestine comparison between tho Harvard and .ae sy'tems' in a statement in the Yale Daily News: " 'S
 why has not Yale the same ner- fection? First of all, because hos prayers nave been learning many djf- ,sreht plays the last three wear, Many learned and all the othars started learning the same plays tbev used In Saturdays game four voc re ago The Yale team learned most of lne plays used Saturday three or four weeks ago.
 hecause as yet We have not found a winning system of play or a deN- nite method Of attack we have not nad the tune to spend on the perfec- tion Of play, on the strategic acting ana attitude of personal detail that go toward making each play and a system or play successful. And to do so IS no easy task. But Harvard has done it, and has done it out Of poorer material, on the whole, than we have had at Yale.
 Why Princeton Won.
 Tn three years on the university team our players have learned about four different sets of plays. This is the natural result of not winning. but tne plays themselves arc not the main factor. Princeton this year. without anything that even resembled an at tack. was able to win. But they set tled on their attack early in the sea- son, stuck to it, and spent the time perfecting the many other details of the game. It is the combination of everything that wins games. We have built up our line attack so that It gains ground and our passing game has been improved but we lose be- cause some of the other factors have not yet reached that high develop inent found in other teams.
 The Harvard Style.
 Harvard, with her plays, her method of procedure even, settled almost definitely at the first of the year, quickly selects those men, not who are playing the best then. but who with coaching will play the best by the end of the season. This is something we did years ago and per haps have forgotten. At once they start to develop capable substitutes for the first string men. Also the first string men are not used in try ing out new plays It is generally in this form of experiment that men are hurt, for untried plays jam up and allow line men to fall on and tackle backfield men from behind when the backs are not expecting tackle and do not prepare their bodies to receive blow.
 "The team selected, each man is taught his relation to and dependence on the next man to him and those who are backing him up. Team play is stressed and much of the team is spent developing the team as whole instead of the units of that team. Not much has to be done on the uni versity team about teaching a man plays. He has learned most Of them as freshman.
 Then comes, among the many other things strategic consciousness. That word strategy is much abused in many places. but in Harvard it really means something and stands for something tangible. It means that Harvard men are taught to size up and analyze situation as it de- velops on the field and to meet the situation. Yale players always know after game what they should have done; the Harvard players know on the field.
 And to reach this point minds must be left free of the detail of the mechanics of plays. The duties of a man at Harvard on a play are second nature. So often are plays gone through, so often are correct actions insisted upon, and in so many diff ferent ways, that the mind drives the bodies of the Harvard players auto matically.
 "The subconscious mind directs the body, the conscious mind is left free to study the development Of play This may sound far away from foot hall but it is 2 very real factor al