Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-12-22
Ny Is Years ON the Cridiron
BY WILLIAM 4. ROPER,
HEAD COACH PRINCETON UNIVERSITY


I coached at Princeton in 1907 and
1908. We had nothing like the ma
terial those two years that we had
in 1906. Fortunately, my first year
as head coach had taught me some
things that | was not likely to forget.
In looking back over the years i al
ways feel that we got about every
thing out of the material in 1907 that
there was to be had. Our line was
entirely new, but we did have q vet
eran backfield consisting of Eddie Dill
lon, quarterback; Ned Harlan and
Fred" Tibbot. halves, and Jim McCor-
mick, captain and fullback.
Harlan had developed into a great
triple threat. His kicking was very
accurate and he was a sure passer.
Tibbot was the fastest man with the
ball off tackle that I ever have seen.
Mccormick was a great line plunger
and good punter.
1t was apparent from the start Of
the season that we would have to de.
pend upon open play. Fortunately,
this style of game always had jim
Mccormick as a threat through the
line when the defense opened up.
Tigers Always Beat Indians.
That Fall our team Played in two OF
the greatest games of the year-one
was against the Indians. which we
won, IA to O. and the other against
Yale, which we lost, 10 to II.
The Indians never had beaten
Princeton. They had won from Har-
ward and Pennsylvania, and most OF
the Eastern colleges. but somehow or
other we always managed to nose
out against them. Glen Warner, their
coach, was very anxious to give us a
licking, and he felt this was his year.
The week before our game the In
dams gave Pennsylvania q sound
threshing on Franklin Field All the
papers were full of their marvellous
forward passing, which swamped Penn
and was responsible for several touch
downs. The forward pass still was
in it's infancy, so was very much eX-
cited when / read the accounts of the
game.
One of our assistant coaches had
been sent to see the play. He got
back to Princeton Monday morning
with a very accurate and full account
of what had happened. He reported
the Indians had made most If not all
their gains, on forward passing de-
ploying both ends on the same side
of the line, and just before the bah
was snapped back on the other side
would jump in the line and one of
the ends would jump back. This
made both ends eligible for the pass
on the same side. AS no team that
year had used anything but the sim
plest sort of passes against Penn, and
as Warner sprang this play for the
first time, this variation caught the
Penn players off their guard and there
fn Ipn nd
Psychology Is Considered.
| went over the Indians play very
carefully and made up my. mind we
would have to stop the first two or
three passes cold or be in for busy
nfternoon. 1t had been our experience
that the Indians were a bit tempera.
mental. They were either very good
or very poor. If their first few plays
went they played like champions, but
if they were thrown for loss, at the
start they got discouraged.
| worked up defense that I thought
would stop the passes by shifting both
our wing back on the same side as
the Indians ends. | instructed our
tackle to guard the back jumping into
dams threw to the ends the first three
or four times, SO all week we concen-
trated on guarding these ends.
We decided to make every effort to
get the jump on the Indians by pull
ing an unexpected play on them. 1t
was agreed If we won the toss we
would receive the kickoff. Then Dillon
was to give Harlan's signal for a run
ming kick. This was a very difficult
play to stop, 1t started like a wide
end run. Harlan always made a good
fake and usually got off well placed
kick well down the field. I felt if this
play worked and we got the ball down
field our chances of winning were
very good.
The game was to be played on the
Polo Grounds in New York The In