The Wilmington morning star., 1940-12-09
AGAIN RANKS
IN NATION
North Carolina Drops To 18th
Place In Grid Percentage
Over Period
BY HUGH S. FULLERTON, JR.

BY HUGH S. FULLERTON, JR.
NEW YORK, Dec. 8.-R-What
any football coach can tell YOU
that consistently good teams are
very rare and there's no account
ing for their inconsistency-is re-
Elected in the gridiron records of
the ''major" colleges owe the past
five years.
Leading the parade at present
is the mighty Tennessee team,
which hasn't lost a regular-season
game in three years, meeting its
only defeat in 80 starts in the
Rose Bowl last January. But it
took the volunteers a long time to
work up to that position and they
may fall back as fast as Holy
Cross did during the past season.
A year ago at this time, the
had the best five-year
record, a winning average of SO.
Now they're down in twelfth place
at .773 as the result of a poor
1910 season. Tennessee reversed
that curse during 1910, moving
up from tenth place at I'll to first
at 81.
During the five-year span which
includes the past season, the Vols
won 43 games, lost only six and
tied three. But the main reason
for the sudden improvement Of
their status comes from the fact
that their 1885 record of four wins
and five losses has been dropped
out and this years ten straight
victories substituted. Similar shifts
at both ends of the line account
for most of the big changes on
the list.
BY a similar process, Santa
Clara moved into second place on
the list with "a victories, five de-
feats and four ties for an .872
average.
Third ranking goes to Fordham,
which "a tied with Villanova for
second place a year ago and thus
earns the prize for consistency.
The Rams, who won their first
p%ost-season bowl" engagement by
turning in seven victories in eight
starts this year, have a five-year
record of 81 games won, five lost
and five tied and a percentage of
1861. That's just four points above
their mark a year ago.
Dukes Blue Devils, despite their
loss of the Southern conference
championship. must be rated
among the most consistent teams.
They hold fourth place for the
second straight year with an .851
average. Next, at 1897, comes Ala
bama, which has been up among
the leaders year after year. New
corners n the 300 class are
Georgetown and Boston college,
which had highly successful 1910
seasons, while North Carolina,
Pittsburgh and Notre Dame have
dropped out of that select group
along with Holy Cross and Vii
lanova.
Tennesse's five-year record is
remarkable any way you look at
it. Not only did the volunteers win
more games than any other major
outfit during that period, but they
scored more points and allowed
fewer. In their So games, the Vols
piled up 1,160 points to 1855 for
their opponents. That figures out
to an average score of 21.55 points
a game for Tennessee and 2.98 for
the opposition.
Dartmouth, the only other team
to pass the 1000 point mark,
scored 1,028 in IS games for an
average of 2O.84. Santa Clara.
Fordham, Duke and Georgetown
all held their opponents to fewer
than 200 points in five seasons, but
all played fewer games than Ten
nessee.
OF some interest is the rankings
OF teams playing in the New Years
Day bowl games. Tennessee
meets Boston college (.814); Ford
nam plays Texas A. n M.
l'1o3); Georgetown (.816)
ters Mississippi State (.688) and
Nebraska C756) faces Stanford.
whose five-year average is only
.55l in spite of this years perfect
record, in the major contests.
F1ve-year records of so leading
major" teams (ties disregarded