FUNDAMENTAL FOOTBALL BACK OF CRIMSON'S SUPERIORITY.

The following article by Lawrence Perry in the New York Evening Post is of interest as showing the opinion of an expert of the University's football prospects for this year:

"One of the frequent questions concerning the football situation these days relates to Harvard. Will the Crimson have a strong team? The loss of star players, the delay of Haughton in appearing at the Stadium--these among other considerations are influences which bring speculation of the sort uppermost in the mind of the lover of the autumn game. There is but one answer: of course Harvard will have a strong eleven. It's a moral certainty. And the reason may be given in two words, "fundamental football." No team well versed in the rudiments of play can fail to be a formidable outfit. It would be better with strategic finesse, with a complement of supermen, with an assortment of intricate plays well learned as additions to the basic structure; none the less the team that can tackle, block, work together as a machine, and hold the ball will make trouble for the best of them. So with Harvard; the best thing the Cambridge system does is to implant fundamentals; it is what Rush is trying to do with Princeton and Jones with Yale. You will see today at the Stadium, beyond a doubt, a band of coaches who are not thinking much at the present time about November, and what this man or that man may or may not do; they are teaching basic football along standard lines, plodding slowly, deliberately, working with infinite capacity for detail. It's a slow-grinding mill sometimes. The results may be dilatory and alarming; the preliminary games may often cause nightmare; even late October may afford food for foreboding; but in the end the system will have its way and a squad of men clad in crimson jerseys--among other garb--will appear upon the sore November turf, with at least one asset: they will be football players."

Offence Gaining Steadily

The same writer, commenting on the general tendencies of the game, says:

"There is little doubt that the relation of offence to defence in football this season will receive serious consideration by those who follow the game closely. There can be no denial that in the past few years the game from the standpoint of offence has developed, while the defence has stood still, if indeed it has not deteriorated. It is a delicate matter, this balanacing of power of attack and strength of resistance. Some will hold that the ideal relation has never been attained. There have been epochs which have seen a practically impregnable defence, due to stringent regulater, this balancing of power of attack while on the other hand there have been periods when scoring seemed too easy of accomplishment. The present situation has its origin in the changes which were made in the rules in the winter of 1905; there have been various recommendations since then, but in large bulk the offensive processes that we see today date, generally at least, from that time. If one studies the scores of last year, he is struck by at least one extraordinary feature: the unwonted total of points which were gained by opponents of the strongest and most proficient elevens. There are the 50 points scored against Cornell, 36 against Harvard, 36 against Princeton, and 33 against Rutgers, perhaps the best defensive team in the East. Considering these scores and bearing in mind the 98 points turned in against Yale, and one may well wonder what the defensive side of the game is coming--or has come--to.

"Most of us will agree that this weakness is due to the forward pass which, as it has been perfected, has played ever-increasing havoc with defensive line play. How, for instance, are forwards to charge promptly when there is the threat of a forward pass in the air? The tendency, and the proper tendency, is to straighten up and get the nature, as well as the direction of the play, and this certainly militates against a proper defensive line charge. Then, too, the unbalanced formations and other practices designed to unsettle opposing linesmen play their part. All this is not to say that at present the balance between the offence and defence is not just; many will agree that the relation as at present maintained makes for more interesting football, and at the same time is an asset to the smaller college team, the so-called minor eleven. It is all a debatable matter, of course, but whatever the present status may be, a further advance of the attacak, with the defence stationary or retrogressive, would undoubtedly be harmful to the best interests of the sport."