Crimson's Dockery-Poe Defensive Duo Ready for Anything Against Princeton

November is the prime month for football rationalizations and second-guessing, but Dave Poe and John Dockery, the Crimson's veteran safeties, eschew that sort of thing.

"Maybe we were snake-bitten at Penn," Poe said yesterday, "just full of poison, with the calls against us, but the rest of the season has just been an unexplainable series of almost-scores, incomplete passes, and just-misses. And that can happen to any team."

Poe and Dockery, who saw action on the offense and defense before Yovicsin adopted the platoon system this season, have been boosted for offensive duties against Princeton Saturday. With Leo sidelined, the experts figure one of the two safeties will fill in. Yovvy isn't talking. The protagonists aren't quite so discreet.

The mainstays of a defense that has yielded only 40 points in six games. Poe and Dockery stopped by the CRIMSON to talk yesterday. When they were asked how the team would fare without Leo, they exchanged grins, swaggered as they sat, and said. "We'll make out. Everybody would like a chance to run the ball."

But they didn't want to talk much about Saturday. "We'll need three touchdowns to look like anything against Princeton." Dockery said "You don't talk about holding them down. How do you stop Charlie Gogolak, who hasn't had a field goal attempt blocked all season?" He sighed.

The Princeton defense is spotty, Dockery pointed out. Cornell, which couldn't penetrate the Crimson's 20-yard line three weeks ago, cranked out 27 points against the Tigers. John McCluskey, whose ball-handling was surer at Penn, may be able to connect with the still untried men rotating at end.

Poe and Dockery agreed that the Quakers' much-disputed field goal last week should never have happened. It would have been a different game, they claimed, if a 15-yard penalty had been imposed on Penn after Denny Lynch booted a loose ball 30 yards. "Even the films show that was an illegal kick," Dockery said. "But the referee didn't see it, though he called holding on us. Probably the penalties would have offset each other and we would have retained possession of the ball with a fourth down situation. What a chance for a field goal..."

If they wouldn't rationalize, they did not hesitate to gripe a little. "We've got good men and good coaches," Dockery said. "So does the rest of the League, out Dartmouth, Princeton, and Penn recruit actively. Harvard doesn't tap high school ball players; they first have to show some interest in coming here for other reasons."

Poe interrupted. "Yeah. Do you think any Harvard recruiter ever heard anything about Mason City. Iowa, my home town, except that Meredith Willson's from there?"

"Who's Meredith Willson?" asked Dockery, the boy from Brooklyn Tech.