A Profile of Carm Cozza He Likes It Done Good

Yale Head Coach Carm Cozza has a lot on his mind today.

He has a chance to steer the Elis to its first outright Ivy League title since 1980.

It's a chance for Yale to beat Harvard in a game for the undisputed Ivy title since that game in 1968 when the Crimson pulled off that tie.

It's also a chance for Cozza to atone for that season 1982.

Since then, he's used his own kind of Five-Year Plan to get the Bulldogs to where they are today (Stalin never could get his to work right).

"It's been great," said the 24-year coach of the Elis. "The quarterback's great, the halfback's great, the wing-back's great, the tailback's great, the flanker's great, and the split end's great."

Asked whether his offensive weapons could defeat the rival Crimson in the 104th meeting. Cozza replied, "The left guard's great, the right tackle's great--if we had an H-back he'd be great too."

But Cozza has other things on his mind. The Elis had been practicing on a wet, snowy field in preparation for play on an icy, muddy Yale Bowl field. But the field was dry as a bone yesterday, with 100,000 square feet of new sod on the ground.

"I didn't order the new grass," said Cozza. "And the soil is dry, well, as a bone."

When asked about the fact that a steam shovel was reportedly digging up the Yale Bowl turf, and a large steel object resembling a central heating unit was being lowered into the resulting hole and the field was being sodded by a single unknown figure wearing a Yale hockey jersey and blue sunglasses. Cozza said, "Wow, he's great. He must be a superman. Where is he? I need him for the defensive line."

The new Yale Bowl turf is going to present some problems for the Elis as they prepare for the game of their lives today, especially given the fact that they haven't played on this kind of surface all week.

"I was hoping to hit one of the Harvard guys and stick his cleats in the turf, twist him into an impossible position, and break his legs," said one defensive lineman. "With the dry field, they'll run all over us. We'll have no chance."

Cozza added, "But we'll turn the heat on."