THE FOOTBALL OUTLOOK IN THEeiaee 
BY W. N. MORICE 
HE football season up to the latter part of 
October in previous seasons has been of 
importance merely as a means of 
securing a line on the big teams for their 
November games, but this has not been the 
case with the present season. The reason for 
this lies in the new rules, the effect of which has 
not yet been determined. As every one knows, 
there was quite an agitation against football] 
after the season of 1905 and for a time the 
future status of the game was in a very precari- 
ous condition. It must be admitted that the 
agitation against the game was largely a news- 
paper creation, and that very few persons who 
had played the game or who were thoroughly 
posted in the matter were against it. The 
trouble lay, not with the game itself, but with 
the manner in which the rules were enforced by 
the officials. This, on the face of it, is hard on 
that class, but upon going ‘‘behind the scenes,”’ 
so to speak, it would have been seen that the 
fault was not entirely with the officials, but 
with the attitude which coaches and captains 
and partisan crowds of spectators took toward 
an official who dared enforce the rules strictly. 
The rule book said such and such things were 
allowable and others not allowable, and pro- 
vided penalties for the latter, but when there 
was no body of men to back up the rule book, 
and an official with nerve enough to enforce the 
rules, it could hardly be expected that many 
officials would be any more strict than would 
insure their securing further games. 
There was also each year a greater tendency 
toward injury, largely due to the above-men- 
tioned laxity of officials. This led to the outcry 
against the game, and as the papers all over 
the country took it up and continued it long 
after the season ended, it was only natural that 
some radical changes in the game should be 
made. The history of how and by whom these 
changes were made is now a thing of the past, 
and the public is interested now only in how 
the new rules are going to work out and the 
effect of the changes. It is too early as yet to 
give any sound judgment on the latter point. 
One thing seems to be certain, however—the 
element of danger has been in no wise elim- 
inated. The rules forbidding hurdling the 
line and in the open field, the much more strict 
instructions in regard to piling on after the 
referee blows his whistle declaring a down, the 
decided emphasis of the fact that officials are 
expected to eliminate all unnecessary roughness 
and, best of all, the greater penalties therefor 
will, of course, be pointed to as refuting the 
above statement, but it is a very serious 
question as to whether or not the new on-side 
kick rule, whereby it becomes anybody’s ball 
as soon as a kicked ball strikes the ground, 
does not entirely counterbalance the other 
points mentioned and adds an element of 
danger greater than ever before. In any event, 
it seems to be an acknowledged fact that open 
play is more conducive to injury than even the 
old mass and close formation plays. It is not 
the intention of the writer, however, to put 
forward the injury question as an argument 
against the game. There will always be men 
hurt as long as football is played and occasion- 
ally the injuries will be fatal. Football is a 
game for men in good physical condition only, 
and facts prove that the number -of men 
injured whose .physical condition is properly 
looked after is very small indeed, in propor- 
tion to the great numbers of men and boys 
playing the game all over the country. Almost 
all of the serious injuries are sustained by 
players who have no right to be playing such 
a strenuous game as football—who, at the 
most, get out one or two times a week, some- 
times only on the days of the games. Is it any 
wonder that such players are injured? 
As to the specific changes in the rules them- 
selves, there is not nearly room enough in this 
article to go into details as regards the minor 
changes. The principal changes are as follows: 
1. The 10-yard gain required in three downs. 
2. The forward pass. 
3. The (supposed) restriction on linemen 
running with the ball from a position back of 
the line. . 
4. The on-side kick rule. 
All of these changes were made with the idea 
of opening up the game and doing away with 
the old compact mass plays, used so persistently 
to hammer out one or two yards at a time, 
with an occasional runner breaking clear 
through the line of scrimmage for a good gain. 
Numbers 1 and 2 of the above were aimed 
directly at the offense and at first glance seemed 
to be body blows landed with terrific force. 
The outcry immediately went up that even 
with the heavy linemen dropped back to run 
