Pie Pon BAL SEASON. IN’ .THE EAST 
Pennsylvania has found this out to her 
sorrow. Whether the rule is a good one 
or not is still an open question, at least 
in the writer’s mind. There are always 
some kicks which cannot possibly be 
handled on the fly, and by reason of the 
shape of the ball these kicks are likely to 
take an ugly bound when they strike, thus 
introducing a very decided element of luck, 
and it may very well be that some games 
will be decided on just this point and allow 
the really weaker team to win. 
_ Last and most important of all, prob- 
ably, ‘comes the forward pass. Some 
teams have made very much more of -this 
than others. It has, of course, been 
worked out in very many different ways 
by different coaches, but the important 
point is that it has been proven not only 
a play possible to work successfully when 
a team is “in a hole,” but also it can be 
used as a system of offense, combined, of 
course, with a judicious selection of other 
plays. At the beginning of the season it 
was thought by many that, on account of 
the many restrictions with which the for- 
ward pass was hedged around, it would 
be found practically worthless as a play. 
Quite the contrary has been the case. It 
- has already shown many possibilities and 
it is the only thing that has saved the game 
from deteriorating into merely a kicking 
game. Without the forward pass it would 
be absolutely impossible to score on a 
team anywhere near equal in strength ex- 
cept on a fumble or a brilliant individual 
effort. The “10 yards to gain” would have 
been an insurmountable obstacle. 
At the present time Princeton seems to 
stand out head and shoulders above the 
rest of the Eastern teams. The Tigers have 
a very powerful line from tackle to tackle, 
and at least one of the ends, Wister, seems 
to be fully able to take care of himself in 
fast company. In the backfield the team is 
also very strong and with the recent deci- 
sion of Rulon Miller to play again, it 
is particularly well off in every back- 
field position and department, so much so, 
in fact, that Miller may eventually be 
played at end, where his great speed 
should make a star of him. While it is 
early to make predictions, and bearing in 
mind that “Prophets are not without 
honor,” etc., it looks now as though 
Princeton would be rated number one of 
the Eastern colleges when the last whistle 
blows ending the season. 
Cornell at present 
probably stands 
sae 
second to Princeton, although there is not 
very much on which to base a comparison. 
The Ithacans are a pretty big team and 
evidently combine speed with physical 
strength. They are especially strong in 
the backfield and prospects for a victory 
over Pennsylvania on Thanksgiving Day 
were never brighter. But back in the 
years of Pennsylvania’s slump in football, 
say from 1900 to 1903 inclusive, the 
Cornell teams went down to Philadelphia 
full of confidence and the sure-thing feel- 
ing and have returned home sadder and 
wiser, except on one lone occasion, and 
this year history may repeat itself. The 
team made a good fight against Princeton, 
although the players themselves were dis- 
appointed at not winning. 
Yale startled the football world by an 
exhibition of hurricane play against Syra- 
cuse, running up over fifty points in short 
halves, but slumped badly against Spring- 
field Training School and State College. 
It looks as though this year’s Yale line 
is the weakest the Elis have had in years, 
possibly the weakest they have ever had. 
Heroic efforts are being made to bolster 
it up and if this is accomplished it will 
be a great triumph for the coaches. The 
backfield men are distinctly good and, with 
a good line in front of them, enabling 
them to get a good start, they will test the 
defense of any team. 
The only thing of note that Harvard 
has done up to date was the score against 
Springfield Training School. Forty-four 
points must have looked very big in New 
Haven, following so closely on Yale’s 12- 
0 victory over the same opponents. The 
West Point game on the following Satur- 
day probably showed MHarvard’s true 
strength more nearly than the Springfield 
game. In no department except kicking 
did Harvard show up at all out of the 
ordinary. The team has a couple of good 
backfield men and two greatly improved 
guards in Burr and Kersburg, the latter 
especially showing up better than in 1905. 
Outside of these two men the line is of 
very ordinary quality, at least in so far as 
it was made up at West Point. A sig- 
nificant point is that the “beefy” men have 
been eliminated with one exception and 
tall, “rangy” players put in their places. 
West Point and Annapolis are neither of 
them as good as in former years and the 
annual game on December 1 is not likely 
to show much in the way of modern foot- 
ball. 
