FOOTBALL PRACTICE UNDER WAY. 



So rapidly does the cycle of events re- 

 volve that we scarcely close one season be- 

 fore another is upon us. The rowing cham- 

 pionships carried us to the beginning of 

 July, and August sees the football practice 

 already under way. The plans of all the 

 leading colleges are perfected ; and Penn- 

 sylvania is actively in the field training. It 

 is possible to overdue the preliminary practice 

 idea and carry it to the verge of impro- 

 priety. The attempt to do away with pre- 

 liminary work, made several years ago, was 

 ridiculous. Although all the colleges pro- 

 fessed to observe the rule, every one evaded 

 it in spirit, and it was wisely abandoned be- 

 fore long; but the idea of getting together 

 a squad of men "to play" in mid-August is 

 going pretty far in the other direction. 



Pennsylvania has a squad of men in the 

 Pccono Mountains fitting them for the active 

 training season — a sort of preliminary to the 

 preliminary. In the squad there are a num- 

 ber of new men who promise to feed the old 

 squad with good material to build upon for 

 the future. With the old team pretty nearly 

 intact the Quakers ought to be exception- 

 ally strong in all lines. 



The presence of Stevenson on the team 

 means half the battle won. A good quarter- 

 back is as essential to good football as a 

 flywheel is to an engine. About him re- 

 volves the whole machine. The line that 

 Penn had last year is practically intact, while 

 in the back field, if the loss of Smith is sup- 

 plied, the fine team of last year is replaced 

 with one equally as good. 



The other team that disputed supremacy 

 with the Quakers last year is not so well 

 off. Yale has not only lost her whole won- 

 derful line of last year, but nearly all her 

 second eleven line men. This means she 

 will have to build a green line from abso- 

 lutely untried material. While she has the 

 faculty of always having good men to pick 

 from, it is almost impossible to weld them 

 together in anything like the irresistible com- 

 bination of the last two years. Beside this 

 she has lost Mike Murphy, and what that 

 means to Yale football any New Haven man 

 can well tell you. If ever Princeton and Har- 

 vard had a chance to beat Yale they have it 

 this fall, and it is certain that one of the 

 other of them will do so. 



The Crimson has the chance of her life, for 

 two reasons. First of all, Reid is back as 

 coach. It only needs a knowledge of Reid's 

 magnetic personality and his faculty for hard 

 and well-directed and tireless effort to ap- 

 preciate the import of this. He will get 

 system out of the chaos that has existed 

 so 1 many years at Cambridge, and, with sys- 

 tem, what should not be possible with the 

 wonderful material the Crimson invariably 

 has ? He has started a system of canvassing 

 the college for athletes that is bound to sift 

 out every man of ability. Its effect has al- 

 ready been manifested in the men gotten out 

 for the crew. There will be nothing lost 

 on that line, and it will be strange indeed 

 if Harvard has not good men for every po- 

 sition. What she makes of them remains for 

 Reid to determine. It ought to be something 

 exceptional. 



Princeton will lack Harvard's intrinsic 

 strength, but will make up for it by her 

 ability to make the best of every bit of 

 ability that she has. There is no college in 

 the country that gets so much from her men 

 as Princeton. The isolation has something 

 to do with this, and the fine college spirit, 

 engendered by s of constant propagation, 



has a great deal. The only difficulty she 

 may experience is lacking the right men for 

 some particular place. Given a good quarter- 

 back and a good full-back, she is pretty 

 sure to find the rest. 



Cornell and Columbia are not likely to 

 rank any higher than they have in recent 

 seasons. There is much both have to learn, 

 and they are learning it very slowly. It is 

 likely that Dartmouth will be stronger than 

 either, while probably Lafayette will out- 

 class them. 



In the West there will still be "Hurry Up" 

 Yost and "Lon" Stagg. These two will prob- 

 ably have first place between them, as they 

 have almost every season in the past ten, 

 with the chances still favoring Yost to show 

 to the forefront once more. 



The expected radical changes in the rules 

 of the game have not come. The football 

 committee came back to common sense after 

 one spectacular flare-up over trie introduc- 

 tion of a forward pass, and have left the 

 game practically as they found it. The game 

 is good enough as it stands to suit most 

 every one but President Eliot, and it is not 



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