Show 1 0 r IT TT MUST be remembered in your remaining prognostications and your selections that while american football oot ball is the greatest game ever invented when it comes to a mixture of spirit and skills skill to condition to player interest and to crowd excitement it is still an unbalanced game in the way of just rewards the better team always win not by 50 kilometers I 1 have talked this season with over 20 leading coaches about this phase of football and they all agree they admit that you can outplay another team badly along the ground and through the air and still lose the ball game ive located over grantland rice 40 teams this season who have made more yards along the ground and through the air and have had the better kicking and still have lost when two good teams meet the breaks almost always carry the winning story which means the he hip flip of a coin this is no indictment of football as a game it is the turn that gives the underdog his chance against better football people it is the factor that gives its thrills to big crowds which have realized there are few setups first downs have become minor minor factors on a recent saturday 17 teams made more first downs and greater yardage in many cases by decisive margins and yet lost it is something like an open golf championship pion ship with a vast roulette wheel spinning the answer but it is stupid to say always that the better team won it is often ofte truer to say the lucky team won and most coaches know this callin calling t the turn the forward pass came along in 1906 that was 34 years ago four years later some 30 years ago I 1 happened to be with hurry up yost of michigan and bill hanna one of the star football writers who was a veteran when frank hinkey was a freshman at yale this is a new game yost told us ive found at michigan we can beat the second team by seven touchdowns on tuesday and tail fail to score on wednesday passes and plays click one day they dont the next its all different that was 30 years ago B but u t yost saw what was coming a better game for the player a far better game for the crowd but no longer a game for past performance nor for accepted form yost at that time saw ahead how many better football teams were going to be beaten by underdogs under dogs by minor teams for example minnesota this season minnesota stepped into one of the toughest schedules of the year id say the toughest the gophers barely scrambled by washington and I 1 happen to know that both jimmy phelan and washington thought they should have won with 30 per cent of the breaks ohio state had two easy chances to beat minnesota and blew both which is nothing to buckeye credit an intricate play called in the rain for a one yard touchdown wasted one of them one point after touchdown down for northwestern would have tied minnesota two points after touchdown would have won the point after touchdown is the cheap concession from the rules committee to the crowd not to the good of football in the michigan game the wolver ines were all over the gophers something like 15 first downs to 5 that was the better team on the field but minnesota won on a single play yet I 1 still say minnesota has turned in the best job of the year barring nobody when you look at the gopher schedule yet without the breaks minnesota could easily have lost at least three ball games maybe four Alinne minnesota sota this his falls fall a veteran big biff nine coach told me awas was like iowa was last year iowa last year could easily have been beaten by indiana minnesota purdue and notre dame which eddie anderson knows notre dame was in the same spot snot notre dame on the days play could easily have lost to both army and navy when you play tough schedules anything can happen youve got to give minnesota credit for taking the years big gamble blea a gamble that even minnesota might easily have lost three ways but it has still been the big job of 1940 F for or one game came the main angle in football elmer layden of notre dame said is the mental attitude for one game I 1 know how army and navy shoot for us I 1 told you that you could throw out all other games when you get set to win one game no one can say what will happen for example blocking and tackling are about 80 per cent spirit for that one day dont figure that any unbeaten team rides safely they d definitely do not |