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Show Pigskin Previews rpHE MONTHS of September, Oc- tober and November still lie some distance to windward. But things are happening now that will affect the coming autumn such as arranging football schedules. Especially Es-pecially the schedule that Notre Dame will face. It might be mentioned here that Notre Dame, after all the hullabaloo, hullaba-loo, did slightly better than all f J? right Southern Methodist, Tulane and North Carolina offer three of the better games of the year. Southern Methodist Meth-odist was Southwestern South-western champion last fall, and prob- ably will be again Grantland Rice .. . ... ,5 . this year with Doak Walker and Kyle Rote back in action. Tulane has one of the best teams In the South. Tulane and Vanderbilt look to be two southern leaders next fall. North Carolina will have the brilliant bril-liant Justice and the able Art Wei-ner Wei-ner back, but there will be many gaps to fill. Carl Snavely will fill them well. He usually does. These three additions to the Irish slate are hooked up with a far stronger Navy team. Southern California, Cali-fornia, Purdue, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan Mich-igan State and Washington no easy march. This is better than the average schedule. It has no deliberate de-liberate soft spots that so many others have. It will certainly be total of eight hard games. Notre Dame, like Michigan, North Carolina and others, will lose good men and return good men. But yon can gamble If you like to gamble that Frank Leahy will have a first-class squad with fast, hard-hitting runners and at least two good passers. You can also be fairly sure he will have a good line. What about Army's schedule? It has a number of soft spots, but it also has some rough-and-rocky bridges to cross. One of them Is Michigan. That's a sure thing. Others can be Stanford, Pennsylvania Pennsyl-vania and Navy. But outside of Michigan, there is nc trouble ahead. This forces too much pressure on the Michigan game. A defeat here can play havoc with either team's final ranking more with Army than with Michigan. Army will have a fine back-field back-field and uncertain line strength with such stars as Yeoman, Henry, etc., missing. Ber ends will be her strongest point. Navy, again, has no chance to beat her schedule, the toughest In football. The 1949 menu includes Southern California, Notre Dame, Army, Pennsylvania, Duke, Princeton Prince-ton and others of heavy calibre. But the 1949 Navy squad should move well up in the year's ranking. Oklahoma will be strong again. Bud Wilkinson has a winning grip on the situation with a team that can exchange class with anyone around. Ivy League Returns There has been a. tendency In recent re-cent years for other sectors to look with a certain amount of scorn on Ivy league teams. Part of this was justified, although scholarship requirements re-quirements in the league are well above the average, no matter what you hear. As far as 1949 is concerned, the ivy-covered colleges and universities univer-sities will have no- apoligies to offer of-fer any section in the matter of football ranking. Last fall, Cornel and Darthmouth would have been an even match for most of the leading teams of the Midwest, South, Southwest or Far West. This will be true again this year. Few of the better teams in any section will have backs to match the Big Red or the Big Green. I mean such backs as Johnny Clayton of Dartmouth, Dart-mouth, a passer of the Ber-telli Ber-telli type or Frank Miller and Jerry Fleischmann of Cornell. Lefty James and Tuss McLaughry had two fine teams last fall. They would have been even bets against any team in the Big Nine except Michigan which is favored over many. This new season they can be joined by Princeton and Harvard. Har-vard. Princeton's outlook is good. So is Harvard's. Both can be first class. Brown can also move up. Pennslyvania is never weak. George Munger loses Chuck Bednarik and a few other good men, but if you keep track, year after year, you'll find the Red and Blue a rather rugged barrier. Columbia is definitely below 1948 form, even with the redoubtable re-doubtable Lou Little in charge. Columbia is never flooded with material, and no team can lose 12 of Its best men from a small squad such men as Kusserow, Rossides, etc. and hope to have much left. It will take the full genius of Lou Little to win a fame here and there. |