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Show THE FOOTBALL OUTLOOK a l4 ai OPINIONS OF AN EXPERT By FRANK G. MENKX. NKW YORK. Sept. 1'3. Wouldn't It le a great boon to football If the big colleges In the east formed a conference such an eMflts In the west and then, at the end of each season, the winner of the' east played the winner of the west fr tnc gridiron championship cham-pionship of the country? Year after year the question of whether the . eastern champion is superior to the western goes unsettled. The easterner contends that eastern footballers are the peers of any In the west; the wost scoffs at such an Idea and claims that any of the crack western elevens could am Other the beat In the east. And there you are arguments pro and cun. day after day. year after year and the great question Is a question still. Kven If the eastern colleges didn't want their champion to play the title holders of the west. It would be a great thing for football If nine of the big colleges col-leges tn t he east formed a league, arranged ar-ranged a schedule among themselves and settled each year beyond the possibility of dispute the question of real supremacy In the east. In years zone by Tate, Harvard and Princeton were looked upon as the only colleges that were entitled to fight for the championship. It seemed to make no difference whn t another eleven did. Tf Yale beat 1 larvard and Princeton, even though It was tied or beaten by one of the so-called "smaller" elevens. Yale would claim the championship; Even though Ope of the other elevens won every game It played -and rolled up enormous enor-mous scores. Levels "Big Three." But that dav parsed with the coming of a new football, which has robbed the "Big Three" of Its OHce-tlma big "edge" In built and has placed 'c lighter elevens on an almbsi equal footing, Football enthusiasts en-thusiasts no longer accord in Yale. Tfnr- vard and Princeton the "divine right" to monopolize championships. In future their claims cannot be allowed unless they can show a record superior to any other college eleven In the east. How simple It would ti- and how satisfying satis-fying to tha lover of the gritflron game If the big elevens In the east did form a league, battled largely among themselves, as they do In the west, and conclusively settled the clmmplonahip each year. The western conference consists of nine col leges : Illinois. Chicago. Minnesota. Wisconsin. Iowa, Ohio iiate, Purdue, Indiana In-diana and Northwestern. Most of the teams play each other every year and the championship problem Is made easy of solution. I-asl year Illinois won the championhsip won it undisputablv. Chicago's Chi-cago's record was next best and Chicago got second place. The ranking order of the other teams Is as they read at the top of this paragraph. Eastern Conference. Why not such a league In the east with these nine colleges entered : Yale. Harvard, Har-vard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Pittsburg. Army. Navy. Cornell and Pennsylvania. .Ml ahese colleges now observe the one-year one-year eligibility rule, which bars the playing play-ing of freshmen. Every team In such a league would show up well, and the fight ought to be a close one. There isn't much doubt but what six of those colleges Arm v. Navy, Dartmouth. Dart-mouth. Cornell. Pittsburg and Pennsylvania Pennsyl-vania would agree to sroh a plan, because be-cause there Is real sportsmanship at those institutions, and no snobbishness. T3ut the one-lime "Big Three" would prove the stumbling block for a time. They've become so used to thinking in Yale, Harvard and Princeton that they are the high lords of football, that the idea is deep-rooted, and It would be a hard job to extract It. But I' can be done if enough pressure is brought to hear, and it should be done for the sake of the grent college game. |