Salt Lake Telegram | 1937-12-14 | Page 22 | October Scoreless Wonders Now Southwest Grid Champs

October Scoreless Wonders Now Southwest Grid Champs Ernie Lain Drives Rice Footballers to Bowl Fame By OLE! W. CLEMENTS HOUSTON, Dec. 14 UPt They laughed when Rice Institute, scoreless score-less in Its first three nonconference football games, got up off the floor to play its raxxle-daule Southwest conference brethren. ' Dowa here In this high-scoring league, a touchdown is like white poker chip just an ante and a team that had failed to score a point In three games apparently ap-parently didn't have a chance. But 11 touchdowns and a field goal later, the groggy teams In this daffy circuit shook their bewildered heada and wondered what had hit them. Thar had eeeeed but points against Rice. The Owls were wearing the conference crown and had an Invitation to meet undefeat- I led University of Colorado in the Cotton bowl New Year's day. Never Headed Ernie Lain. ..He figured in 12 of his team's 13 touchdowns Rice jumped into the conference leadership the day big Ernie Lain, 218-pound sophomore back, broke into the lineup. That was sgainst Dana X. Bible s University of Texas team. Lain, the best forward passer pass-er Rice has had and one of the best in the U. 8., tossed one touchdown touch-down heave and bucked over another an-other six points to give'Rice its first victory of the season, 14-7. A preseason pre-season injury had kept Lain out of the first three games. From that day Rice went to town, never relinquishing first place la the standing. Counting his work against a nonconference foe. Auburn, until then undefeated. undefeat-ed. Lain either passed, blocked or slammed the line personally for It of the IS touchdowns Rica made all season. Rice wound up the year with five victories, three defeats de-feats and twa ties. In conference play the Owls won four, lost one and tied one. Despite bis record. Lain was by no means the entire team. There were 10 other good men in there at all times. And what makes Rice Coach Jimmy Kitts happy Is most of them were sophomores or juniors. With Lain as the sparkplug, the Rice team functioned as a perfect mechanism of football featuring power, speed and a tricky offense. There were few mistakes and when they came, lanky Oils Cordlll, sophomore sopho-more back, was in there to kick the Owls out of trouble. Cordill's pass-catching, pass-catching, broken-field running and punting made him a sensation. He Wont Talk Kitts, a superstitious ex-baseball player who doesn't like to talk about his teams, credits his reserves for Rice's comeback. Three deep in every position. Rice was able to pour 33 men of almost equal ability into every game. It is significant no Rice man was selected for the Associated Press all-Southwest conference. con-ference. team. Big, powerful linemen such as Frank Steen, senior end; James Nance, senior end; Jess Hints, junior jun-ior tackle; J. R. Green, sophomore tackier Matt Landry, junior guard; Charles Moore, senior guard, and Harry Arthur. junior center, smothered many an opposing player ana snoox loose sucn speedy backs 1a Doug (Scat) Sullivan, junior: Dan Coffee, junior; Tom Vickers, senior; Jack (Red) Vestal, junior; Cordlll and Lain.