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Show SP0RTL1GHT , Material With Plenty To Spare I By GRANTLAND RICE A COACH by the name of K. K. Rockne figured he was lucky to have the Four Horsemen running for him in 1924. Even four star backs were more than most coaches had around that fwmrw. time or have to- I star backs and two god backs are fW above the average. When Carl Snave- f ly brought his Tar 14 V Heels t0 New York t V J he had tw0 very I V 1 able backs and a few.mrtat &&isi still better back Grantland Rice crippled on the sidelines, the name being Charlie Justice, one of the best backs of many years until cut down by injuries, in-juries, after being pretty well worn ragged by L. S. U. and Tennessee. It is quite evident now that no small part of Notre Dame's 1949 success was the runaway gallop of his "nine horsemen." That is what Notre Dame had this season Williams, Sitko, Spaniel, Swistowicz, Coutre, Zalejski, Gay, Barrett and Landry. The Notre Dame line was just fair. Outside of Leon Hart it was often just ordinary. But it was good enough to handle a good part of its assignments, although often punctured. But it was when rival teams or rival coaches had to contend con-tend against those nine or possibly 10 brilliant backs that the tidal wave began to roll. For example against North Carolina, the backf ield composed com-posed of Williams, Sitko, Cour tre and Zalejski was no better than North Carolina's back-field, back-field, led by Dick Bunting. But Snavely, especially with Justice missing, had nothing to offer against the arrival of five additional ad-ditional backs just as good as the starters. This is no rap at Notre Dame or at Frank Leahy. He just happened to have over twice as many good backs as any other coach. This makes ,it a matter of material where again Notre Dame excelled by a wide margin. A Rather Scraggly Season This season we saw five college games where the score was lopsided. lop-sided. On most occasions it was the battle of the tiger and the rabbit. rab-bit. We also saw nothing but games long drawn out by the foolish substitution sub-stitution rules and penalties. Because of the nature of football, foot-ball, it is probably impossible for any official to work a game without with-out making at least five bad decisions, de-cisions, sins of omission or commission. com-mission. At least two of these piled up heavily against North Carolina where Hart forward passed a lateral lat-eral and where Williams, bowled over in a desperate attempt to block a kick, was not roughed. He was not even jarred. These two decisions cost the Tar Heels at least 14 points. Something should be done about the dragging out that takes place. You get the impression of men running on and off the field in platoons and companies all afternoon. after-noon. Another point is that all games are started too late. Even after the middle of October, games should be started at 1 p. m. Though starting start-ing at 1:30 p.m. the Notre Dame-North Dame-North Carolina game needed lights to follow the play. There are many newspapers, promoting pro-moting football, who have no chance to take pictures of decisive plays who must go to press without with-out the scores. The starting time up to October 15 should be 1:30 p. m., and after that 1 p. m. should be the kickoff hour. This is an important im-portant change needed. Several million spectators would be glad to get there 30 minutes sooner to see the last quarter clearly and not look at a lot of wraiths and shadows shad-ows operating in semi-darkness. Here are some of the details that those handling football should watch for the season of 1950 1. Changing the unlimited substitution sub-stitution rule and bringing to it some semblance of common sense. 2. Starting the contests earlier to have games finish in daylight, no semi-darkness. 3 Taking at least 15 or 20 minutes min-utes from the time used up from the first kickoff to the final play. 4. Giving the officials fewer rules and having these rules enforced. en-forced. How? I'll pass that to the supermen of football. But the botches are growing every year, beyond human achievement. Strength Around the Map At a recent gathering of football writers from all over the country with every section counted in, the general opinion was that the Midwest Mid-west was strongest, the Southwest next and the Far West third. I doubt that rating is an accurate one. Notre Dame lifted the Midwest Mid-west above the others, but, after all, Army took good care of Michigan. Michi-gan. California ran away from Wisconsin. Wis-consin. Southern California, with five crippled regulars, tied Ohio State. |