| OCR Text |
Show THIS may seem premature, but the midsummer date hasn't been early enough to check football gossip gos-sip on more than a few fronts. ! Most of the coaches I've run across are still uncertain about army enlistments and the draft, but there is no uncertainty about what might be one of Minnesota's greatest great-est teams. j Bernie Bierman will deplore any such talk, just as any football coach would, but reports P"8 from Big Nine 1 Y camPs are a along II t the same line l lis "Look out for Min-1 7 . nesota speed and V . d power quality and VSSr quantity a great J combination in ev- ery way" '& t" : ' "Minnesota will 'rf j be 1,16 best footbaUi UIL f i-'.ir-iiJ team in the country Grantland Rice ma faU" 8 Michl"j gan entry told me. "If any team can go through the j season unbeaten it will be Bernie Bierman's outfit, with a brilliant j backfleld working back of a big, ' fast line." I Which reminds us that Michigan! has lost Tommy Harmon and Eva-! shevskl, and a combination of this sort Isn't easy to replace. Bo Mo- Millln writes that his Indiana squad 'I v , I BERNIE BIERMAN has good prospects and that, outside out-side of Minnesota, Big Nine rivals can look for trouble from Ohio State, Wisconsin and Northwestern. In the East Conditions in the East are still uncertain until draft requirements are known. But you might keep an eye on Swede Larson's Navy team when the first kickoff arrives. After considerable con-siderable pressure the modest Major Ma-jor of Marines finally broke down and confessed that Navy might get along rather nicely before December's Decem-ber's snows are reported. "We have a good-looking squad," Coach Larson said, "losing few men from last fall. With any luck this should be one of the best Navy teams in some time." Lou Little's Columbia squad should also move up, but there is still uncertainty un-certainty at Harvard, Yale and Dart-nv. Dart-nv. uth. On a recent trip to Texas we found that Dana Bible's Texas university uni-versity outlook was the brightest of I the Lone Star range. There is the j chance that he may lose one or two of his star backs, but if he retains the material that is due back, in-1 eluding Layden and Crain, Bible will have a big Bowl contest on ! his hands. SMU to Be Strong Southern Methodist will again be strong, and so will Rice. Texas A. and M. loses most of her star cast from 1910 and T.C.U. is still looking for another Sammy Baugh or Davcy j O'Brien. They do not grow on every Cottonwood tree. Along the West coast Stanford still has the ball, with many of her un-j beaten veterans ready to pick up where they left off. j Red Sanders, the Vandcrbilt director, di-rector, looks for the usual steamy sear n in Dixie where Duke, Alabama Ala-bama and Tennessee, plus Tulane, will be well up. Coach Sanders is looking forward to one of the season's feature battles when Princeton invades Nashville on the first southern trip a Tiger football team ever took. Both Princeton and Vandcrbilt will be good, if not outstanding, and the Commodores will go all out to avenge last year's one-point defeat. Season of Questions It is doubtful if any football season sea-son ever opened with more questions ques-tions at hand. "How will Spike Nelson make out at Vale?" "How about Red Blaik at West Point?" "And Tuss Mc-Laughry Mc-Laughry at Dartmouth?" "What will Tennessee do with Bob Ncyland absent?" Ncyland's record rec-ord is one of the best in football history. "Will Ohio State's ex-high school coach stop the Buckeye slump of 1940, with so many stars missing?" "What's the outlook at Notre Dame under new coaching?" Mj guess is that Notre Dame will be among the best. |
