OCR Text |
Show Pff J GMTLAND I TN THE wake of football's mid-1 mid-1 season mark we And again one major flaw in the mental attitudes rf too many supporters. It is this. When some team gets beaten the crowd swings from that outfit to others unbeaten and untied. This is all out of focus. In the first place, most teams have certain objectives objec-tives for which they must later on be ready. In the sec- .i nd place, sched- GrantlandRice play bjg part in any season's final roundup a terrific ter-rific part Pennant-winning teams in the National and American baseball leagues are only supposed to have a .660 average about two out of three. Few coaches have the reserve strength on hand to get keyed up for trnmf It can't be done unless CVWJ t,- ... the reserve material is exceptional r the schedule Is full of weak spots. Why should a team that plays eight or nine hard games be judged against a team that plays four hard games and four or five setups? Take Your Choice I recall a good many years ago when Major Daley was coaching Army. His two main assignments were Yale in October and Navy in late November. "I can win either game," he said to the Army staff. "I can beat Yale in October or Navy In November. But I can't win both. Which is your main objective?" We'll take last fall. Ohio State won one erf the hardest conference championships football knows the Big Ten. Yet Ohio State lost two major games to Cornell and Michigan. Michi-gan. Southern California won the Pacific Pa-cific conference title and the Rose Bowl windup. Yet Southern California Cali-fornia was tied by Oregon and outplayed out-played by Washington, both of whom were beaten and outplayed by U. C. L. A. Shining Examples The two best teams in football last fall were Cornell and Texas A. & M. They were neither tied nor beaten. Nor was Tennessee until it hit the Rose Bowl. But in all frankness frank-ness not one of these had to play a Notre Dame or an Iowa schedule nor a Minnesota schedule. For another example, suppose most teams had to meet Vander-bilt's Vander-bilt's current schedule Princeton, Kentucky, Georgia Tech, Mississippi Mississip-pi Aiahama and Tennessee among others. Let some of these mop-up winners try out that last-named menu on their piccolos. I'll give you another U. C. L. A. Here it goes S. M. U., Santa Clara, Texas A. & M., California, Oregon State, Stanford, Oregon, Washington State, Washington and Southern California. Cal-ifornia. Only nine or ten tough ones in a row, including six of the nation's na-tion's best. The Big Difference Two or three setup games can make all the difference in the world, such as many high ranking teams have. They give the coach a chance to rest up any injured men and get them ready for the next hard test, while another coach, facing one tough opponent after another, has no such break. For this reason there Is no such animal as a national champion. It is a complete impossibility with so many teams playing so many different differ-ent schedules. The closest claim I recall to any so-called national championship was Knute Rockne's last Notre Dame team 1930 that mopped up East, Midwest, Southwest and Far West The only close calls came against Southern Methodist and Army, the latter on the worst football day and the worst football field I ever saw-rain, saw-rain, sleet, snow, fog and ice. Bob Zuppke of Illinois, philoso-nher. philoso-nher. artist and coach, comes closer to calling the turn on football than anyone I've ever known. 1. "There are times you can lose 'em all, and still look good in every game you lost There are times you can win and not look Eood at all." ' A 2. "There is Bob Zuppke only one thing in football that is more important than winning. That is to leave the field with your opponent's respect, win or lose." The Game's the Thing After all, if you have left either a winning or a losing field without your opponent's respect for the main things that make up sport we'll say courage, clean play, hard play, de-cency-the harvest is hardly worth while. It's tough to be a good loser, but a good loser looks better in defeat de-feat than an overbearing, unsportsmanlike unsports-manlike victor does in his moment of triumph. Once again I believe too many football followers expect too mucli Irom too many teams. |