Show ron FOOTBALL Is moving in the dirac 1 uon of its record year I 1 am referring here to class and talent from over 40 football states there has been no season before afi that t could show as many fast and powerful teams due partly to returning G I 1 horn from the various battlefields of the world any one team that can finish this season unbeaten must call on a miracle there are too many who are good for example we might ats as acl take up the matter of all america backs we brought this argument up before a group of coaches recently simple 1 11 enough one of f them said why not pick blanchard davis and gilmer it bulte quite that simple we I 1 countered what john lujack about F fenimore en I 1 more buddy young and what about tucker of army or justice of north or carolina what about tho the oest ba back k on michigan ohio state or indiana indiana or patterson of illinois what about the pick from froin notre dame and pennsylvania or columbia or one or two from the southwest including texas and missouri certainly notre dame should hould come up with a challenger from the group frank leahy has in tow perhaps johnny lujack if anyone is trying to pick the four best another coach said why not put eight names in a hat and pick out the first four chich which eight I 1 asked well the answer came here are seven anyway blanchard davis fenimore gilmer and buddy young you dig up the other columbian Colum bias backs you can imagine how the argument will be in late november for example it might surprise many camp followers from the strong midwest and the strong south to know that lou little at columbia may end up with a better allaround all around backfield than notre dame michigan indiana ohio state alabama georgia and texas the line there but the backs are headed by kusserow and the brilliant passer kasprzak rated by lou on a par with luckman and with two big tackles columbia could give army alabama or notre dame an even scrap but the line Is still the front wall it Is the advance post and columbia so far the line needed to face such a schedule my guess is that army has the best est first line backfield in football all with something to spare this backfield in addition to blanehard blanchard and davis includes a brilliant quarterback berback and n a fine passer in n young tucker hear bear a lot more about tucker this fall fail than you ever heard before he can move right up with ith blanchard and davis alabama golumb columbia a and oklahoma A and M have all allaround around bac backfield e st strength bength above the normal so has illinois with an attack headed by young and patterson two of the best I 1 believe the strongest lines are at illinois yale notre dame and alabama notre dame may have the best of the lot but yale far behind alabama has a great center in mancha one of the best in many years illinois possesses top guards and notre dame has the best looking tackles oklahoma yale lines it might be added here that the oklahoma A and M line is one of the best a point wally butts 0 of f georgia might remember tor for their october meeting line is strong from end to end texas has allaround all around strength backfield and line and should be hard to handle in the count rys major state the two best ends of the year should belong to army in barney poole and foldberg veterans around pounds who know what it is all about they will have to be better than good with the tackle problem army laces faces some squad may have two better ends than ardys big experienced pair but 1 I doubt it among the major teams the big guess is navy capt tom hamilton undoubtedly the savior of college football through war years Is as good a coach as meet anywhere but navy has lost more good men than any team in the country the group of supposed stars under swede hagberg two years ago have either graduated flunked or resigned hamilton has little left from that old crew kelly scott minish jenkins ellsworth on and on are all gone most of the navy line is missing but hamilton still has good football players player left not too many but enough to give any team a busy afternoon navy took the major rap in postwar football where most M ost of the others were getting their former stars back navy was taking a heavy heady deficit navy may lose many games more than two or three but these games will be fought to the last play with tom hamilton in charge |