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Show fptfi APPARENTLY only a minor portion por-tion of football followers, ad-diets, ad-diets, old grads and others understand under-stand just what a football schedule means. For example, playing Army in these days means you haven't a phanpp tr hp pvpn J pi V t close. Playing Navy means you are likely like-ly to be beaten. Not always. But nearly always. That is is of today. Army and Navy had the two best teams in 19-15 and they will have the two best teams in 1946. Riil en fnr n; nnv Grantland Rice national ranking goes we've drawn a flock of complaints, especially from the Midwest, about the quality of many southern schedules. "I recall some years back," one Midwesterner writes, "when Bob Neyland at Tennessee took no chances of defeat. Neyland was o great coach and he had great te'ams. But he rarely played over three hard games a year, with many soft spots planted in between. "In my opinion this has been true of Alabama this season. Everyone knows Frank Thomas Is an exceptionally excep-tionally good coach and that Alabama Ala-bama is one of the best teams in the country. But there was no way to prove this by playing only three hard games L.S.U., Tennessee anil Georgia. I would like to have seen Alabama tested by Army, Navy, Indiana, In-diana, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma A. and M. or Michigan. That's why I don't think Alabama should have been rated over Navy and Indiana or Oklahoma A. and M. After all a national ranking gets you nowhere while a Bowl game gets you from $30,000 to $100,000." Alabama will tell you the Crimson Crim-son Tide could get no stronger outside out-side schedule. This is true. But many of their opponents, east and west, will also tell you they are not interested in southern teams that have so many football scholarships, and Bowl-developed teams. L The Bowl Complex I have the feeling that the Bowl complex has set southern football back in a schedule way. For example ex-ample two of my favorite southern teams are Clemson and Auburn, whose elevens go back 40 or 45 years. Once they begin winning, they are too often dropped from southern schedules. The reason "too tough." Tennessee dropped Auburn after a close 7-0 margin in 1938 that almost kept Tennessee out of an Orange Bowl meeting with Oklahoma. Ok-lahoma. Georgia Tech, I understand, under-stand, has dropped Clemson after j, Clemson's late mop-up. The South has given Clemson and Auburn all the worst of it, and yet, traditionally they belong high up. The various Bowls, apparently, are here to stay. But they have built up two armed, hostile camps. The Midwest, including the Big Ten plus Notre Dame, have no Bowl aspirations. aspira-tions. Neither has the Ivy League, plus Army and Navy. This leaves Bowl selections to the West coast, the Southwest, the South and one or two stray eastern or northern teams, such as Boston College Col-lege and Holy Cross. From the South the teams willing to play a tough schedule and take a chance are Duke and Georgia Tech. Duke has been willing to face Army and Navy. Duke was unbeaten unbeat-en outside of these two games. Georgia Geor-gia Tech has been willing to meet Navy and Notre Dame, always tough customers. And Duke and Georgia Tech also meet. The lasl time a strong Alabama team played Georgia and Georgia Tech, Alabama lost both games. Tulane Also Takes Risks Duke and Georgia Tech play by all odds the hardest schedules in the South. Tulane is also willing to take a bigger gamble. The Southwest also sticks with its own, from Okla-' Okla-' homa to Texas, although Tulsa is willing to move away from its own home area. Tulsa played Indiana this last season. But outside of Duke and Georgia Tech, no other southern team, including in-cluding Alabama, played a schedule even close to Indiana's test with a menu that included Michigan, . Northwestern, Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa, Tulsa, Minnesota, Pittsburgh and Purdue. The South has turned out toe many great football teams, too many leading football coaches and too many football stars, to permit the various Bowl collections to dominate dom-inate its schedules and its play. 3 The Bowls, taken in their stride, are all right as postseason fill-ins but completely unimportant contributions contri-butions to any national ranking. But the Bowl games should not be used in making schedules to insure Bowl invitations, especially in the South, which has contributed toe much to football to give much of its attention to any Bowls in its schedule sched-ule arrangements. After all, Duke and Georgia Tech are not the only good football teams in the South. The North and the Midwest will never nev-er get to see Gilmer and IVluuciia. J two of the country's best |