BROWN GAME PROVED TO BE CRISIS IN YALE'S SEASON

Until 2 o'clock on November 13th, the Yale football team as such was universally considered non est. Before that moment the Elis had made a decidedly unenviable record. Woefully disorganized and four times defeated, they had served as little more than playthings in a theorist's football laboratory. Hinkey had not made good.

With material declared by experts to be the best in the country, Yale entered a schedule certainly not more difficult than Princeton's, and certainly easier than Harvard's. Up to November 13th all the teams the Blue had encountered on that schedule have successively been beaten by others, and beaten decisively. This unnatural state of affairs and the sudden reversal of form which has followed the desperate change in the Yale policy form a remarkable piece of football history; the history of an eleven which in spite of itself, almost, came through victorious in the first big game.

Yale's first game was little more than a flaseo, the weak Maine team being smothered under a 37 to 0 score. As was to prove the case for many weeks, however the Blue's representative was not a team but a Blue squad of eleven men. Careless handling of Thurman's clever punts was as the chief factor in the first reverse for Yale, and Virginia took a 10 to 0 victory. By desperate plugging through the line, Yale was barely able to defeat Lehigh 7 to 6 the next Saturday, and the following week the Elis took a hollow 19 to 0 victory from the weak Springfield Y. M. C. A. team. But the next week, with the declaration of the ineligibility of Legore, Easton, and Pumpelly, started the Blue's big slump.

W. and J. Started Slump.

Washington & Jefferson was the first of the three teams to take Yale's measure. A wide-open attack, with a much-varied and bewildering aerial attack, completely baffied Captain Wilson's men, and they were defeated 16 to 7. Colgate, since downed by Syracuse with a 38 to 0 shut-out, was the next visitor at the Bowl, and a few trick plays gave them a 15 to 0 victory. The climax of the slump came when Brown, last Saturday easily defeated by the University substitutes, took the next game, 3 to 0.

Brown Game Was Turning Point.

The appearance of Brown, though disastrous, proved to be the turning point in Yale's fortunes. Shevlin had arrived from the West just three days before, practically displacing his colleague, Mr. Hinkey, and with his coming there started something new in 1915 football at New Haven. The Brown game was played and lost before his work showed its effect, but the following Saturday, at 2 o'clock on November 13th, Shevlin sent out on the Bowl field that for which the Blue followers had been looking all fall--a Yale team, ragged and crude, but undeniably a team.

Princeton, with a finished eleven at top-season form, by far the favorite, was defeated 13 to 7. There is many an alibi for that defeat, and many a just one, but even with the many breaks discounted, Yale showed the unexpected quality of power, displayed a remarkably strong defence from the tackle to tackle, uncovered a new spirit and a good kicking game, and, what is perhaps most fundamentally requisite, came forward with the ability to follow the ball. In the way of an offense, the Elis indeed had little, simply a few variations of the old Minnesota shift, but Princeton overconfidence and Guernsey's drop-kicking made an offence practically unnecessary. The main point is, that what Yale did show in the game was good. The Yale line, given a simpler method of interference, showed the ability to be of great aid to its backfield, while the backs impressively demonstrated that they had been carefully drilled in breaking up the forward pass and that with a little more training they would be capable of producing a strong running attack.

Yale took a step in the right direction when she called to New Haven the older and more conservative coaches. The sensational policy has been relegated to the emergency list, and out of the chaos of a disastrous early season there has arisen an eleven which is strong as a unit and experienced individually. For the early-season showing of Captain Wilson and his phenomenal material it is unfortunate that the step was not taken sooner. Today's game, the final test, will decide whether or not the step was taken too late. Whatever the result, it is certain that the experience of the 1915 season has taught Yale a great lesson, and that in future her elevens may be expected to produce a safer, saner, and a far better brand of football.