NEW FOOTBALL RULES

Comment on the effectiveness of the sweeping changes adopted by the National Football Rules Committee yesterday will have to be reserved for next autumn when the new rules are tried out in actual play. It is fairly safe, however, to predict the success of some of them, while others will have to be viewed with considerable doubt. There is little question but that the rules requiring padded equipment, liberalizing the use of substitutes, and preventing the use of a wedge on the kick-off will all meet with approval and have a beneficial effect. They all concern mere technicalities of play.

But the other three changes all attempt to regulate faults of the game which occur in the heat of conflict. For that reason they are of course, the more desirous but also the more difficult to enforce. Their success depends on two things: the willingness of all coaches to teach their players to play the game, not to circumvent the rules whenever possible, and the agreement of all officials to call every infraction of the rules and inflict the penalty at all times. It is a well known fact that a great majority of the coaches teach their mon "inside tricks" and that in a good many cases if players are reasonably certain that a foul will not be discovered, they will commit it. If the present drastic penalties will force coaches to teach their players to adhere to the rules at all times the new changes should gain their ends. But when a large penalty is at stake officials are often loath to call the foul. They must be instructed that with more rigid and severe rules their officiating must also be more strict. If referees actually disqualify every man who breaks the rule which prohibits striking and slugging, such playing will under normal conditions soon come to an end.

The work of the committee as a whole deserves praise. The men have thought only of helping the players of projecting him from injury; they have not attempted to "tamper with the game." From the spectators' point of view it will be little changed. By all possible means the committee has tried to lessen the changes of injury. If this is done the real enjoyment of football as a game will be increased and much of a the hysteria will be diminished.