Lining Them Up

The Big Green Indian comes to town today with his tomahawk poised for the kill and the unlucky Harvard football team is to be the victim. That is, the Crimson is the object of the scalping party. Whether the Cowboys, represented by the home team, or the Indians from Hanover will be victorious is a question still obscure except to the miraculous insight of our colleague, Dr. Hu Flung Huey. TIME OUT ventures into this diatribe with little confidence in his power and many trepidations. For the Harvard team is not faithful. It is a fickle outfit this season, changing from good to bad and from bad to worse with the falseness of a temperamental operatic star.

Harvard Has Material

We firmly believed that the team looked good in the first two games, and even after the Holy Cross disappointment we have confidence that Harvard will get under way before the season is much farther advanced and show the power which it really possesses. The material is there. The linemen are heavy, heady, and fast enough to match any college aggregate without demanding a handicap. The backs are fast, shifty, and with a few exceptions are rugged blockers and tacklers. The new Sophomore prospects have kept their word (when they are uninjured) and have proven in the scrimmages that they are of Varsity calibre. The only consistent deficiency that the critics can point to, is the pass defense. That didn't worry us much at the time it first became noticeable. Harvard has never had an air-tight protection against the other route. But over since Oberlander tossed them 60 yards, Harvard has feared Dartmouth serials.

The best rumpus over referees' decisions since the Dempsey-Tunney mix-up was given football fans last week when the officials in two major games bungled up matters rather successfully. The facts of the cases have been already hammered into the heads of newspaper readers, but for the benefit of all let them be again repeated. Dr. Eddie O'Brien, refereeing the Brown-Yale tilt, allowed Clare Curtin, Eli tackle, to run with the ball after a Yale kick had been blocked. The contention of the Bruins was that the Yale player picked up the oval behind the goal-line and thus deprived them of a legitimate safety. The other faux pas was the incident in the Army-Illinois contest, when Referee Dan Kelly refused to allow an Army place-kick because the holder had both knees on the ground.

Officials Criticized

All sorts of criticism has been levied against the officials and every conceivable remedy has been offered for consideration. Walter Okeson, the "Big Boss" of football came to the defense of both men and was particularly lenient with Dr. O'Brien. The rules on blocked kicks are not clear in the records, says the head man, and thus O'Brien may be excused a lapse of memory. We'd like to add our little bit of comment to the flood that has already appeared even thought it is a bit late. The trouble seems to lie in the rules committee and not with the officials, and there the blame should rest and the responsibility assumed. For our part, 'we extend our sincere sympathy to the harassed referee, who never is allowed to know what the exact rules are. They change so rapidly and extensively, and are so involved when finally evolved, that we often wonder how games are ever finished without more mistakes. The salient fact of the mistakes on Saturday is not that they would not have changed the outcome of the games in the case of reversed decisions, but that an eternal squabble may be the result if such errors happen in a close contest. --BY TIME OUT.