Mr. Blaik Fields A Capable Team

About ten days ago, newspapers all over the country received a tear-stained press release from West Point which stated as follows: "This year's Cadet team is the most inexperienced over to take a trip to meet a major opponent (Michigan). No less than 20 sophomores are on the squad."

The no-less-than-20-sophomore Cadet squad will take the Stadium field ranked no less than second in the nation, and any further dirges from the Hudson valley will be relegated to the realm of low comedy.

A simple glance at the record shows that for the seventh time in seven years, Army is loaded. The entire 1948 Cadet offensive team is back intact, along with half of the defensive team and a dozen capable reserves. Then, too, there are those 20-Third Classmen who showed last Saturday that inexperience is not really such an insurmountable handicap.

Blaik has had to do nothing to bolster his offensive team. It has a great first unit and excellent reserves, so excellent that though fullback Gil Stephenson indulged in but two plays against Michigan, his presence was not particularly missed. We can compare this with a Harvard team without Howie Houston--as was the case at Columbia--and come to a horrifying conclusion.

But Blaik has had to replace his defensive team from tackle to tackle. His replacements have been more than adequate, limiting Michigan to less than 100 yards rushing and the first three Army opponents to a total of 288 yards. Meanwhile the offensive unit piled up 666 net yards rushing and another 382 yards through the air. Opponents got 176 yards by forward passing.

In fact, Army overwhelmingly overshadows its combined opponents in almost all departments, including yards lost by penalties, 251 to 92.

The men to watch in the Army backfield this afternoon are Jim Cain, Vic Pollock, an do course Arnold Galiffa. Cain is the Cadet's fastest runner and leading ground gainer, with an impressive 147 yards in three games. Top yards-pertly man is Pollock with an average of 8.4 in 15 tries. Galiffa, quarterback in the Army T, usually relegates the running game to his associates and concentrates on baffling the backer ups and throwing passes.

He has attempted 36 passes thus far this season, and completed 17 for a total gain of 310 yards. His favorite target is offensive end Dan Foldberg. Last year Galiffa threw 112 times and gained 766 yards.

Despite the pre-game weeping from the Point, Army expected to win the Michigan game. "In spite of what our press releases said, we thought we had a good chance to win the game," said backfield coaching staff member Doug Kenna on Sunday. "Everybody did all we expected, and some of them a lot more."

Undoubtedly the Cadets expect to win this one, too, so one of Harvard's greatest hopes is that Army will be overconfident. Unfortunately, overconfidence is not so good a runner as Jim Cain, nor so good a passer as Arnold Galiffa.