Monday, Nov. 23, 1936
Football
Said Northwestern's Coach Lynn Waldorf: "I'm just hoping the boys get past the Michigan game but get such a scare that they'll take Notre Dame seriously a week later." At Ann Arbor, the No. 1 football team of the country last week fulfilled its coach's hopes. In the second period, Fullback Steve Toth place-kicked a field goal from Michigan's 17-yd. line. After that an inspired Michigan team that had lost all but one of its previous games this season and shown nothing much in any of them, played beyond itself until three minutes before the game ended. Then a fumble recovered by Northwestern's Zitko and a 30-yd. run by Kovatch put the ball on Michigan's 6-yd. line. After three attempts, Toth carried it across for the final score, Northwestern 9, Michigan 0.
Of the major football teams in the U. S., Santa Clara and Marquette, as well as Northwestern, last week remained untied and undefeated. But Northwestern's schedule, which included Iowa, North Dakota State, Ohio State, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin was by far the most exacting. If they do not fall before Notre Dame this week, few authorities will deny Coach Waldorf's men a national championship as clean-cut as the Big Ten title which they polished off last week at Ann Arbor.
Win or lose against Notre Dame, assured of lionhood in his profession is the serious young man who became Northwestern's football coach last year by a stroke of pure luck.
Invited to a temperance dinner in Chicago in 1933, Northwestern's President Walter Dill Scott was unable to attend. Northwestern's Athletic Director Kenneth L. Wilson went in his place, which was between Chicago's famed Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg and Methodist Bishop Ernest Lynn Waldorf. Bishop Waldorf, who played baseball at Syracuse University, amiably made conversation by saying that his son was a football coach in Oklahoma. Back in his office, Director Wilson, who was looking for a successor to Northwestern's Coach Dick Hanley, looked up the record of the bishop's son at Oklahoma City University and Oklahoma Agricultural & Mechanical College. He discovered that in four years Coach Waldorf had transformed an Oklahoma A. & M. team that had just lost seven games in a row into a conference champion. When Hanley resigned the following year, after an unsuccessful season, Lynn Waldorf replaced him.
A decade ago, football coaches were famed for "systems." Currently, the ablest coaches are distinguished by lack of systems. Coach Waldorf's chief distinction among U. S. coaches is that his lack of system is the most systematic of all. It consists simply in inventing plays to suit his players instead of choosing players who can execute his plays. This year, Northwestern lacks a crack line plunger and good pass-receiving ends. Consequently, the Northwestern attack is built around plays designed to shake running backs clear on off-tackle thrusts, supplemented by short passes to receiving backs. Like many other coaches this year, Northwestern's Waldorf capitalizes "mousetrap" plays--allowing an opposing lineman a clear path to the backfield where a back takes him out of the play allowing the ball carrier to step through the gap in the opposing line. Under Chick Meehan at Syracuse, Coach Waldorf learned to make players play well because they like it. He rarely bothers with scrimmages, sees to it that practice never interferes with study and has entirely eliminated locker-room oratory. Earnest, rotund, prematurely grey, he extends his good nature not only to his players but to his four assistants, with whom he discusses the week's plans for five hours every Sunday night, and to whom he assigns most of the credit for Northwestern's prowess.
On Monday nights, the Northwestern team sees a movie of its most recent game. On Tuesday nights, it sees a newsreel of its next opponent. Most spectacular ball carriers this year have been Steve Toth and Don Heap, It was Toth who made the touchdown that broke Minnesota's string of 21 victories three weeks ago (TIME, Nov. 9). Heap is a junior who, between high school and college, spent three years earning enough money for his tuition and gaining enough weight to be sure of making the varsity football team the first year he tried for it. Last week Heap's chief contributions to the victory over Michigan were a 37-yd. run and a pass to Quarterback Fred Vanzo that indirectly led to Toth's field goal.
Safest rule for Princeton v. Yale games is that when Yale has a good team, Princeton wins; when Princeton has a good team. Yale wins. Operation of that rule at Princeton last week was the least contradictory feature of the wildest, fastest, most astonishing Yale-Princeton football game on record. Sandbach's field goal and White's two touchdowns climaxing long marches put Princeton ahead 16-to-0 in the first 20 minutes. Yale came back with one touchdown just before the half. After intermission, Yale ran wild for two more touchdowns, the last on a long pass by Frank to Captain Larry Kelley. Early in the fourth period, Princeton got to Yale's 3-yd. line. Yale held, and its star punter, Dave Colwell, who was operated on for appendicitis a month ago, hurried into the game to kick out. He succeeded but a minute later was knocked unconscious tackling Kaufman on the Yale 5-yd. line. Princeton's Fullback Bill Lynch plunged through tackle for a touchdown and Princeton was ahead, 23-10-20. In any other game that would have ended the fireworks, but Frank uncorked another long pass to Kelley, then two short ones to Ewart and Miles, then darted around left end to put Yale ahead again. Two minutes later, Princeton was back on Yale's 12-yd. line. Yale took the ball on downs. Before anything else had time to happen, the game was over, Yale 26, Princeton 23.
Washington's mighty line, piled like the Sierras on each side of Centre Wiatrak, made the 15-yd. line the nearest to a score Southern California could get. Washington's able backs, paced by All-America Candidate Cain, gained 197 yards, 12 points to 122 yards, 0 points for Southern California. Between Washington and the Rose Bowl now looms only Washington State's, triple threat. Ed Goddard, on Thanksgiving Day in Seattle.
Biggest crowd that ever watched a North Carolina home game (34,000) saw the week's longest run, when Ace Parker caught a kick-off in his end zone, scurried 105 yards for the second of four touchdowns that won for Duke, 27-10-7.
With the year's biggest crowd (80,000) packed into Yankee Stadium, Notre Dame marched 57 yards to one touchdown, re-covered a fumble to pave the way for a second, intercepted a pass to prepare for a third, while a 55-yd. run by Army's Monk Meyer saved his team from a shutout, 20- to-6.
Paced by Quarterback Art Guepe, who ran for three touchdowns, and Halfback Ray Buivid, who passed for two more, Marquette rolled up the biggest score of its all-victorious season, 33-to-0, against Mississippi.
Beaten by Wesleyan and two touchdowns behind at the end of the first quarter, underdog Amherst nosed out Williams 14-10-13--the margin representing Pagnotta's place-kick--to end Little Three rivalry in a triple tie.
Pitt's star End Bill Daddio missed a try for extra point, kicked off, tackled the receiver so hard he fumbled, recovered the ball, caught a pass to put it on Nebraska's 11-yd. line, from where Pitt scored three plays later. All this, happening within the last two minutes of the first half, gave Pitt the margin statistics showed it deserved against one of the country's strongest defensive teams, 19-to-6.
Advancing its candidature for the Rose Bowl, undefeated Alabama's three touchdowns in the first half stood off Georgia Tech's brave rally of a safety and two touchdowns in the second, 20-to-16.
Two touchdowns in every period except the second for Minnesota's Golden Gophers bulldogged Texas' Longhorns, 47-to-19.
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