Kickoff

Michigan's cagey Coach Fritz Crisler was weary of denying that his boys were twice as fast and slicker than a riverboat gambler. To newsmen he confessed sarcastically: "Sure, everyone's a star around here." A few days later, with bands blaring and the first hint of autumn in the air, Crisler's boys took poor Michigan State apart, 55 to 0.

As the season began, tricky Michigan and powerhouse Notre Dame (which has still to play its first game) looked like the teams to watch in 1947. Notre Dame had its veteran quarterback, Johnny Lujack, and a Texas-born Irishman, Coy McGee; Michigan had Bob Chappuis (rhymes with happy us), who is the best passer, says cautious Coach Crisler, he has seen in 16 years.

Chappuis scored three of Michigan's touchdowns against Michigan State. Last year he piled up more yardage from running and passing than Michigan's former star, Tom Harmon. By normal standards, sturdy-framed Chappuis is old (24) for a college player, but this is hardly a normal year. A wartime lieutenant, he had been shot down over the Brenner Pass on his 21st mission, and made his way south to the British lines.

Older Faces. Bob Chappuis is by no means the oldest collegiate player around: Michigan also has 31-year-old Tackle Alvin Wistert, brother of two former All-Americas. And New York University has a halfback who is 33. At Mississippi, 23-year-old End Barney Poole, once an Army star, is playing his sixth year of varsity football, by grace of weird eligibility rules. At Iowa City, infants on the sidelines watch their fathers laboring through practice. Ten men on Iowa's squad are married.

West Point's Coach Earl ("Red") Blaik as yet has no reasonable facsimile of famed Glenn ("Mr. Outside") Davis, though he has a promising star in 22-year-old Bobby Stuart. Says Blaik: "Davis had a long stride and five or six different speeds. Stuart has a short stride and only two or three speeds." But Army, unbeaten in three years, began its fourth season by beating beefy Villanova, 13-0.

New Tricks. What kind of football will the fans see this fall? The answer: more sleight-of-hand stuff than ever. Most teams are using half a dozen different styles of defense--four-, five-and six-man lines, each having variations known as loose, looping, overshifted, undershifted, orthodox. On offense, the tricky T formation is still the style, with a multitude of refinements, bearing such labels as the split T, the wing T, the QT, the cockeyed T. Said Iowa's Coach Eddie Anderson : "Football is different these days. You don't play a team any more; you play a squad. The trend is to have one team in for offense, another for defense."

Other games last week:

P: At Los Angeles, before 90,000 people, U.C.L.A. smacked down corn-fed Iowa, supposedly the third toughest team in the Big Nine. The score: 22 to 7.

P: At San Francisco, before 80,000, California, a team that was a sorry sight last year, scored a 14-7 upset over Navy, which is rated one of the powers in the East. California has a brand-new coach, Lynn ("Pappy") Waldorf, late of Northwestern, and two slippery sophomore backs--Jack Jensen and Bob Celeri.

P: At New Orleans, Rice, considered the best in the Southwest Conference, faced Louisiana State University, rated the pick of the Southeastern Conference. L.S.U. won, 21 to 14. The margin of difference was principally L.S.U.'s Yelberton Abraham Tittle Jr., one of the nimblest and headiest T-formation quarterbacks in the business. Elsewhere in the South, two perennial powerhouses--Tennessee (to Georgia Tech, 27-0) and Alabama (to Tulane, 21-20)--lost their first games of the season.

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