The Case for Michigan

After Michigan scored its sixth touchdown, Coach Fritz Crisler sent his fancy first-stringers back into the game. This was no spare-the-enemy contest, or a save-yourself-for-next Saturday spirit; this was the season's end, and it was mayhem with a motive. So people thought Notre Dame was 1947's team of the year, did they? Crisler was out to set the record straight--by beating Southern California worse than Notre Dame had (38 to 7). On grass sprayed with paint to look even greener (for this was in Southern California), the Rose Bowl slaughter continued before 93,000 surprised witnesses.

Southern Cal's beefy bruisers, the West Coast champs, were not clubbed to death. They were just hoodwinked and whipsawed by Michigan's slickers. Jack Weisenburger, Crisler's sturdy spinning fullback, started most of Michigan's backfield ballet and ball-handling hocuspocus, and chewed through the center of Southern Cal's bewildered line for three Michigan touchdowns. Trigger Man Bob Chappuis (TIME, Nov. 3), who admitted later that he wasn't quite up to snuff, completed only 14 of 24 passes (two for touchdowns), passed and ran the ball 279 yards for a new Rose Bowl record. When the gun ended it all, Michigan had won by the same score* (49 to 0, the biggest in Rose Bowl history) by which it had won the first Rose Bowl game, back in 1902. It had also outscored Notre Dame against a common foe for the third time this season. Fritz Crisler rested his case.

Outstanding among the nation's 15 other New Year's bowl games:

P: In Dallas' Cotton Bowl, All-America Doak Walker celebrated his 21st birthday by helping Southern Methodist to a two-touchdown lead. Then Walker & Co. spent the rest of the game trying to stave off Penn State, whose subs seemed to work harder than the seniors. The score: S.M.U. 13, Penn State 13.

P: In New Orleans' Sugar Bowl, Texas put on an aerial circus that fooled Alabama, 27 to 7. Afterwards, the owners of two pro football teams (Chicago Bears and Baltimore Colts) were on hand to bid for Quarterback Bobby Layne, whose passes ruined Alabama.

In Walla Walla, Wash., two teams of convicts played behind Washington State Penitentiary walls in the first Stone Bowl game. The star: a 155-lb. halfback known as "Floor Show" Fletcher (pen name: No. 21154), a sophomore who scored both touchdowns for the prison All-Stars. Said Referee Tom Deering, who was brought in from the outside: "It was the cleanest game I've worked all season."

* And the same number as on Chappuis' jersey.

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