Those Irish

Notre Dame's awesome football team went to Baltimore last week unescorted by the master, Frank Leahy. Without his restraining hand, there was no telling what havoc they would wreak on Navy. But Leahy, still wan from an attack of flu, showed up 43 minutes before the kickoff to take charge of keeping down the score.

For one period the midshipmen made a game of it. Then Notre Dame's first-stringers ripped off three touchdowns in 8 1/2 minutes, and Leahy went to work. He pulled out towering (6 ft. 4 1/2 in.) Right End Leon Hart, perhaps the best all-round football player in the business, benched Tackle Jim Martin and gave All-America Fullback Emil ("Red") Sitko the rest of the afternoon off. By scraping the bottom of his substitute barrel and forbidding the use of the forward pass, Leahy held Notre Dame scoreless in the fourth period; But the score was already 40-0, and there it stood at game's end.

By midseason, more & more coaches had decided that there was only one thing to do about Leahy's coaching genius and Notre Dame's talent: don't play them. In Seattle, where Leahy & Co. recently beat the University of Washington 27-7 (despite 135 yards of penalties), there were aggrieved cries that Notre Dame played too rough.

In New Orleans, it took people a while to get over the shock of Tulane's 46-7 drubbing by the Irish. Then everybody seemed to get mad at once. Coach Henry Frnka told friends he would cancel the scheduled 1950 game if he could. Last week Tulane announced that because of schedule difficulties it was impossible to continue the series with Notre Dame.

The only consolation for coaches still brave enough to play Notre Dame was the fact that Leahy would lose six ends, four tackles and assorted other stars by graduation after this season. But that did not make life much brighter for coaches and players at Michigan State, North Carolina, Iowa, Southern California and Southern Methodist. They still had to play Notre Dame this year.

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