The Big Four
Before a touchdown was scored this season, the experts spotted Notre Dame and Oklahoma as football teams most likely to succeed. With steady and sometimes brutal authority, the two giants of the midlands stood the test. As the season progressed, two less obvious candidates--Army in the East and California in the Far West--rose to join them as the big four of college football. Last week, with season's end in sight, the big four marshaled their manpower against a common enemy: overconfidence.
With Confederate flags waving, an inspired North Carolina squad held Notre Dame even for half a game (6-6) in Yankee Stadium; then the dam burst and Carolina was swamped, 42-6. Already headed for the Rose Bowl, California took a deep breath and breezed by Oregon, 41-14. Oklahoma's split-T formation crackled and snapped to send a strong Missouri team down, 27-7, for its worst defeat of the year. The only one of the four that got a good scare was Army. In Philadelphia's Franklin Field, desperate Pennsylvania switched to a two-platoon system for the first time and made 23 first downs to Army's ten. But Army, an old hand at two-platooning, squeaked by, 14-13. Hay in the Barn. Apart from the big four, the only team of any stature left that was still unbeaten was Virginia. In 192-lb. Johnny Papit, Virginia had a powerful, swivel-hipped fullback who was as good as they come (his coach rates him better than the great Bill Dudley, Virginia's wonder boy of nearly a decade ago), but in topflight 1949 football individual stars are as out of style as the scoreless tie and the "60-minute man."
One thing the big four have in common, beyond their perfect records and the prospect of one or more men each on 1949's All-America, is coaching power. At Berkeley, California's owlish Coach Lynn ("Pappy") Waldorf admits that it is one of the reasons for the widening gap between football's haves and havenots. In preparation for a game, he asks his scouts three short questions: "How can we win? Where can we gain? What must we stop?" While assistant coaches are drumming the answers into California's well-organized platoons, Chief Organizer Waldorf paces to & fro overseeing the whole production. "By Friday, the hay is in the barn," he says, "We can't play the game for them."
Out of Waldorf's system has grown a "you-get-'em, we'll-hold-'em" alliance between the defensive and offensive units that prompted Cal's Safety Man Carl Van Heuit to apologize to the offense after a 35-21 victory over U.C.L.A. Never before, with platoons rushing in & out of the fray, had football been so akin to modern war and its specialists so dependent on G.H.Q.
Battle Plans. At West Point, where meticulous Coach Earl ("Red") Blaik spends four hours at the planning tables for every hour on the practice field, organization reaches a precise, military perfection. Squads of specialists, drilling on separate fields and concentrating on detailed battle plans hatched by the commander in chief, can point for and defeat a stronger foe. After eleven months of intense prep aration (TIME, Oct. 17), Army did just that to Michigan. Says Blaik: "It's like plotting a military campaign. I get a tremendous kick out of it." Like Notre Dame's Frank Leahy, the master coach, Blaik can be found at his desk as early as 8 a.m. and as late as mid night. Oklahoma's shrewd, hard-working Coach Bud Wilkinson, 34, begins his day at 7:30. He, too, exploits the organization of manpower, but with variations on the theme. For old time's sake, he uses versa tile Halfback George ("Junior") Thomas on both offense and defense, usually alternating the rest of his backfield whenever the ball changes hands.
His two lines alternate about every five minutes no matter which team has the ball. Coach Wilkinson thinks it is good for morale to let everybody help to score the touchdowns. In the era of super-coaching, when defensive and offensive adjustments are made up to the instant the ball is snapped, a new type of football player is in demand. The first quality Wilkinson and other topflight coaches look for, even in linemen: ability to react quickly.
Errors Reports. This week, with the Big Seven title safely tucked away for an other year, Wilkinson & Co. have an old score to settle. They meet tough Santa Clara, the team that spoiled their other wise perfect season last year. Notre Dame's Leahy, after studying the films, will tell his players exactly how many errors they committed against North Carolina (by Leahy's count they committed 88 in beating Michigan State the week before), and pound them into readiness for Iowa.
Not everybody got such a kick out of platoon football as Coaches Blaik, Leahy, Waldorf and Wilkinson. Complained some old-fashioned fans: the new game turned out more specialists, but was it really as much sport? Smaller schools, lagging in man and coaching-power, could hardly keep up the pace. As Pennsylvania's switch to the platoon system last week indicated, however, the new game looked tempting to the schools that could play it. It seemed to be around to stay.
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