The Big Five

Who plays the best college football in the U.S.? Why, the East, of course. It may come as a shock, but there it is. First, disregard the effete East, otherwise known as the Fight Fiercelies--the Ivy League, the Yankee Conference, the Middle Atlantic Conference. Concentrate on the Big Five: Army, Navy, Pitt, Penn State and Syracuse. No rep-tie types these--coal miners' sons from Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey farmers, shave-skull cadets. The Big Five are technically independents, but they are linked together just as any conference is--by bands of mutual geography and mutual jealousy. And if they were a conference, it would clearly be the best in the U.S.

No. 1-ranked Texas (see following story) might thank its Lone Star that it does not have to play any of the Big Five. Consider the record. None of them have lost more than two games so far this season--and most of those losses were to fellow members of the club. Two of them (Navy and Pitt) rank among the nation's top five, and all are in the top 20. They have played a total of 30 intersectional games, and they have won 27 of them. They stand 2-1 with the Big Ten, 4-0 with the Atlantic Coast Conference, 6-0 with the Pacific Coast's Big Six, and 15-2 with the rest of the world. A few of the Big Five's bigger conquests: Washington, Washington State, Rice, Ohio State, Maryland, Michigan, Air Force, Notre Dame, Oregon, Oregon State, California, U.C.L.A. Last week, Navy's Roger Staubach scuppered Duke practically singlehanded, 38-25; Syracuse took Richmond like Grant 50-0; and Penn State stayed Bowl-bound by licking Holy Cross 28-14. In a head-on Eastern collision, Pitt downed Army 28-0.

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