Football: Dec. 6, 1926

With a tooth in the air, and 110,000 (the biggest crowd that ever saw a U. S. football game) in the stands, the Navy met the Army in Chicago. The Navy goat had a room and bath at the Drake hotel— but where was the mule? Running, passing, kicking, Midshipmen Caldwell, Hamilton, Schuber scored twice before the second period was over. Out ran Lighthorse Harry Wilson, Army back, bored to a touchdown; the Navy dropped a punt, the Army scored again, and while guns went off, cornets brayed, airplanes skipped, tanks gamboled, men in blue and men in grey marched and countermarched and the Secretary of War met the Secretary of the Navy in midfield and shook hands politely. The score was 14 to 14. Cagle of the Army finagled through 44 yards for a touchdown. Shapley of the Navy lost his temper but kept enough control to pave the way for another touchdown. Score: 21 to 21.

Brown’s eleven iron men went out to clip through Colgate’s lather. But Colgate’s backs were slippery, the Colgate line stood stiff as bris tles, and Colgate, beaten only by the Navy, did what no other team has done to Brown, holding the almost-national champions to a 10 to 10 tie.

Knute Rockne knew his men could beat Carnegie Tech. He packed his bag and went to Chicago to see the Army-Navy game. Into the fold on Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, stole a rowdydow team from Carnegie Tech, rocked Rockne’s unbeaten Baby Buntings asleep, 19 to 0.

Molinet of Cornell steered his big, red and rejuvenated applecart against a Penn team which wavered in the first half, and came out with locker-room courage after the intermission to tie the score with a field goal and a touchdown, 10 to 10.

Welch, Hagan and Rooney of Pittsburgh, badly erin-go-broken at the start, scored 17 points in the second half to beat Penn State. The statesmen protested Welch’s first touchdown—a run of 54 yards. They said he had stepped out of bounds and perhaps they were right, but the touchdown counted and so did the others that made the score 24 to 6.

In a game pocked with penalties, Nork of Georgetown tossed and squiggled his way through a rough Detroit team to win, 19 to 0.

Summary. So ended a football season which has produced a great many good teams, and not a single “championship” team, a great many stars, and not a Grange. Students of Northwestern University rocked Chicago with fires and yells last week by way of asserting that their team has won the championship of the Big Ten conference. They base their claim on the fact that Northwestern (beaten by Notre Dame) has won its other games by bigger margins than Michigan. They forget that Michigan (beaten by the Navy) had the harder schedule. Chicago, Iowa and Indiana went through the season without winning a single Conference game. Brown played three games with the same eleven men. The Army-Navy game (above) set a new record for attendance. New York University had the best team in its history, a team that might even be called “championship” if it had not lost to Nebraska. Lafayette, fast and adroit, was not beaten by any of the teams on its not-too-formidable list. The Navy —all in all perhaps the best team in the U. S.—had the hardest schedule: Purdue, Princeton, Colgate, Michigan, Georgetown and the Army.

Among individuals, there are many great players who have received little publicity. Spears of Vanderbilt is as good a quarterback as you would be likely to find anywhere. Grube of Lafayette is a sensational end; so are the two Brown extremities—Towle and Broda. Boerniger of Notre Dame has been called the country’s best centre—so has Jack Butler of Penn. Wickhorst of the Navy, Sprague of the Army, Connaughton of Georgetown, Cothran of Lafayette are famous tackles. For All-American quarterback, some critics say Benjamin Friedman of Michigan; others, Kaer of Southern California (the highest scoring player in the country); others, Caulkins of Princeton, whom Roper has called the best field general he ever developed. Galloping backs are numberless—Mishel of Brown; Hamilton and Shapley of the Navy; Peters of Illinois; Murrell, Wilson and Cagle of the Army (the year’s greatest combination of stars on any single team) ; eel-hipped Jacob Slagle of Princeton; Joesting of Minnesota.