The football team, having entered upon the regulation week of secret practice before the big game of the season, has reached a point where little more can be done to develop it. As a result, most men who know a little, and a great many who know nothing, about football seem to be falling, as usual, into the dangerous habit of prophecy.

It is a well known fact that it takes two teams to play a football game. Yet we take the liberty to doubt seriously whether one in ten of the opinions so confidently expressed are based on any intimate knowledge of the doings of one of the teams, to say nothing of the other. There is noticeable, on the other hand, among those whose technical knowledge of football and careful observation of both teams, make them really competent critics, a marked degree of modesty, a reluctance to commit themselves as to the outcome. Indeed as the day draws nearer it becomes more and more evident that according to those who are best informed the teams are very evenly matched.

It is absurd then to imagine that the result can be foretold, and it is worse than absurd to encourage any general expectation that Harvard will have the game in her hands. Whoever wins that game must fight it out to the bitter end, and any feeling of security is ill founded. Too much confidence tends too spoil the team. It also tends to produce a violent reaction against the method of coaching in case of defeat. Finally it gives outsiders and graduates an exaggerated idea of the team's ability, which calls down upon them perhaps unjust criticism if they are defeated by a team which is comparatively underrated.

We wish therefore to protest against what may be called blind enthusiasm. Harvard has a team well up to, if not above, the standard of the average Harvard team. We believe that it will go into the game resolved to rise to the occasion and do a little better than its best. Its superiority to Yale, however, remains to be shown next Saturday and to assume it beforehand is the height of absurdity.