If any one inference is to be drawn from the opening football contests of the year it is that the old-time conservatism of the leaders in Eastern football is to be abandoned and the season's important games will witness far more than ever before the open chance-taking style of play, in which wide-sweeping runs will be interspersed with forward, double and delayed passes. This does not mean that fundamentals of the leading schools of football will be thrown to the winds to be replaced by haphazard throwing about of the ball. On the contrary, the first games showed that the big elevens are better grounded at this period of the year in the essentials of sound football than in several seasons, and this despite the heavy handicap of the weather during the preliminary practice season.

Princeton started her practice with the avowed intention of giving up the old style football and in is place install the wide-open game--dashing and chance-taking. Princeton expects to be scored against, but by developing to the limit the game offered under the present rules the Tigers hope to score more than the other fellow in every game. They started well against Foster Sanford's Rutgers Eleven, which was supposed to be able to show even more than last year's team in the power of the new attack devised by the old Yale coach. Rutgens' attack did gain ground--two first downs in succession on one occasion--but it could not prevail in the end against the dashing play by Princeton. It was conservatism in which everything was staked on one form of attack on one form of attack against the new football, and the latter won.

Coaches for a number of years have been sparing in their use of the forward pass, labelling it dangerous after a few experiments. The great barrier to its success has been lack of serious practice on the part of the men making the play. Men spend hour after hour in practicing drop and place kicking and punting and in other ways perfecting themselves in specialties. If any coach doubts that the forward pass can be thrown with deadly accuracy and received with perfect surety he would do well to watch the work of such teams as Tufts, which have brought this play to a high state of perfection.

In this connection and as evidence of the thoroughness of the methods Coach Frank Hinkey has installed at Yale Field attention is called to his coaching of the Yale candidates in the forward pass as detailed in another column. Drilling does not end with the afternoon field work, but is renewed in darkness, where novelty adds interest as well as accuracy in the play. (Boston Evening Transcript).