Coach Fisher will send his men against Yale this afternoon after one of the hardest early season preparations that a Crimson eleven has ever been through. Abandoning the rather easy schedules that characterized the University's seasons during the past two years, the coaching staff deliberately set about getting contests this fall that would try the players to the utmost before the final games with Princeton and Yale. As a result of this plan, the overwhelming victories which were a feature of the early season contests in 1919 and 1920 have been entirely absent this fall and during the past six weeks the Stadium has been the scene of a desperate and hard-fought battle on nearly every Saturday that games have been played.

The first feature of this stiff program was a double header in the Stadium on September 6 against Boston University and Middlebury College. The purpose of starting off the season with two games was to enable the coaches to see nearly every one on the squad in action and hence to sort out more quickly the most promising material.

The showing of Team A against B. U. was not imposing, a 10-0 score being the margin of victory. Offensively the contest showed that Coach Fisher's problem was the development of a new line, for the forwards charged very sluggishly and indeed, forced the backs to do most of their gaining by means of their own individual strength, rather than by any concerted team play. Defensively, however, the eleven proved alert and vigorous, downing the opposing ball carriers in their tracks and allowing the B. U. team not a single first down. Against Middlebury, Team B made a much more commendable showing, the line especially handling themselves in a way to compare very favorably with their heavier teammates, and winning 16-0.

Although the coaches worked on the line during the following week, the behavior of the Crimson forwards was still very mediocre against the light Holy Cross team the following week, when the University barely managed to nose out a 3-0 victory. In spite of the fact that the line outweighed the invaders more than seven pounds to the man, the latter showed a defensive strength which forced the University to resort to dropkicking when a touchdown seemed almost within its grasp, and rushed the ball 160 yards while the Crimson was able to gain but 115. Even during a great offensive rally which the red jerseyed men staged in the third period, Owen had to shift for himself several times and trust to his own strength and driving power to yield him the necessary yards. On the defense the forwards showed a great improvement, holding invincibly, when the slightest wavering would probably have meant a Holy Cross touchdown.

Due to this unsatisfactory performance five radical changes in the line-up appeared in the game with Indiana the following week. Captain Kane and Tierney went to tackle, Bradford was at center while in the backfield, Gehrke and Jenkins took the place of Chapin and Fitts. The result was a great improvement, the Hoosier eleven being swept off its foot to the tune of 19-0. That much room for improvement was left, however, was shown by the contest with Georgia the following Saturday. The playing of the University eleven was of the loosest and most ragged variety, fumbles, five in all, occurring at crucial points in the conflict. Besides this, the aerial attack of Coach Fisher's players, which heretofore had managed to bring victory, was broken up by the defensive play of the Southerners and it was only the reliable toe of Pfaffman which brought to the University a 10-7 victory by means of a perfect drop kick.

Coming to the Stadium the next Saturday with a two year no-defeat record to maintain, the powerful Penn State team loomed up as the stiffest proposition that the University had yet faced. But though the game promised to be a desperate one from start to finish and was hailed in the papers as a "key" game which would show conclusively whether the Crimson had overcome the glaring faults shown in the previous contest, Coach Fisher was unable to command his entire strength. Due to a veritable avalanche of injuries during the week preceding the game, the Crimson could muster but four of its regulars for the contest. And now Coach Fisher's men showed the power that they possessed. Opposed by a line that outweighed them many pounds to the man they proceeded to drive the ball straight down the field and over the goal-line only ten plays after the opening whistle and a few seconds later, again carried it over for another score.

But now the Bezdek eleven recovering from its initial stage fright, launched an attack which held the Crimson helpless for the next two periods; three times in succession the invaders gained possession of the ball deep in their own territory, and with irrestible power by straight line plunges carried it past the goal posts after marches of 70, 92, and 85 yards respectively. Finaly in the last period with the final whistle only seven minutes away, Coach Fisher's men staged their come-back. With a backfield consisting of two quarterbacks, Buell and Johnson, Coburn, a third string guard, and Churchill, fleet and elusive but comparatively light, and with a crippled but raging forward line, in three minutes they went from their own 12 yard mark down the field and over the last line for a thrilling touchdown, tieing the score and robbing the Bezdek machine of what a few minutes before apeared as a certain victory.

Due perhaps to the magnificent showing of the team in this battle, a feeling of overconfidence spred through the Crimson camp. The Saturday before the Princeton game, Centre entered the Stadium for the second time, bent on avenging the 31-14 defeat suffered last year. Under the crafty leadership of "Bo" McMillan, the versatile quarterback, the Colonels outplayed and outfought the Red Jerseyed team and carried back to Kentucky the 6-0 victory that they well deserved.

Two weeks ago in the Palmer Stadium the Crimson met the Tiger. With the score standing 0-0 and with eight minutes left to play in the last quarter the University suddenly surged into a field goal lead, held it for a few minutes and then succumbed by the score 10-3 to a terrific. Princeton come-back as Gilroy tore 64 yards for a touchdown and Keck sent over a placement kick. But although all the scoring and most of the thrilling plays occurred in these last few minutes of the game, the story of the fourth quarter is by no means the history of the whole struggle. For three periods the lighter University eleven outplayed the veteran team of Keck's, twice the Crimson, baffling the Jungleers with a perfect combination of line plays and forward passes swept down the field only to miss a touchdown by the barest margin each time, and once within their own five-yard line the Red Jerseyed defence threw back four times in succession and held for downs the Tiger backs as they stormed at the Crimson line.

Outrushing the Tiger players and outmanouvering them at every point there can be no doubt that Coach Fisher's men were superior at first. Repeatedly the University passes threw the defence into confusion and during the first three quarters of the game it was generally the reliable Gilroy, the bulwark of the secondary defence who was needed to stop the Crimson rushers who again and again pierced the Tiger line. On the other hand except for one brief spurt which ended in failure, the Princeton attack seemed unable to gain ground, the passes going amiss and even the elusive Lourie seeming unable to break away for any great distances.

While Coach Fisher and a number of his most reliable players went down to New Haven last Saturday to see the Tiger Bulldog contest, a substitute eleven faced Brown at Cambridge. Although the University came out of the struggle with the long end of a 9-7 score, it was only by a very slight margin that the team escaped defeat. Five times the Brounians threatened the Crimson goal-line and it was only the aggressive playing on the part of the second string forwards which prevented more than a single score from being made.

During the last week light practices have been in order at the Stadium. Long dummy scrimmages with Coach Knox's men have been a daily feature of the workouts, with usually a rather long signal drill to wind up the afternoon