Although there were a few bright spots in Saturday's game from the Harvard standpoint, it is evident that the Crimson eleven has a long way to go before it can face Princeton, Brown, or Yale on anything like even terms. Winning from William and Mary by a 14 to 7 score was not a very impressive achievement, even though the visitors proved far stronger than had been expected.
Fighting Spirit in Evidence
The fighting spirit shown against Dartmouth was evident again Saturday after Captain Cheek had entered the contest. Few teams can boast of a more inspiring leader than the Harvard captain. Cheek's forward passes to Sayles were prettily executed and pulled the game out of the fire; but neither the fighting spirit nor the Cheek-to-Sayles pass was able to bring victory over Dartmouth last week, and a great many other things are needed if the Crimson is to take Princeton's measure next Saturday.
A noticeable improvement in the forward pass defense was one of the few bits of encouragement gleaned by Crimson supporters from Saturday's game. William and Mary's highly-touted aerial attack failed to gain the visitors much ground, the Harvard backs knocking down a large majority of Matsu's tosses.
Harvard's forward line did not appear strong Saturday. Instead of gaining by forward passes, William and Mary put on a rushing attack that often opened large holes in the Crimson line, and gained seven first downs to one for the Fisher-Daly offense.
The Harvard attack was practically powerless for the major part of the game. In sharp contrast to the tackling of the Crimson forwards, the William and Mary defenders stopped the Harvard backs short. Captain Elliott, M. Davis, Parsons, and especially Todd, aided by the half-backs, buried the "new" Crimson offense; even Crosby failed to gain much ground. Cheek was still saving his leg and did not carry the ball; Miller made a couple of good gains in the closing minutes, but by that time the William and Mary players, seven of whom played the entire game, were exhausted, and for the first time the charge of the Harvard forward line was effective.
The summary:
Read more in News
THIS TRINITY CASE
