The Big Three of 1929

With the holiday and Saturday football games written into the books, the fall season may definitely be said to be over. Post mortems, various all-teams, and preparations for the next gridiron campaign will occupy alike fans, scribes, and coaching staffs for the coming month or so until winter sports get past the stage of warming up.

Out of the confusion and disorder of the season, three teams have emerged unscathed, victorious in every game of a hard schedule. They are Notre Dame, Purdue, and Pittsburgh, two Indiana institutions and one from western Pennsylvania. The consistent power which has characterized the play of all three teams throughout the fall has placed them in a football aristocracy all their own. Other elevens have had near-perfect records and some have won all their contests, but none has been so convincing in victory, so steadily capable as this trio, the "Big Three" of 1929 football. To mention the names of a few of the players who have born the standards of these teams to victory sounds like reading an all-American team. Elder, Cannon, Carideo, Brill, Moynihan, Yunevich, Harmeson, Welch, Uansa, Parkinson and so on almost indefinitely.

Boston's Football Finale

It may have been cold at the Harvard-Yale game a week ago Saturday, but it had nothing on the Boston College-Holy Cross affair played the day before yesterday in Fenway Park, the regular domicile of the tail-end Red Sox. There was a freezing blast sweeping the length of the gridiron which made it extremely difficult for the players to hold on to the ball and for the spectators to convince themselves that they really gave a hoot who won the game. The specs got pretty badly fooled by the weather conditions, good seats in the middle of the field being easily obtainable in pairs at prices well under the box office quotations just before game time.

The wind which never let up once all afternoon made it nearly impossible for either team to score or even threaten when they were facing it. The play from beginning to end was for the most part fairly near the goal line down in the bleacher end of the park.

There wasn't much doubt about which was the better team Saturday. Boston College showed a line which stopped everything the Crusaders could put on. Downes, a burly Sophomore center put on an exhibition of versatile and effective play such as has rarely been seen, and Murphy and Dixon proved themselves one of the best pair of ends in the whole country. The former looked like all-American timber with his bruising tackling and omnipresence, while it was only the mighty kicks of the latter that kept the Worcester boys at bay so successfully. They are a couple of players whom any coach could use. Holy Cross too had some fine men on the field, notably O'Connell, the Sophomore back who ran eighty-odd yards from a kick-off here in the Stadium a week or so ago. He is shifty, fast and a very hard runner. The chances are that Harvard fans will hear more from Mr. O'Connell before he finishes his career at Holy Cross.

The Athletic Problem in the Houses

The problem of athletic organization is going to be a particularly important one when the House Plan gets definitely started. Next year it would be impracticable to attempt to superimpose house teams on class teams on account of the limited number of those who could take part, but eventually the problem will come up and will demand careful attention. The question as to who will deal with it is an important one. Will the house masters and tutors whose interests are admittedly on the academic side of the new development take time out of their regular duties to try to decide matters athletic? Or will the H. A. A. with its experience and knowledge be allowed to step into house affairs so far as to regulate athletic organization? So far this problem has received relatively little attention, but it is to be hoped that when the time comes the House Masters will turn the task of straightening out house athletics to the H. A. A. BY TIME OUT.