They Were Just A Bit Unbalanced

Football fans usually like to get just a little technical dope on the team that they watch. The only trouble with supplying them with this information seems to be that the men who write the stories know only a very little more in this department than those who read them.

But TIME OUT, has "swum through rivers of blood", as our friend Cellin'i would have it, and presents a little inside chatter on the showing of the Harvard team last Saturday. Talking with the coaches after the game gave one the impression that they were pleasantly surprised by the performance of the Harvard team during the first half and were just as disappointed by the let-down in the two final periods. What was the trouble? you ask. Why should the Crimson eleven be powerful enough to score in the first few minutes and then subside into a brand of football fit only for the sandlots?

The explanation of the experts on this subject gave credit to the coony tactics of one Dave Morey, the Bates coach who specializes in surprising the bigger fellows. This same Dave Morey didn't have an awful lot to say just before the game but he did volunteer the information that he had given up all hope of even furnishing Harvard with the slightest opposition. "On a good day we might have given you a fight. But now . . . . . .", with a sweeping gesture he indicated the hopelessness of the situation.

Dave Morey Fools The Boys

This Morey, however, had one trick (along with a good many others) up his sleeve, that Harvard wasn't at all prepared for. In the first half, you will remember that the scarlet-jerseyed horde was playing a balanced line--an equal number of men on each side of center. Even that tricky shift finally resolved itself into a balanced forward wall. The Harvard linemen were able to take care of themselves against this system. The shift held no terrors for them as long as Bates started its play from behind a balanced line.

But on the first play in the second half, the Crimson linemen realized with a sinking feeling in the pits of their stomachs, that Morey had changed his attack and now was working with an unbalanced line--more men on one side of the center than on the other side. From the press box one could see the desperation of the Harvard team, as it tried to shift with the Bates line. The tackles would pull out to meet the shift and the guards would remain stolidly in their accustomed positions. There was just the hole that Mr. Wellman & Co. were looking for. A little push on the part of Stone, the gigantic Bates tackle and the backs were through the line for plenty of ground.

Harvard Guesses Wrong On The Shift

The next time that the shift was into an unbalanced line, the tackles would hesitate and the runner got through the hole that was left outside. A baffling situation, but one excusable with the crop of sophomore linemen playing their first game of Varsity football.

It was pitiful to watch the success of Bates spinners and reverses on the Harvard tackles. Gaps in the line opened up as if by magic and Morey's backs came tearing by. The Harvard tackles alternated between edging out toward the ends and pulling in toward the guards, and each time they guessed wrong. These few points are the items which Coach Adam Walsh has on his little memo, for correction this week. Refinements come only with practice and he has the raw material to work on. --By TIME OUT.