Davey Nelson came back from watching Columbia plaster Rutgers last Saturday with an armload of notes, diagrams, and ideas about Lou Little's 1948 team.
Nelson sat down with head coach Art Valpey and the five other members of the staff Sunday and worked through the armload.
Yesterday the Crimson varsity got the effect, two and a half hours of rough work, split between defensive work against a white-journeyed "Columbia" team and offensive work against the Freshmen. It was dark by the time the team got around to "singing the bell" on the battery of tackling dummies by the Field House.
"Kusscrow and Rossides"
Hal Moffie and Mel Freedman, running with the white-shirted third-stringest, impersonated Columbia's great back-field pair--Kusserow and Rossides--in the defensive scrimmage. For an hour they ran wing T plays against two Varsity elevens, carrying the illusion even to the extent of wearing the same numbers as the Columbia regulars.
The last hour and a half of the afternoon was given over to offensive work, with three Varsity units running against eleven Freshmen who had come out early last week and were ready for contact work before their other team-mates.
Backfield brain Nelson was impressed by the showing of Columbia Saturday. "Like all Lou Little teams, they're good on fundamentals, they're well-drilled, they know what they're doing." But he evinced no despair about Saturday's game, either: "We can beat them."
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Miss Julie