If Yale leaves the Stadium victorious tomorrow--and it is favored to do just that no small credit for the win will go to a supremely crafty gentleman named Charlie Loftus.

Now Loftus is not a football player, not a coach, nor a trainer, nor a scout. He sits in Ray Tompkins House in New Haven and writes think pieces about the Yale football team. At present, he is responsible for the myth that Yale will send its team up to Cambridge in ambulances.

Along about last Monday, the word from New Haven suddenly shifted from virility to infirmity. It comes out three times a day on mimeographed sheets--to the sports departments of every newspaper in New York and New England--and it says that the Elis will battle on spirit and crutches. It tells of Jayvee members thrown into the breach. It tells of frantic shiftings within the Yale backfield. It enumerates the hospital list of Bulldog regulars. It does not mention that Yale's fine sophomore quarterback, Dean Loucks, will be playing second string on Saturday behind Bob Brink.

Loftus knows his job well. He knows when it is time to stop pushing sophomores toward "all" honors and concentrate on saving the Eli season. As for as injuries go, the Crimson team might well listen to its coach and not the newspapers. For there is nothing Loftus and Jordan Olivar would rather meet than an overconfident Harvard.

Lloyd Jordan has been around long enough to realize that injuries have a deceptive way of healing on the verge of Harvard-Yale games. "I discount the reports," he has repeated day after day. "At the start Yale had both quality and quantity. Even if they have had injuries, it has not affected their quality."

And there is plenty of quality in names like McGill, Loucks, Brink, Ward, Shugart, Coker, and Dougham. Loftus said as much for four-fifths of the season, and only this week has changed his tune.

It is disturbing, therefore, to think of members of the Crimson team reading rewarded blurbs from Charlie Loftus and kidding themselves into thinking they will have an easy game. There will be no crutches on Soldiers Field tomorrow--only a Blue team that has rated the best in the Ivy League all season and will continue to do so until the Crimson proves it otherwise.