It's that special time of year again. The leaves change, the air turns colder, the days grow shorter and young men's thoughts turn to football. Visions of game-winning touchdown passes dance in students' heads.

Crimson fans have been disappointed this season--since the varsity eleven has failed to tally a point in its last three games--but there's still an alternative.

Are you desperately seeking a satisfying gridiron experience?

Are you desperately seeking an end to cliched football?

Try intramural football.

This year's house league offers a little bit of everything for frustrated rooters: controversy, dominating squads, and for those USFL fans out there, team mergers.

Perhaps the most important development in house play this year has been a new rule mandating that each squad consist of at least 15 players. That dictum has lead to the merger of the Adams and Mather squads and of the Eliot and Lowell teams--and has resulted in the formation of a Currier House team for the first time in years.

The birth of the Currier squad should shake up the standings this year, thanks to a pair of Currier seniors, quarterback Dan Sullivan and split end Woody McMillan. Last year, when Currier was squad-less, house residents were free agents and could play for whomever they chose.

Sullivan and McMillan, two of the league's best players, drove Quincy's passing attack all the way to the 1985 Championship game. But now, the golden two will be airing out the ball for their own team and wreaking havoc on defensive backfields around the league.

The pair expresses some regret at having lost their free agency, however. Last year, "we got a lot of perks," McMillan says. "It was kind of like being recruited all over again."

In an effort to woo the duo, houses offered everything from "a case of beer to various other 'social unmentionables,'" McMillan says with a laugh.

"It would have been nice to play for Quincy," he continues. "I can't say there's not a part of me deep down in my heart that still belongs to them." Sullivan agrees: "We're bumming. But Currier got a team together this year, so we went with it."

But other Currierites don't seem too upset. "A lot of players didn't want to play for anybody but Currier," says team Captain Bill Corbett '88. "It's more of a community thing. We have some really big linemen who will play this year."

Sullivan enthusiastically issues a warning to his old teammates: "Now that we're playing for Currier, Quincy is going down! And Cabot-North, the defending champs--we're going to get them too! And you can print that!"

"I'm bumming," was Quincy Captain Paul Gaffney's oh-so-familiar response upon hearing of the defection. "I'm going to have to scout their games now," the junior adds.