Football

When the University of Minnesota's football team routed Chicago 35-to-7 last week with five authoritative marches to the Maroon goalline, sportswriters began talking of Minnesota not as the greatest team of 1934, but as one of the greatest of all time. To many an oldster it rated with Coach "Hurry Up" Yost's "point-a-minute" Michigan teams of 1901-04, Pittsburgh's invincible 1916 combination and Notre Dame in the days of the "Four Horsemen."

Statistics of Minnesota's seven straight victories over respectable opponents were staggering. The team had tallied a total of 236 points to its opponents' 38. It had made 122 first downs to its opponents' 37. A "power team" of the first magnitude, Minnesota had gained by rushes the astounding total of 2,418 yd., while holding its opponents to a paltry 533. But not even that yardage figure gave a full-sized picture of Coach Bernie Bierman's jerseyed juggernaut. To prevent overconfidence and to dishearten and weaken its rivals, Minnesota has adopted the stratagem of giving the ball to its opponents during the first half by consistently kicking on second down. Not until the second half does the Bierman team open up with its prodigious line drives, cunning spinners, adroit passes. This style of play calls for teamwork by titans, and Coach Bierman has a squad full of them. His three ace rushers are Captain Pug Lund, who was playing his final game in the home stadium last week; Julius Alfonse, who has averaged 10 yd. every time he has been given the ball this season; and the hero of Minnesota's "Hook 'Em Cow" club, Fullback Stanislaus Clarence ("Stockyard Stan") Kostka.

The "Hook 'Em Cows" are affluent, football-mad livestock commission merchants and packers of the Twin Cities. Since Stan Kostka comes from a little farm near South St. Paul, the stockyard centre of Minnesota, and has two brothers working in the stockyards, he has a natural claim to "Hook 'Em Cow" loyalty. He scored none of Minnesota's five touchdowns against Chicago last week, but his runs, swift and swaying like a cowboy, and his bowling-ball interference helped make them possible. Although he has not been a full-time player, in the first six games of the season he accounted for 532 yd. or more than a quarter of Minnesota's total ground gained by rushing. Minnesota's greatest ground-gainer, he can run 100 yd. in 12 sec. in uniform.

A smiling, quiet-spoken, curly-haired youth of 21, Stan Kostka has been dubbed "King Kong" by his hometown sportswriters because he is wedge-shaped and his arms seem to hang, apelike, below his knees. Only 5 ft. 10 1/2 in., his official weight is 210 lb. Rival coaches suspect that this is possibly some 20 lb. short of reality.

Son of a Polish father and a Bohemian mother, Stan Kostka followed Coach Clarence W. ("Doc") Spears when he left Minnesota to go to Oregon, played there two years, wanted to follow Spears to Wisconsin but a Big Ten ruling would have prevented his playing football there. As it is, when he steps out on the field against Wisconsin this Saturday it will be the end of his meteoric, first and only season with the Gophers. By another Big Ten ruling he will not be eligible to play in 1935. He will probably join some professional team, as did his hero, Minnesota's ham-handed Bronko Nagurski.*

"My chief problem will be that of conquering over-confidence," said Princeton's Coach Herbert Crisler before the Yale game. "I think the Princeton team was a little stage struck in the first quarter," he said afterward. In the first quarter Yale lined up in kick formation, pulled a pass instead from Roscoe to Kelley, who caught Princeton napping, ran 29 yd. down to the corner of the field and over the goalline. Undefeated in 15 straight games. Princeton was expected to overcome Yale's lead in short order. But the Tigers never seemed to be able to do the right thing at the right time, fumbled all over the field, were twice held for downs inside Yale's 10-yd. line. Score: Yale 7; Princeton 0.

Home at Annapolis on the banks of the Severn, Navy was toppled from the ranks of the unbeaten when Pittsburgh torpedoed the Midshipmen with five touchdowns. A pass, Borries-to-King, saved Navy from being whitewashed. Final score: 31-to-7.

When Colgate got through with Syracuse, no major team remained undefeated in the East. Colgate got two touchdowns for itself and then scored the only tally credited to Syracuse when Kern stepped beyond the end zone, automatically giving Syracuse a safety. Score: 13-to-2.

Invincible Alabama, continuing toward the Rose Bowl, crushed Georgia Tech 40-to-0.

Wisconsin alumni were given a rare Homecoming. In the stands as guest of honor was Patrick John O'Dea, Wisconsin captain in 1898 and 1899, often considered the greatest kicker the game ever developed. Most prodigious feat: in the 1898 game against Northwestern, played in a raging blizzard, he sent a drop-kick between goalposts 62 yd. away. Originally an Australian rugby player, O'Dea disappeared in 1919, was supposed to have joined Australian troops, been killed in action in France. Two months ago in California he revealed his identity to newshawks, explained his assumption of another name by the fact that he wanted to get away from being "just an ex-Wisconsin football player." Ex-Footballer O'Dea had the pleasure of seeing Illinois drop the first game of its season when Wisconsin's Centre Allen Mahnke intercepted a pass, ran 23 yd. for a touchdown. An Illinois place-kick was not sufficient to keep it from losing, 7-to-3.

"Cotton" Warburton of Southern California ran wild against Oregon, ended the Trojans' losing streak, 33-to-0.

Knox College of Galesburg, Ill., has not won a game since October 1931. After last week it was within one game of equaling Hobart College's all-time record of 27 straight defeats when it lost to Bradley Polytechnic of Peoria 44-to-0.

Columbia was a touchdown behind in the third period when Tackle Joe Ferrara stepped out of his plodding role to snare a Pennsylvania fumble and lumber over the goalline. Ed Brominski's toe was true, so Columbia won 13-to-12.

Ohio State attacked by air and ground, kicked on first downs, bewildered Michigan to win by the widest margin in their series, 34-to-0.

Coach Dana X. Bible watched his Nebraskans wallow around in the mud all afternoon with Kansas. The fourth quarter was half gone when he sent in Virgil Yelkin with instructions to kick a field goal. Virgil Yelkin did. Nebraska 3; Kansas 0.

William Shakespeare's 24-yd. pass to George Melinkovich started Notre Dame's second-half rally which beat Northwestern 20-to-7.

* At the Polo Grounds, New York, last week 48,000 people watched the undefeated Chicago Bears, world's champion professional footballers, beat the New York Giants by a last-minute place kick. Score: 10-to-9. Stars for the Bears: Bronko Nagurski of Minnesota, Bcattie Feathers of Tennessee.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.