Football: Mid-season

Football, world's most popular sport to watch, will draw 20,000,000 spectators on eight Saturdays this autumn. Seven hundred thousand young men will play it, some for a living, some for an education, some for fun. It will cost the U. S. sports public $30,000,000. Last week football reached the mid-season peak of its most successful year since 1929.

Crowds at college football games this year are roughly 12% above last year's, about equal to those of 1929. That this year's figures are above last year's is not entirely a sign of reviving prosperity. More than ever alive to the importance of the sport, college officials have rearranged their schedules. Instead of easy set-ups early in the season to prepare for climactic games later, most major teams now play able opponents exclusively, draw correspondingly bigger crowds. Rules designed to encourage forward passes and spectacular ground plays have made the game more attractive to spectators. New roads have made it easier to get to games while Repeal has made it pleasanter. A decade ago, only a few late-season games drew more than 50,000 each. Last week's two biggest were watched by 161,000.

Gambling on football, traditional with undergraduates and alumni, has suddenly become a U. S. mania. Bookmakers, disgusted to find their customers losing interest in racetracks, began four years ago to quote football odds. Last week Ryan & Co., New York betting commissioners, handled $500,000 on Ohio State v. Notre Dame alone (a record). Not new but flourishing 1,000% above last year is the sport, reputedly run by policy racketeers, whereby small investors buy lists of games for 10-c- or more, get paid 8-to-1 for picking four winners, 12-to-1 for six.

Controversies. Standard subject for gloomy collegiate editorializing for the past ten years has been "overemphasis" of football. This autumn it has received practically no attention. Likewise diminishing is the uproar about the pay that goes, directly or indirectly, to many football players at most U. S. colleges. When Tree-Surgeon Governor Davey of Ohio charged that 13 members of the State University football squad had government jobs, Ohio State officials were surprised only by the Governor's indignation (TIME, Oct. 21). Last week Ohio State undergraduates threatened to throw fruit at Governor Davey if he attended the Notre Dame game.

Deaths attributable to football, a source of deep concern to preachers, coaches, and heads of college athletic associations in 1928 and 1931, have aroused no indignation this year. By last week 19 football deaths had been announced. One Robert Mansfield, playing on an Oakland, Calif, sandlot, died when he ran head first into a telegraph pole. Andrew Crespino of New Orleans died of a heart attack during practice when he leaned over to tie his shoe.

Last week, surveying the U. S. football scene, experts concentrated their attention on the 17 major college teams which had reached mid-season undefeated and untied. When the weekend was over, only eleven emerged with records intact. Leading can didates for the mythical U. S. champion ship, the less mythical honor of playing in the Jan. 1 game in Pasadena's Rose Bowl, were Notre Dame, Princeton, Minnesota, Southern Methodist, California, North Carolina, Texas Christian. Major games:

Big Game of the week was at Columbus, Ohio, a town gone wild over football ever since early season results made it clear that Ohio State had a championship-calibre team. Last week unbeaten Ohio State's opponent was great Notre Dame, on its way back to the prestige and glory of days when its teams were coached by the late great Knute Rockne. This Notre Dame team had beaten Navy, Pitt, Wisconsin, Carnegie Tech, Kansas. Ohio State looked like the hardest jump in the country's hardest schedule. Day of the game, a ticket for one of the 81,000 seats in the Ohio State stadium was worth $20. The Ohio State band, often called best in the U. S., drilled patly on the field whence its exercises were inaudible to reporters in their glass-enclosed press box. Before the game, as has been its custom this season, Notre Dame chose a captain for the day to replace Joseph George Sullivan who was elected last autumn, died last spring.

Ohio State scored two touchdowns in the first half: one when Antenucci intercepted a pass and threw a lateral to Boucher who ran 70 yd. down the sideline; another when Williams squirmed through a gap between end and tackle.

Coming out for the last quarter 13 points behind, Notre Dame scored on Andy Pilney's runback of a kick, a pass to Gaul, a line plunge by Miller. After the kickoff, Notre Dame worked its way to the Ohio State one-yard line and fumbled.

Notre Dame took the ball again on its own 20-yd. line. Four passes, the last from Pilney to Layden, brought a touchdown. With a minute and a half to play, the crowd held its breath while Fromhart dropped back to try for the extra point that might tie the score. He failed.

What had happened thus far was, fabulous. What happened next was incredible. With a minute to play, Ohio State received the kickoff. Beltz fumbled and Notre Dame recovered. Halfback Pilney dropped back to pass, thought better of it, ran to Ohio State's 18-yd. line, where he was knocked unconscious, carried off the field on a stretcher. There were less than 30 seconds left. Will Shakespeare passed to Millner for a touchdown. Notre Dame 18, Ohio State 13.

The East, unlike other sections of the country, has no football "conference." Nearest approach to such a thing is a group of ten teams linked without formal organization by the fact that each plays at least three of the others: Army, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Navy, Penn, Princeton, Yale.

East's major game last week was Princeton v. Navy. It turned out to be one of the season's most impressive. Beaten only once in three years, equipped currently with a team whose power has sometimes been matched by a willingness to delay displaying it, Princeton scored once in each period against the tight defense that held Notre Dame to two touchdowns a fortnight ago, rolled up 26-to-0.

At New Haven, Dartmouth finally broke the jinx that has made defeats out of eight apparently sure victories in the Bowl, beat Yale for the first time in history, 14-to-6.

Before they went North to play undefeated Army, Coach Major Ralph Sasse told his Mississippi State players what he wanted them to do: revenge Sherman's March through Georgia. Four weeks ago Mississippi State beat its arch rival, Alabama. Last week Major Sasse, onetime coach at West Point, made another pointed speech: "This game with the Army is the one I want to win most. You won your game, now see if you can win mine." In the week's biggest upset, with Halfback Ike ("Sweet") Pickle carrying the ball most of the time, Mississippi State did so, 1340-7.

In the South where football crowds watch games in their shirt sleeves, eat ice-cream cones, mix their drinks with Coca-Cola, the year's crack teams are North Carolina, Duke, and Alabama.

At Raleigh, North Carolina's husky triple-threat Don Jackson knifed North Carolina State's line, threw passes for two of his team's five touchdowns, 35-to-6.

Duke, coached by Wallace Wade, aiming at its second Southern Conference championship, overpowered Tennessee in the last half, 19-to-6.

Alabama's Quarterback Riley Smith and Kentucky's Halfback Bert ("Man o' War") Johnson, candidates for All-America backfield, collided at Birmingham. Behind a hard-charging line and explosive interference, Smith had the best of it, 13-to-0.

Tulane's Captain Barney Mintz intercepted a Colgate pass, ran 85 yd. for a last-period touchdown that won in the South's major intersectional game, 14-to-6.

Midwest Halfback "Tuffy" Thompson ran rings around Purdue, 29-to-7, 21st game in Minnesota's unbeaten string. On a muddy field at Columbia, Mo., Nebraska sloshed along toward the Big Six title, 19-to-6. over Missouri.

Slippery licorice-skinned Oze Simmons, ablest straight-armer in the U. S., scampered 59 yd. for the score that gave Iowa a 6-to-6 tie with Indiana.

Three weeks ago, Penn routed Columbia, 34-to-0. Last fortnight Columbia outgained Michigan, lost on breaks, 7-to-19. Last week, at Ann Arbor, Michigan surprised Penn, 16-to-6.

In the Southwest where experts currently consider the technique of the passing game to be most thoroughly perfected, two of the seven teams of the Southwest Conference are now rated among the country's best. Undefeated Southern Methodist, paced by its 150-lb. Halfback Bobby Wilson, last week moved closer to the Conference title, 20-to-0 over Texas. Against Baylor, Sam Baugh's rifle-shot passes kept Texas Christian's record clean, 28-to-0. Rice, beaten by Southern Methodist three weeks ago, went East to dazzle George Washington with 50 passes and six touchdowns, 41-to-0

Far West-- Five years ago the best football in the U. S. was played by teams west of the Rockies. Whether they have since failed to assimilate new developments in the game will be decided in the major intersectional games this week and later.

Last week Warner Bros, gave orders that writers and executives would be expected to stay on their assignments. Virtually the entire personnel of every other studio in Hollywood was among the 80,000 spectators at the California v. University of California at-Los Angeles game. Carl ("Junior") Laemmle took a radio so he could hear games throughout the U. S. while he watched Chuck Cheshire hit the California line. That line, tautly strung between the two big Brittingham brothers, Jack and Bob, did not crumble as expected. During the first half the damp field chafed into an oblong, cleat-scraped scab across its middle 30 yd., so even was the battle until Lutz broke through to block a punt of Fred Funk's which Stockton grabbed and rushed into the end zone for California's first touchdown. Floyd Blower passed to Jack Brittingham for another. California 14, U. C. L. A. 2.

Last fortnight Stanford's James ("Monk") Moscrip kicked two field goals that beat Washington. Last week he kicked another that beat Santa Clara 9-to-6 after Fullback Bobby Grayson--with ten runs and three passes for a total of 79 yd.-- had put the ball on Santa Clara's 5-yd. line.

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