The T

The football professors had been dead wrong, and humanly slow to admit it. Four years ago, coaches labeled the T formation a precarious stratagem suitable only for such star performers as Quarterback Sid Luckman of the Chicago Bears and Fullback Norm Standlee of Stanford. Without such power and polish, said the coaches, the T formation wouldn't work.

Last week, contrary evidence was apparent on almost every college gridiron: pink-cheeked freshmen scurried and whirled out of the T formation to touchdown after touchdown. More than 50% of college coaches now start their football alphabet with a capital T. The other half burn midnight oil devising ways & means to stop it. Few have succeeded.

Theme with Variations. Converts to the T have concocted all kinds of pet variations and exclusive trademarks. Columbia's Lou Little has a "split T," Michigan's Fritz Crisler an "unbalanced T," Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa a "part-time T." The Boston (professional) Yanks call theirs the Q.T. Washington's Coach Ralph ("Pest") Welch, who took on a T with man-in-motion last year, this year dropped the man-in-motion, spread his linemen (see diagram) for a basic off-tackle slice, scrambled this formation with the old Notre Dame box style of offense (a man on each corner). In the quiet of the locker room, he calls this conglomeration the "bastard T."

But in all variations, the ball-handling quarterback forms the stem of the T, the other three backs the top crossbar. By any name, its razzle-dazzle pattern of spinners, flankers, man-in-motion, dive-tackle plays pack a wallop that makes scores and delights the fans.

At the head of the non-T list are Navy and Georgia Tech, whose conventional single-wing formations clashed last week in a weird, fumbling game at Atlanta. Tech's gained yardage was minus 6 against the Middies' plus 221, but the final score was Tech 17, Navy 15. Bo McMillan's Indiana team is the lone Big Ten eleven shunning the T. Last week the Hoosiers upset Northwestern's T, 14-to-7.

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