The Tough Stretch

With three games behind them Eddie Casey's football men have swung head on into the tough part of the 1934 football schedule. Brown and Holy Cross have been met with a 50-50 record of success and failure. In the next three weeks Dartmouth, Princeton, and Army invade the Stadium on successive weekends. That's about as hard a stretch of five games as any Eastern college has on its docket.

Consequently it's not a bad time to look around and see what the gridiron situation is right now and what it may become by November 17, when the "breather" with New Hampshire is slated to take place, between the Yale game and these five hard fights.

Right now, of course, the team is suffering from a slight depression due to the set-back handed out by Holy Cross on Saturday. Yet, if any one stops to think about the way prospects looked at the beginning of the reason, there is cause for anything but complaint. When the squad reported to Casey and his staff on the opening day of practice, things really looked pretty grim. Captain Herman Gundlich was the only man who had had extensive Varsity experience, and with the exception of Shaun Kelly at right and ho was the only experienced linesman in Cambridge, as far as any one could find out.

The Fighting Line

Despite this, it was the line that won praise from both coaches and opposing players at the conclusion of the Purple debacle. Every man on the Crusader team had a sincere respect for the work Adam Walsh has done in building up a frontier that could stop dead the drive of a line that outweighed them by 60 pounds and contained All-America material. All this despite the fact that it was the line that was the coaches' chief worry when practice was just beginning. Right now the backfield's offensive work rests twice as heavily on Eddie Casey's mind than does the offensive or defensive performance turned in by the frontiersmen. From tackle to tackle the line is pretty good. It's not by any means perfect, but, especially on the right side, it has showed that the men needed have been found, and it's more a question of working with the present set-up than of searching for some undiscovered genius.

There is the point that the right side is several lengths ahead of the left. Captain Gundlach and Mike Aldis are a nearly airtight combination. Gunny, at right guard, provides the experience of three years of Varsity football, while Mike, playing next door to him at right tackle, adds 202 pounds of well-placed beef plus some of the cleanest tackles that have been seen of late on Soldiers Field. Over on the left part of the outfit things are not quite so stabilized. There are four men who have almost equal right to two positions. The two Bills, Messrs, Bill Lane and Ditto Burton, are never quite sure which is going to see the greater amount of action on any given day. Franny Schumann and Bob Brookings have had the same experience lately. But whoever is in there, the line is a pretty presentable outfit.

The ends just now are under a slight cloud for not getting down the field a bit faster when the Crusaders were on the receiving end of punts and for not being more of a nuisance to Pass-expert Hobin. The two starting ends, Shaun Kelly and Bob Knapp, managed to keep in the Crusaders' backfield a good bit of the time, but their understudies weren't quite as successful. Emile Dubiel is by long odds the most promising of the second-stringers, but an effective partner for him is much needed.

The Situation Reverses

As already pointed out, the curious situation has arisen that the backfield, thought at the beginning of the year to offer greatest possibilities of any part of the squad, is now giving Casey and his assistant Myles Lane, lots of food for thought. Defensively such men as Don Jackson have filled the bill entirely, but offensively Freddy Moseley seems to be the only sure bet for gains both by ground and air. The backfield definitely needs a lot more punch for its approaching series of hard games. One source of power that hasn't been tapped is the minute one of 157 pound Bill Parquette, who hasn't had much chance to prove his reputation as a pass expert. Bill may yet become cog No. A-1 in the Varsity's serial attack and perhaps in some tricky running plays. He main handicap so far has been the prevailing wetness of the field, but with a few more Saturday's like the last one the little ex-Salem, star may surprise the boys. In any event, something has got to be done to make it possible for the Crimson to ooze the pigskin by the menageries of Indians, Tigers and Soldiers that will shortly descend on Cambridge. --By TIME OUT.