Big Green Teams
Strong Cornell Eleven Ends Green Winning Streak With 14-7 Victory on Schoellkopf Field
ENROUTE TO CALIFORNIA—it seems rather significant to your correspondent as he rattles and bangs across the continent to the Stanford game, that even the overland limited goes rolling along at a mad pace for miles and miles and then, as per schedule, it stops to take on passengers, to fuel or to allow its riders to digest their last meal in comfort.
The reason we say that this is significant to us is that for 22 consecutive games the Big Green football train rolled merrily along without defeat, and somewhere a stop had to be made, and it proved to be at Ithaca, N. Y.
While the train was on its way, the Indians swept by major and minor foes alike; because it wasn't on the time table for the teammates of Captain Bob Mac- Leod to lose in this 1938 season to any eleven except a great eleven, and Cornell's Big Red powerhouse proved to be the worthy foe that called a halt to Dartmouth's undefeated record.
From the defeat comes the happy thought that at least a team that few elevens in the nation could have bested as it played against the Green had the honor of gaining a victory over Dartmouth.
To lose to an inferior eleven because of overconfidence, lack of preparation or by misfortunes of the game is not an easy defeat to accept with a smile, but to lose to a team that was an all-star aggregation as it performed against our eleven, to a team that had a vast superiority in the line, where football games are still won and lost, is a far different kind of defeat to accept.
According to Coach Carl Snavely, his Big Red team played football in the Dartmouth game as he had been expecting the Cornell squad to play for years. Its line was the best we have seen in the Ivy League for five years, its secondary tackled perfectly behind this stalwart wall, and its blocking against the Big Green's 184-pound line was all that could be expected from the heavier, better reserved Cornell eleven. The 1938 Cornell team was beaten by Syracuse, or rather it defeated itself. Dartmouth might have beaten Cornell if the Big Red had been in the mood to defeat itself by not taking advantage of its superb manpower, but the men of Carl Snavely for once, at least, were in the frame of mind to be a great team, and they certainly were.
But Dartmouth did not come out of the game without more glory than 23 consecutive games without defeat had ever brought. For the Indians played in what looked like a losing cause after the first few plays of the contest with more determination, more fight, more spirit than any Dartmouth eleven of these last two seasons. The Big Green had the ball just 33 plays of the game. In 22 plays the Big Green was limited, in its offense by its position deep in its own territory. For 22 plays Dartmouth was forced by common sense to use plays that the Cornell defense with its mighty line and hard tackling secondary was able to squash with wicked force. Despite this handicap the boys kept moving to the best of their ability at all times. Whenever in a position to use some of their newly learned trickery, the Green took full advantage of the opportunity except in the last quarter when the Dartmouth operatives were so tired they did well to stand up, let alone make progress toward the goal line.
Lacking the resources to make a steady drive through Cornell, the Green did not lack the strategy to score one touchdown and thus escape a whitewashing. It tells much of the story of the game to say that it took one of the smartest plays seen in football for many years to tally against the Cornell defense. MacLeod first set the play up with the old Statue of Liberty razzle-dazzle that netted seven yards for the Indians. But the seven yards were not what the team was looking for. The play was designed to greater ends, and Dartmouth was not to be disappointed. Joe Cottone took his place in the No. 1 back position, with MacLeod at tail-back. Bobby Gibson centered to MacLeod who faked a pass, Cottone took the ball on the very same Statue of Liberty that MacLeod had previously made, only this time Cottone ran to his left, stopped in his tracks and tossed a 40-yard pass to right end Ed Wakelin, who was wide open in the end zone for a perfectly executed touchdown play. There were other plays that Coach Earl Blaik and his staff had designed for this game, and had Dartmouth been able to keep the ball more often, it may have been that the others would have worked equally as well. But it does bring satisfaction to Dartmouth to know that regardless of the superiority of the Cornell team, the Big Green was able to keep in the game, always trying to pull the impossible win out of the fire.
Had not the Dartmouth operatives been extremely well-coached there is no telling how much the Cornell team might have run up the score. Man for man, there was no comparison between the native size and strength of the Big Red linesmen and the Big Green linesmen. Had not ends Whit Miller, Jim Parks and Ed Wakelin, tackles George Sommers and Jim Feeley, guards Lou Young and Gus Zitrides, and center Bob Gibson been schooled in smart football, the Cornell offense might have rolled right out of the stadium and down the hill into Cayuga's waters. The Big Green line made few serious defensive mistakes during the game. That Cornell ripped the Dartmouth defense slowly to shreds in their two first-half touchdown marches was not a matter of science, but a matter of bull strength. The Cornell men, playing before a crowd of 30,000, three-quarters of them apparently Cornell rooters, were not to be denied by a team of upstart boys. However, the Green did make the Cornell power work for every inch of ground gained. The Dartmouth line, backed up by the great Gibson, MacLeod, Howe, Cottone, Hutchinson, the injured Howie Nopper, and inexperienced Bob Lempke, gave ground unwillingly.
Cornell's first touchdown march was halted by the line as far as running plays were concerned. In order to give needed help to the line, the Dartmouth secondary left itself open to passes, and the Big Red cashed in on the fact that Dartmouth was playing one of those defenses where the Indians couldn't hope to stop everything and was forced to select the lesser of two evils. Cornell's second touchdown was also aided by a pass completion, but on the whole it was straight-ahead power that wilted the struggling Dartmouth defenses.
INDIANS RUSH BALL 97 YARDS
On the offense whenever MacLeod, Hutchinson, Howe and Cottone would receive the ball, it seemed that a solid wall of Cornell linesmen had broken through to stop the play. That the Dartmouth ballcarriers were able to net 97 yards rushingtwice as many yards as any previous Cornell opponent had been able to total on the ground—speaks highly for the drive the Dartmouth backs were putting into their runs. And when the Green backs were able to pass the line of scrimmage, there was little or no hope for any breakaway runs. There were no men to spare on down-the-field blocking. Every last man was badly needed right up on the front line. This left the Big Red backs almost entirely free for their tackles, and to their credit, they were the best tackling secondary Dartmouth has faced in as long a time as we have been following the Big Green so closely. Howe once ran 35 yards on a run, but he was hit so hard that he fumbled the ball. MacLeod at times would break into the secondary but two, sometimes three, men were always on hand to cover Mac. Coach Snavely stated after the game that his defense against MacLeod was to set three men on Mac on each play and the trick certainly worked. It also shows how capable the men in the Cornell line were, if the Big Red could afford to put three men on one Dartmouth back.
In the final analysis, Dartmouth lost to a better squad and there isn't much to be said after this has been stated.
Before going to Cornell, the Big Green realized an ambition that has been a Dartmouth goal for many seasons—to defeat the "Big Three" in one campaign. Princeton went down first 22-0, with Howe, Hutchinson, and MacLeod each tallying once. Harvard proved to be a sturdy foe, and a foe that forced Dartmouth to play good football to win its one-touchdown victory over the Harlowcoached array. The Crimson this fall has several talented players of its own and a line that operates from a tough defensive set-up. Only some very fine football, backed by the running of MacLeod, Howe and Hutchinson, and some equally fine defensive work on the part of the Green line, enabled Dartmouth to leave Cambridge the winner.
At New Haven the Big Green really walked away from Yale for the first time in the long series. There was little doubt after Yale's first few minutes of drive through an experimental five-man Dartmouth line, that Dartmouth was to be the winner. Two long runs by MacLeod, some of the best blocking that the Big Green has shown all season, a touchdown by Howe, and a last-minute display of aerial fireworks by the Yale team against the Dartmouth reserves were the standouts of a one-sided contest. The Yale team seemed tired after its battle against Michigan the week before, and on top of this Dartmouth was not to be denied its quest for a clean sweep of the "Big Three." It was swell to see MacLeod turn from his role as the chief blocker to the role of the ballcarrying star.
It will be this performance, coupled with his previous work as a defensive star and all-around football great, that will earn Mac a place on the All-American teams that will follow at the end of the season. No gridster is more deserving of the honor if the mythical eleven means anything, and Dartmouth is proud that it has a man of MacLeod's all-around worth to represent the College.
A scant crowd of 5,000 fans watched the Indians play Dickinson at the House Party game on Memorial Field. For three quarters Coach Blaik gave the game over to all of the men who will be back on the squad next fall, with the exception of Hutchinson who was out with an injury. The score at the end of the third quarter was, 13-6, in favor of the Dartmouth sophomores and juniors, which rather pointedly displays what we may expect next fall with little aid coming from the freshmen. Lord knows the coaches have had to dig and scrape to give us what we have had these last three seasons. Now it seems that they will have to dig even deeper to field a team that will hold its own against Navy, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Cornell in 1939.
How the coaches can possibly do it is beyond my knowledge or even my fondest hopes. However, they have done remarkable things these last few years whenever the balance of power was anywhere near equal, and we imagine they will be able to sneak one or two wins out of the fire from some foes on next fall's schedule.
Anyhow it will be Dartmouth's turn to be the underdogs next season. Every team has had its fun trying to upset the Big Green this autumn, and now Dartmouth will have a turn at upsetting the other fellow for a change.
For the Stanford game the Indians will undoubtedly be the underdog. Now that Cornell showed the way, Stanford will likely put on an equal amount of powerand the West Coast Indians have it to put on, make no mistake about that. Dartmouth will be even tougher this time, though, for the pressure of winning them all is off, and the Big Green can take chances with Stanford that wouldn't have been possible had it downed Cornell.
Therefore, Dartmouth with its best eleven of the last five years comes out to the coast to see about an old score that Stanford once set in the Harvard Stadium against a Green team of the past.
Unless we miss our guess, the trip home will be a happy one, and the season a great success with a final victory to remember through the winter months along with the other glorious deeds.
Three years. Two defeats. Not bad at all; in fact, swell.
808 MACLEOD SKIRTS CORNELL'S RIGHT WING FOR A SHORT GAIN IN THE IVY LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE AT ITHACA
Sophomore son of the former Penn foot-ball coach, who has played a consistentlyfine game at guard this fall.
