A Clever Football Play.
“I would have given one thousand dollars if that play had gone for a touchdown!” exclaimed Coach F. H. (“Hurry-Up”) Yost, after Quarter Back Tommy Hughitt crossed the Penn’s goal on a fake-kick formation.
Hughitt was called back by Referee Eckersall, and Michigan was penalized for holding in the line—a Michigan man slipped in the mud and grabbed a Penn forward to save himself, and the referee called it holding.
The play was Yost’s masterpiece—the crowning achievement of a career unequaled in football. Never has the Wolverine Wizard conceived a cleverer coup, and never had he taught his men to execute one with more deadly precision.
Football men at the game united in declaring that the fake was the cleverest thing they ever saw on a gridiron. It takes a higher place than Yost’s marvelous triple forward pass, which dazed Penn a year ago.
The play came in the third quarter of the Michigan-Pennsylvania game November 15. Michigan worked the ball to Penn’s thirty-yard line and Captain Paterson was called back for a place kick.
In the Cornell game, a week previous, Paterson kicked goal under identical conditions, and the Penn scouts had reported it.
Quarter Back Hughitt dropped upon one knee, with hands outstretched to receive the ball and place it for Paterson’s educated toe.
Hughitt called the signal and the oval sailed through the air. But the hearts of twenty thousand fluttered when it was seen that Hughitt couldn’t place the ball properly. Paterson stepped forward to kick.
The Pennsylvania forwards were oozing through the line; the secondary defense was closing in; there wasn’t a second to lose as Paterson’s foot swung forward, missing the ball!