Fred handed the list back. “The others are all right, I think,” he said. “Maybe we’ll want to make changes after Saturday’s game, though. Is there anything more tonight, coach?”
“Not a thing. You fellows go ahead with your meeting and try to make a hit with it. Let Lowell attend to as much of it as he can. That’s his business, I guess. If you get it on your mind too much you will be falling off in your play. And we don’t want that. Save him all you can, Lowell. We may need him.”
Beginning on Monday, Ira’s services were constantly in demand. Donovan returned to his position at left guard on the first team, but he was used very carefully and most of the time Tom Buffum had his place. That brought Ira into the substitute squad and he and Crane alternated opposite to Buffum, or, in the usual scrimmage, against Johns after Donovan and Buffum had had their chances. Ira played hard and fast and used his head, but in the final analysis there was something lacking, and not even Coach Driscoll could put his finger on that something. One day he called Ira to him on the side line and questioned him.
“Well, what do you think of it, Rowland?” he asked pleasantly.
“Of what, sir?”
“Football work. Find it interesting?”
“Oh, yes, sir, quite. I like it better than I expected to. But I’m still pretty green at it, I guess.”
“Why, I don’t know,” replied the coach slowly. “You’ve come pretty fast for a beginner. Do you feel yourself that you’re still green?”
“Well, I—realise that I don’t know as much about the game as I should. The other fellows seem to always know just what to do. I sort of—sort of blunder along, I guess.”