Brown and Young’s looked pitifully weak during the next few minutes. Her opponent’s success had upset her calculations and the suddenness of events had left her gasping and rattled. From the twenty-eight yards Roover carried the ball in two plunges through the Orange’s left to a position opposite the goal and twenty-one yards away from it. Then kicking formation was called and Fanning dropped out of the line, his place being taken by Roover. Brown and Young’s shouted warnings against a fake, but the cry of “Block that kick!” mingled with them. Captain Fanning stretched his hands forth, Curran piped his signals, the ball left Simpson——
Confusion reigned! Cries filled the air! Yardley swept forward! But where was the ball? Fanning’s right leg swung against nothing. Deering was running off to the left, chased by an orange-sleeved end and Brown and Young’s forwards were piling through. But no one, it seemed, had the ball! And then, out of the ruck of confusion, shot a flash of blue that, seen dimly between the heaving forms of friend and foe, resolved into the likeness of Curran! Straight ahead leaped the quarter-back, straight at the center of the goal. For five yards he slipped unchallenged through the very storm center of the battle. Then the ruse was discovered and the Orange hurled her defenses upon him. But friend as well as enemy was about him now, and not until the ten-yard line was underfoot was he tackled. Then, fighting hard, he dragged on for three more strides, faltered, was borne back and went down under an avalanche of enemy forms.
“The old delayed pass!” cried Grover Beech almost tearfully in his joy. “And they fell for it!”
Eight yards to go! Desperately, while the tumult still reigned, Brown and Young’s lined up under the shadow of her goal. That she could stop the enemy now was too much to hope, nor did she, though she battled fiercely. Deering was launched ahead for two yards and Roover made two more. The shouting had almost ceased from the stands and the Brown and Young’s quarter could be heard imploring the team to “Hold ’em fellows! Throw ’em back! Get low! Get low! Hold ’em!” And with his voice came a medley of others and, sharp, stabbing, through them all, the musketry of Curran’s signals. Then a sudden heaving of both tense lines, a concentration of the whole Yardley back-field on the enemy center, a slow yielding there and, finally, a break, with Snowden, the ball hugged to his stomach, arching over and through on a sea of squirming figures!
Well over the last line lay the pigskin, a foot to spare! And as Yardley trotted back, swinging headguards, cavorting a little, and Brown and Young’s lined up sullenly beneath the cross-bar, Sid Creel laid his head in Toby’s lap, kicked Beech lovingly on the shins and murmured rapturously: “From our twenty yards to their goal in nine plays! Eighty yards in eight minutes! O Brown, where is thy victory! O Young, where is thy sting!”
Fanning kicked an easy goal and again Brown and Young’s sent the ball from the tee. There was a breathless moment while Arnold Deering juggled the catch and then a clever advance of nearly twenty yards through half the enemy team. Two attempts at the line netted but three, and Yardley made her first punt. And for the first time since the game began Brown and Young’s had the ball in her possession. But disruption was still evident, and the whistle sounding the end of the first period came as a welcome of relief to the visitors.
When play was resumed the Orange showed her possibilities, for, although Yardley stopped her midway between center line and goal and, having adopted defensive tactics for the time, kicked again on second down, Brown and Young’s came back with ever increasing determination.
The Orange used a clever and often disconcerting combination of straight, old-style line-bucking and wide end-running with a remarkably efficient protection for the man with the ball. She had a bewildering number of back-field combinations, apparently chiefly designed to confuse the opponent. The fact that line-attacks and end-runs were sent off from the same close-up formation of the backs made it hard for Yardley to guess which was coming. In fact, the Brown and Young’s system of plays was well calculated to keep the enemy on the anxious seat, and just so long as her line continued fairly impregnable she was bound to make gains. So far she had attempted no forward-passing, and her kicking game was still an unknown quantity. Her plan appeared to be to hold the ball as long as she could, making the opponent wrest it from her in the scrimmage.
As the second quarter progressed her attacks became fiercer and her resistance more stubborn. Her men played well together, and, although a few stood out above the rest in ability, individual effort was subordinated to teamwork. It was teamwork that made possible her running game, for every man had a duty and performed it, and not once in that period was Yardley able to reach the man with the ball until he had at least crossed the scrimmage line, and more often he had a substantial gain to his credit before the Blue’s secondary defense stopped him. It was principally the fact that, once inside the thirty yards, Brown and Young’s abandoned end-running for line-plugging that Yardley’s goal remained intact in that first half. Twice Yardley took the ball away from her inside the twenty-yard line and punted out of danger, and twice the Orange hammered or scuttled her way back again, the whistle halting a march that seemed destined to bring a touchdown.
“That seven points doesn’t look as safe as it did awhile back,” said Grover Beech as the rival squads trailed off to the gymnasium. “Considering the way those lads played in the last quarter, I’d say we were mighty lucky to get it!”