“Well, I don’t know. No, I don’t believe so. Besides, the Rules Committee sees to that. Just as soon as there aren’t any more nut plays to spring on us poor players the Committee changes the rules and the parlor strategists start all over again. And then there’s this forward-pass, Slim. That’s got all sorts of possibilities that haven’t been—what you might call developed yet. Last year folks thought there wasn’t anything new under the sun and two or three wild western coaches had brain-storms and showed the eastern guys how they’d been asleep at the switch. You know, Slim, it takes those western chaps to spring the new stuff. If it wasn’t for them we fellows back here in the effete east would still be thinking the criss-cross the absolute knees plush ultra of trick football!”
“What are you fellows gassing about so earnest-like?” inquired “Tip” Benning from across the table.
“Football plays,” answered Jake. “I was saying that if it wasn’t for the fellows out west we’d still be doddering along with the delayed pass and the good old criss-cross. They’re the guys who give us the new stuff.”
“How do you get that way?” demanded Billy Frost derisively. “Who invented the unbalanced line, for instance?”
“Well, who invented the shift? And what about the pass to moving back? And—”
“All right! What about the concealed pass? I suppose Harvard sent west for that? And what about Cornell’s—”
“I’ll tell you one play the west did invent,” interrupted Latham, “and that’s the concealed ball trick! It took an Indian to spring that, and if Indians aren’t Westerners—”
“Listen! Who was coaching the Indians that year?” demanded Billy Frost.
“How do I know? I wasn’t born, I guess!”