“Morgan was left half, wasn’t he?”
“Right half.”
“And the chap who out-punted us about ten yards every time. Well, have they got another punter in sight? Have they got anyone who is clever at field-goals?”
“Search me,” responded Lanny. “We can find out, I suppose.”
“We must, Lanny. We’ve got to know pretty near what their line of attack is to be in order to work up our defense. If they are going to form their team around a clever drop-kicker we want to know it. If they’re going to depend on the rushing game entirely we want to know that. If they’re going in strong for passing we want to know that.”
“I suppose,” said Cottrell, “the best thing to do is to send a scout to see them play next Saturday.”
Dick agreed. “But,” he added, “we won’t learn much from such an early game, I think we’d better subscribe to the Springdale papers and follow what we see there. Until we can get a fair idea of what Springdale’s line of attack is going to be we can’t do much about our own defense. But there’s plenty of time for that, fellows. I want to put in a good three weeks of the old-fashioned football. We don’t want to lose the game by a wretched fumble or through lack of ordinary football sense. And that’s about the way we lost last Fall.”
“That’s so, I guess,” agreed Cottrell. “You all know I did all I could to lose that game!”
“You made mistakes, Chester,” said Dick, “and so did most of the others. I’m not trying to place the blame anywhere except on the team as a whole. That’s where it belongs. But I don’t want to see the same mistakes repeated this year. And that’s why I want the fellows to learn football from the ground up. And there are plenty of them who began at the second story,” he added dryly.
Lanny laughed. “That’s true, Dick. I felt myself last Fall that Farrell wasn’t paying enough attention to essentials. And we all know that he paid so little heed to the subs that when we wanted them we didn’t have second or third string players who could do anything at all. I’m not trying to put the loss of the game on Farrell, of course, but—well, he did make mistakes. I suppose we all do.”