Page Eighteen FOOTBALL SAGAS: Yost, Steger And Grd History (Continued from Page 16) A. Stagg's arch-rival Chicago Ma- roons, was called "The Victors." Distant Journey, made by the Michigan is also the saga of the Czechoslovakian State Film Com- Little Brown Jug, a worthless pany shortly after World War II, piece of crockery that Yost brought by its captain Herb Steger - the up to Minneapolis for his team's Wolverines fought grimly back, water on a gray Halloween day but the game was lost. Over- in 1903. shadowed by the feats of Grange, After struggling to a bitter 6-6 Steger continued to plow away tie in the mud, Michigan left its at the Illini. jug on the bench, and the Minne- sota groundskeeper confiscated it. A photographer on the sidelines Years later, they wrote to Yost, caught a lucky shot of Steger try- "Come up and win your Jug back." ing to do the impossible. It later Yost did, and kept on winning it appeared in the 1925 Michigan- for many years to follow. ensian-and is reproduced fir the first time in the Michigan Daily MICHIGAN is many other things! today-with its original caption -a tradition that is also ex- "Fight Like Steger." explifed by shoutis of "Roll 'em Steger is shown with four Illini Up," those backward band hats, clinging to him-yet bareheaded, the writing of "Varsity" on a De- he is still clawing his way for- troit streetcar by J. Fred Lawton, ward. Determination like this and even the historic carved gave Michigan a warcry and a tables at the Union, which once legend, served customers at Joe Parker's dispensary. BUT Michigan is even more than This tradition, the fabric of "Fight Like steger." It is names, events, and legend, has Louis Elbel, who scrawled a march- provided a rich backdrop for the ing song on the back of an envel- drama that is currently being ope as he marched up Chicago's written by Michigan's 1955 grid- Midway in November, 1895. iron ensemble. Without it, foot- This song commemorating a ball would be merely 22 men and 12-0 Michigan triumph over A. a bag of wind. THE MICHIGAN DAILY Off ens (Continued from Page 16) ing executed. The fullback receives the ball from center and starts towards the line at a point im- mediately on the inside of his own quarterback, who in turn pivots to face the runner. The fullback may or may not hand the ball to the quarterback-if he does the quarterback can hand the ball either to the right half, to the left end or lateral to the left half sweeping the right end. 0 Another series wnch is begun upon the receipt of the ball by the fullback is called the spinner se- ries. Instead of moving directly toward the line of scrimmage, the fullback as he receives the ball takes a step forward and makes a complete spin in the backfield. The fullback can pivot in either direction and may hand the ball to either halfback or to the quar- terback to start a buck lateral se- ries in motion. He can, of course, keep the ball after faking a hand- off to one or more of these men and plunge into the line himself. The maneuvers required to per- form a play from the spinning se- ries require a great amount of skill and a high degree of timing and is one of the reasons the full- back in the Michigan single wing is an extremely important mem- ber of the backfield. give Man The Play .. . The formations and series are the vehicles of the various plays run from scrimmage. It would be a hopeless task to enumerate the hundreds of plays which proceed from each of the formations and series, but it may be of some ben- efit to explain in a general way the logic of their use. During the execution of every play from a series or formation the members of the backfield car- ry out, as far as possible, their own individual maneuver, regard- less of whether they receive the ball or not. The purpose of this of course is to add deception to the execution, The plays are planned to make it possible to run the ball through as many possible points in the line as each series will permit, making it possible to penetrate the same defensive position in many dif- ferent ways. Not only is it pos- sible to hit the same point with various backfield combinations, aiding deception, but different blocking combinations can be used on the same defensive personnel. One may well wonder what is the purpose for such a complicat- ed offensive system, and why one set of plays would not be suffi- cient. One reason for variety in offense, as has been said, is to provide for attack at every posi- tion in as many ways as possible, Defensive men may be strong in the face of one type of block but weak in another, or able to stop one backfield series only to be completely fooled by another. And when the opposition is aware of the diversity of the offense it must attempt to protect itself through- out-allowing the offensive team to strike at the weaker points of the line with its stronger plays. The strategy of the offensive team is based on finding the weaknesses in the defense. When and if this weakness is found the offense will concentrate upon it Su November 6, 1955 euvers carrier passes the ball to a re- ceiver who has slipped into the area vacated by the defensive man. The Punt ... An essential element of the of.. fensive game is involved in the return of a punt or kickoff. In a, sense the yardage gained on such a return is "profit" because all of it is gained without being charged to an offensive down, and further, can be made while the defensive team is in loosely form- ed alignment. - Because of the nature of both the punt and kickoff, it may app' pear that the distance achieved in the return is left entirely to the devices of the ball carrier and the chance that blocks may be applied by the rest of the team. The back' field man does have considerably more freedom here and greater reliance is placed upon his open' field running ability. However, it is not true that he is entirely; without an offensive pattern. Ev- ery punt or kickoff which can be retrieved at sufficient depth is re-' turned according to an organized play, either down the sidelines or through the middle. Every mem- ber of the team other than the ball carrier has assigned to him a= blocking object in the same man- ner as a play from scrimmage. In the case of a punt there is a second method of negating punt yardage: simply blocking the ball before it gets past the line of scrimmage. Not only has the team gained forty yards the easy way' but it has dealt a most serious psychological blow to the opposi- tion. Again a blocked punt is not left entirely to chance. When it appears that there is a possibility to block a punt - perhaps the kicker is slow in punting the ball or there is a weakness somewhere in his protection-it is possible to apply pressure to various points of the line in an organized man- euver, a :4' ''i5 l h: j ' '1. ::"1 : : '4 }vr::: :;r: s.Y :. / v: r vx.lv, ~ J. .. .. . " ..... { rL .'Y 'fr :"::" rh ..;., ! . , Cf, ra fr r;%"3.:'S;?f rr J+r r, :i: :ti:% .". .....::. ..., e.: 'S.' rY'P: . { ..m ... . ?':'... :,...,. ..:?r : .'' { ~fa{... . ^, I f ;:; .. : t l: k to ; ,> Vii.. ± III ;: