The Key West Citizen

GRID CAMPAIGN WAS A HOT ONE

Corrigan

NEW YORK (AP) - Except for the big bowl games a month from today, college football has written finis to the 1952 campaign—one that, strangely, lived up to most pre-season expectations.

Everyone knew Michigan State and Georgia Tech were loaded, and these two outfits proved the experts right clear down to the wire. The Spartans finished the season's business as the only undefeated, untied major team in the country.

The Spartans now have won 24 straight while the Engineers, who wound up operations with a 23-9 victory over Georgia Saturday, have not tasted defeat in 25 games and own a 16-game winning streak. They'll meet a severe test Jan. 1 against Mississippi in the Sugar Bowl. Ole Miss, tied twice, also is undefeated, so this will be the only bowl game involving teams that have not been whipped.

The biggest disappointments, perhaps, were Illinois, California and Texas Christian.

The Illini were supposed to be the class of the Big Ten, but even at the start they showed the experts to be wrong and could do no better than compile a 4-5 record. Wisconsin was rated second best, but emerged with the Rose Bowl nomination on the basis of a 6-2-1 season.

California was regarded as the likely heir to the Pacific Coast Conference crown, but Pappy Waldorf's Golden Bears did not reckon with Southern California, and to a lesser extent, UCLA. Both proved great defensive powers that also could score and the league race and bid to the Rose Bowl was not decided until they met and Southern Cal won two weeks ago.

It was risky business predicting that Texas Christian would win in the Southwest Conference, a loop that rarely follows form. TCU dropped its first two games, then steadied, but was no match for Texas, which lost only to Notre Dame and Oklahoma.

Maryland, which was ranked right behind Michigan State before the season got under way, is in a unique position. It would be unfair to call the Terps a disappointment, even though they lost their last two games, to Mississippi and Alabama. Before that, they had won seven in a row and looked like champions all the way.

The Terrapins apparently suffered a let-down when the Southern Conference declined to waive the rule prohibiting postseason games.

To Notre Dame went the title of "upset king" of the year. Coach Frank Leahy predicted he'd have a weak team, but with each passing Saturday, the Irish looked better until they polished off Oklahoma and Southern California.

Neither had tasted defeat before going up against Notre Dame.

Leahy and his "sucker shift" also have given the rules committee something to think over this winter and it seems fairly certain that the loopholes of the rules that permitted Notre Dame to work the formation will be blocked.

All officials queried on it say it is legal. The rule states that any shift or movement not a basic part of a team's normal pattern is designed to pull the opposition offside.

Coach Jesse Hill, whose Southern California team dropped a 9-0 verdict to Notre Dame Saturday, said he agreed it was not a violation of the rule but that it was a violation of "the spirit of the game."

In the shift, the backfield moves from the split T to the box. As the backs are shifting, the opposition usually jumps over the line of scrimmage. There's no doubt that it's tricky. What the rules committee will have to decide is: Does it go too far in deception?