ility of which makes the _real_ game still workable. To a large
degree this has been the attitude of the larger colleges. In general
they have frowned on the forward pass; opposed it, sneered at it, called
it basketball and done what they could to retard its adoption. It has
taken away from them the advantage of numbers, weight and power, made
the game one of brains, speed and strategy--even if you please like
baseball, luck,--rendered the outcome of their _practice_ games with
smaller colleges uncertain. Why should they have hastened its
development? Rather it has been the smaller colleges that have found in
the forward pass their opportunity, which have developed its
possibilities until now the larger ones as well are turning to it as the
final means of winning their big game.

It is doubtless fair to say that the early development of the forward
pass was largely due to two teams, Springfield College of the Y. M. C. A.
and the Carlisle Indians. Their game in 1912 at Springfield is said by
competent experts to have been probably the greatest exhibition of open
football ever staged. It is doubtful if two such finished exponents of
the open game have ever met before or since. To Coach J. H. McCurdy of
the Springfield team goes the honor, in the writer's judgment, of the
early recognition and development of the strategy of the forward pass,
for in this respect at least, Springfield excelled even the wonderful
Indian teams produced by Glen Warner. No one team can longer claim a
leadership in this or any other department of the game, but it is fair
to say that the Springfield team has continuously demonstrated an
unusual aptitude for the forward pass and a high degree of leadership at
least among the Eastern teams.

It is not strange, in view of the fact that the great leaders of
football have not taken more kindly to the forward pass, that its
underlying principles have not been more thoroughly worked out and
organized. It is the chief purpose of this work to state if possible
some of these principles and fundamentals to the end that the open game
of football, always in the past and still to some extent opposed by
certain groups, may be better understood, more successfully coached and
more firmly and thoroughly established.

REGULAR GROUND GAINING PLAY.

The first fundamental of a successful forward passing game is that the
forward pass should be used as a _regular ground gaining_ play and not
simply, as so many team