Yale soon afterward scored a touchdown as the result of a blocked kick. So matters stood when the Yale eleven, toward the close of the first half, found itself just over Princeton's forty-yard line. The Blue had its own emergency man out that day in the person of A. L. Sharpe, now building up a coaching system at Cornell. Sharpe was one of the greatest all-round athletes ever turned out at New Haven, but even his ability as a drop-kicker had been unsuspected by the crowd. Unable to advance, the Elis called upon their star half-back, and Sharpe sent the ball over the crossbar and between the uprights from a distance of 46 yards, and from the side of the field, a phenomenal kick under any conditions. From the Princeton viewpoint the play was especially disheartening, for nothing takes so much out of a hard- worked team as to be scored upon from such a distance when the eleven realizes that in all other respects it is playing its opponent to a stand off.

There were fewer then five minutes of the second half left to play when Princeton's pretty running game began the process of making an opportunity for Poe. There was more life in the Princeton eleven than in Yale, for it had been wisely decided to send in fresh men with great rapidity, and this alone was evidence of excellent headwork. Again the Princeton tackle play settled down to its work, and in six plays the Tigers were within striking distance, but without, as everybody thought, a drop-kicker upon whom to call.

It was Poe himself who saw the opportunity and asked for his chance. He had a brief talk with W. H. Edwards, the Tiger captain, and the latter, realizing that the time was almost up and it was impossible to score by rushing, granted the little end's request. Poe, Edwards figured, was a steady, reliable player in all other branches of the game, and was also a senior. There did not seem to be one chance in a hundred that the play would be a success, but Edwards figured that if anyone was to take the chance Poe was the man. The men lined up in the kick formation, the ball was passed to Poe and the little man sent it fairly over the bar between the posts, winning the game by a single point with only 36 seconds left to play. It was a wonderful piece of work for a practically unpracticed kicker.

It is plays such as this that appeal to the public as the individual expression of genius, but I shall turn now to a bit of splendid thinking and instant decision that would never catch the mass of the public and even escaped some of the keenest critics on the side line. It resulted in the defeat of Yale by the Army in 1911 on a field no better than a morass, and was the work of R. F. Hyatt, the Army captain and quarterback. Yale went to West Point that day equipped mainly with the Minnesota shift, led by two veteran tackles, Scully and Paul, only to find that the footing, owing to two days of steady rain, was extremely treacherous, and that West Point's defense against the shift was far and away the best the team had met. Indeed, before the game, it was openly asserted that the shift would not gain against the Army defense. And so it proved.

In the meantime the Army had been working out a form of attack based on the "lop-sided" line - that is, with only one man on one side of the centre. Simple but powerful plays had been devised for use from this formation, but they were in crude form on the day of the game. It had been planned, however, to strike quickly and strike hard, before Yale became accustomed to facing the altered formation, and to that end the kicking game was begun at once, in the hope of making an opening for the use of two or three of the strongest running plays. The game was scarcely more than a minute old when the opportunity came through a blocked kick recovered in Yale territory by an Army player.

Hyatt's first play was a good ground-gainer, but it carried the team well to the left of the goal posts. The second play had been planned, not only to gain ground, but to bring the ball well out in the field again so as to provide a chance for a field goal should the running plays fail. Had Hyatt adhered to the generalship laid out for him he would have swung his next play to the right, but in an instant he noticed that the Yale defensive backs were out of position, and instantly changing his generalship he shot another play over to the left and away from the goal posts. It was so successful that it was an easy matter to send Dean on the third play over the line for the touchdown which was the only score of the day. Had Hyatt adhered to the original plan, he could not have been censured by the coaches, but from his position on the field he could see the flaw in Yale's defense far better than they, and thus violated the generalship and gained the victory. Truly an inconspicuous proceeding as far as those in the stands were concerned, but nevertheless an expression in the highest form of genius in football.

Another form of football genius is the finding of openings and the choosing of the path that leads to touchdowns. This sort of genius lies dormant now and then for a long period only to come to the surface in marvelous fashion as in the case of S. B. Thome, the great Yale broken field runner who at one time was not very promising, and in the case of F. M. Tibbott of Princeton, one of the uncauniest, tackle runners ever seen on the field. There was nothing in Tibbott's running that savored of strength or surface cleverness, but he had a way of slipping away from a tackier that troubled the best of them. Tibbott was a consistent scorer, even when his team was being beaten, while Thome did his great running against Princeton on a day when the Tigers were themselves in scoring mood. L. Stacy of the Army was another great runner who was a master hand at turning the ends, and had a peculiar " switching" style of crossing the field and shaking off tacklers that was sheer gift and never could have been acquired. Yet to-day hardly anyone ever hears of Stacy.