Method & Manpower

Coach Biggie Munn of Michigan State, whose football team has not lost a game since the fall of 1950, is a methodical man. On the wall of the Spartans' dressing room at East Lansing hangs a statement on Munn fundamentals which the team rereads before every home game: "Do not cheat your team or your teammates. Know your plays. Block. Protect. Add to what we are trying to do. [Signed] Biggie." Before every game, Coach Munn also calls his squad together for silent prayer. No one is supposed to pray for victory, but last week, with Michigan State trailing Texas Christian 19-7 going into the final quarter, even strict Coach Munn might have excused a slip of the lip.

On the line was Michigan State's unbeaten streak of 26 games, its ranking as No. 2 team in the U.S. (behind Notre Dame, idle last week). Needing two touchdowns to tie, Michigan State's team went to work. They got the first of their needed scores by intercepting a Texas Christian pass, then grinding out 69 yards in twelve plays. Moments later, they set up the second by pouncing on a fumble. Quarterback Tom Yewcic thereupon pitched a 34-yd. touchdown pass to Halfback Evan Slonac. Just to make sure, Slonac gathered in another T.C.U. pass, pounded away for another touchdown. Final score: 26-19.

Ponies & Heavyweights. As the Texas Christian players picked themselves off the turf after the Spartans' 19-point explosion, they might well have asked the old question: "What happened?" What happened essentially was that T.C.U. ran head-on into the Biggie Munn method: throw in plenty of fresh, first-class players. Munn uses a fast, "pony" backfield to run the enemy ragged, then bowls them over with hard-charging heavyweights. Even in the new era of limited substitutions (which Munn, an old friend of two platoons, deplores), Michigan State uses 35 or 40 almost equally proficient men a game.

Where does all this manpower come from? Much of it is home-grown Michigan talent, attracted by State's winning ways, a $3,500,000 athletic plant* and a big and diversified college (enrollment: 14,600). Some of Munn's best players have been mined from the football-rich hills of Pennsylvania, but even Michigan State's most envious detractors admit that the Spartans beat the bushes for talent no more fervently than a lot of other colleges.

Embarrassment of Riches. Biggie Munn himself, some ten pounds heavier than when he was a burly (5 ft. 9 in., 220 Ibs.) All-America guard at Minnesota two decades ago, is the magnet that draws much of the talent. Like most coaches, he drives his players hard in two-hour daily drills, but when drills are over, he does what few coaches ever have time for: he sits down to have dinner at the players' training table, gets to know his men off the field as well as on. Above all, Munn harps on the importance of loyalty to team and Michigan State. In return, Munn expects and gets loyalty, sometimes with an embarrassment of riches.

Recently a boosters' club known as the "Spartan Foundation" loyally raised $55,000 to disburse among deserving Michigan State athletes, mainly footballers. When the news came out, Michigan State, which had just been admitted to full-fledged Big Ten membership, was promptly put on probation by the conference. This fall, having wiped the probationary slate almost clean by acceptably accounting for all but $5,200, Michigan State has settled down to some solid new objectives: to

1) run its undefeated streak to 33 straight,

2) win the Big Ten title, and 3) bring the Midwest a victory in the Rose Bowl.

Other major football results:

Princeton, which played the first U.S. intercollegiate football game with Rutgers in 1869, beat Rutgers for the 41st time (four losses) with its third straight come-from-behind rally, 9-7; Georgia Tech ran its unbeaten streak to 30 games by whipping Tulane, 27-13 ; Maryland crushed Georgia, 40-13; and Southern California, ranked seventh, had to settle for a 13-13 tie with Washington, beaten two weeks ago by Michigan, 50-0. In Big Ten games, Michigan rallied with two touchdowns in the second half to edge Iowa, 14-13; Minnesota upset Northwestern, 30-13; and Illinois upended unbeaten Ohio State, 41-20.

* Each sports structure has a small sign in front telling taxpayers that none of their money was spent on it.

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