Varsity Eleven Practices Defense, Passing Attack for Buffalo Game

With the season's opener against Buffalo looming only three days distant, the varsity football team ended heavy practices for the week yesterday by concentrating on defensive work and brushing up on its passing attack.

The squad has shown heartening improvement since the early days of this month, and ominous gaps at several line positions three weeks ago have been plugged fairly tightly. The year's crop of sophomores, led by Bert Messenbaugh and Terry Lenzner in the line and Larry Repsher and Charlie Ravenel in the backfield, have been outstanding in this reinforcement effort.

Yet coach John Yovicsin feels that his second team, so largely manned by untried personnel, is still too inexperienced for the Crimson to adopt a two-platoon system. Though the substitution rule has been eased and Yovicsin had hoped that he would be able to use two separate units, he fears that his present second team might be overwhelmed by the strong, veteran squad that will be coming in from Buffalo. "We'd like to do it, but we just don't think we're in a position to," he said yesterday.

Though Buffalo is a fairly small college in a conference generally weaker than the Ivy League, its team has had winning seasons for several years and prides itself particularly on its defense. Yovicsin expects that, "they'll probably give us as good a game as many Ivy teams."