Harvard-UMass Game Today Opens Season

The college football coaches who spend the off-season months trying to make the substitution rule more and more confusing have outdone themselves this year.

They have come up with a rule which attempts to bar the use of specialized offensive and defensive teams by banning free substitution when the ball changes hands. Coaches are permitted to send in only two substitutions on fourth-down plays, or on the first play after the ball changes hand. At any other time they may substitute freely, provided the clock has been stopped.

Since no coach wants to be forced to use a group of offensive specialists on defense, even for one play, the new rule has eliminated the "three-team system" used last year by Harvard and most other college teams. The three-squad plan relied on teams of offensive and defensive specialists to relieve the regulars when they tired. Under last year's rules a team could shuttle its specialists in and out of the game when the ball changed hands. This year it's impossible.

The Ivy League coaches, as confused as everyone else by the new rule, asked the NCAA to let Ivy schools use free substitution in their league games. But the NCAA turned the idea down, and the new rule will be in use today.

There are a couple of other rules changes, too. A T-formation quarterback is now eligible to receive a forward pass, which wasn't always the case. Four time outs, instead of five, are given to each team in each half.