The spinner | |
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It was in the 1924 season that Rockne first saw "the spinner" used in the game Notre Dame versus "Pop" Warner´s Stanford. And It made him a bit thoughtful. Some time afterwards, when he had a meeting with Dick Hanley and Charles Bachman in the Cansas City Ath. Club, he talked at lenght of "the spinner". "Pop´s got something in that, but I´m going on further with it. Half spinners and full spinners are just a start. I´ll guess I´ll have to develop double spinners".
He was joking then, or so it seemed to his audience, who laughed politely. But the year 1930 saw Notre Dame actually execute a play which amounted to a double spinner.
Southern California was the victim, and for days afterwards coaches and authors were still attempting to describe what had happened in a play in which, it seemed, all the Notre Dame forces save Rockne had been handling the ball before Carideo finally started the run forward with it while most of the Trojans were chasing, tackling, or bumping Notre Dame players yards away from the ball.
Rockne saw more of "the spinner", and what he didn´t see he heard about in the disastrous adventure with Carnegie Tech in 1926 and 1928. Wally Steffen persisted in bringing an end around, to complicate matters some more, with "the spinner", and two of the few complete and conclusive trouncings Notre Dame teams under Rockne ever suffered were the result of this.
His 1928 team, which lost four games, saw the preliminary appearences of the great backfield which was well nigh unstoppable in 1929 and 1930. "Never", said Rockne, "have I coached men who fought harder, or played more daringly when the game was going against them. They never ceased to fight even when their case was hopeless and defeat inevitable".
The culimination with Rockne´s attempte to create a new offence with "the spinner", and the reverse and fake reverse interspersed with the basic value of "the shift", was delayed in 1929 by his illness.
He had begun to work out his plan of attack, and he had demonstrated some of it. His last year found the change - and it was a change - working to perfection.
His team began piling up large scores, and appeared to be using few plays to do it. Practically all the games down to the last few on the schedule were decided by a running attack, and each time out the team looked more impressive.
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