Word: blaik
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...eleven months Coach Earl Blaik of Army had been obsessed with one thought: beat Michigan. His scouts had charted Michigan's last two games of 1948 and brought their G-2 reports to headquarters atop the gym at West Point. Movies of two previous Army-Michigan games (in 1945-46) were not enough for the campaign that Blaik planned. He rounded up newsreels of Michigan playing other teams and spent much of the winter studying them in slow-motion with his staff of assistants...
...interrelated maneuvers which football savants describe by such terms as "angles," "loops," "converging" and "dealing in." If Army could unscramble the pattern so as to sense, a few seconds in advance, what combinations Michigan was likely to use in certain situations, it would give the team a priceless edge. Blaik cracked the code thoroughly enough to devote most of spring and autumn practice to drilling his boys in Michiganisms...
...field at West Point, Blaik's offensive unit blocked against Michigan defense until it began to look as if Army was going to play a one-game schedule in 1949. From studying movies, Blaik learned that 230-lb. Alvin Wistert, Michigan's All-America tackle, stood solid as a steel lamppost against high blocks but fell "like a shock of wheat" before low ones. On another field, Blaik's defense unit drilled against Michigan pass plays until even the bystanders got tired of watching...
Last step in Blaik's plan was to bring the Army team to a physical and emotional peak between the hours of 2 and 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 8. He did, although two defensive guards and Fullback Gil Stephenson, his star ballcarrier, were nursing injuries. Then the players were on their own, blocking and tackling fiercely, while Blaik watched tensely from the sideline, burning up nervous energy. Between the halves, he wandered calmly among his athletes, making a quiet suggestion here & there...
...game was rugged all the way, with post-whistle blocking, big pileups, and flaring tempers consistent features of the second half especially. Coach Blaik of Army said afterwards that he didn't consider the game too rough!" but Army was penalized 120 yards to Harvard...