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The 1942 Season Through The Words Of The Past, 10/18/1942

Matt Gutridge's picture
October 19, 2017 at 6:17am
2 Comments
10/19/42

2017 is the 75th anniversary of Ohio State's first national championship season. To honor the achievement, this series will post articles from the Columbus Citizen Journal on the day they ran in 1942.

Following the 26-0 victory over Purdue, Paul Brown and his Buckeyes turned their attention to Northwestern. Brown is on the cusp of exacting revenge on the team that gave his '41 squad its only setback.

Today's offering gives a quick preview of Northwestern, what Ohio State needs to do to beat the Wildcats, Lew Byrer's musings, the latest AP Poll and a couple of surprising ties to 10TV WBNS. 

Ohio Win

Coach Paul Brown begins work tonight for the first game of the 1942 season away from Buckeye soil hoping that the Ohio State football team may chalk up its fifth straight win of the season and that Brown himself may settle a year-old score with Lynn Waldorf, coach of the Northwestern Wildcats.

Last year, "Pappy" came into town with a crowd of the fastest-stepping backs seen in many years at Ohio Stadium headed by Bill deCorrevont and Don Clawson and smeared the only black smudge on Brown's first year at the helm at Ohio State by dishing out a 14-7 whipping.

"We've been waiting for this game a year now." Brown said after the Purdue hurdle was passed, "and we'll be out there to win it if we don't win another all season."

If I didn't know better, Brown's last sentence read like he views Northwestern as a bigger game than Michigan. 

Hawk now turns his attention to the Northwestern team Ohio State will play.

Things Are Changed

Waldorf is now in a different position from that he enjoyed last year. Only four men who started in the season's finale are back in action with the result that the Wildcat mentor has had to turn the heavy duty over to last year's reserves and to many sophomores.

Returning from last year's team are four men who rate among the best in the conference at their positions, however, Captain Nick Burke is a solid rock at one guard, Otto Graham is as great a triple-threater as deCorrevont ever was, and Bob Motl and Bud Hasse rate as probably the best pair of ends in the conference on paper.

Needs New Fullback

The big job for Waldorf was finding a replacement for his two smashing fullbacks, Don Clawson and George Benson. The job fell to a third-stringer of last season, Ed Hirsch and he has turned out to be one of the most improved men on the squad filling the shoes of his predecessors in ample fashion. He won his letter last year when he packed the ball 49 times for 235 yards, an average of 4.7 yards per try.

The team has looked both good and bad during the season. The first game was with the Iowa Seahawks and the servicemen won but only by a one-touchdown margin, 20-12. Then Texas, rated as the class of the southwest before the start of the season, was stopped completely and handed a 3-0 loss. The last two game have been bad ones for the Wildcats, Purdue winning 7-6 two weeks ago and Michigan smothering the Purple 34-16 last Saturday.

Bucks' Game Easy

The Bucks, meanwhile, had a fairly easy time against the Boilermakers, came out of the contest without a serious injury, and will be rearing to go again this Saturday.

The team will start with a look at the pictures of the Purdue game tonight and will then be given the plans for the offense and defense to be used against Northwestern and the modified T-formation that Waldorf has cooked up in order that he may take advantage of all the speed in his backfield.

Passes Dangerous

One weapon the Bucks will have to stop is an ever-dangerous Wildcat aerial attack. Graham served notice last season that he is as sharp a passer as Ohio State teams have met in recent years and he will have a pair of good targets.

Motl starts at left end where he has bee a fixture for two seasons. He is a good six-foot two-inches tall, weight 192 pounds, and has won All-Conference recognition. Hasse at the right flank is also a third-year starter at his position, is as tall as Moll but not so heavy, weighing 175 pounds. He too, is an excellent pass-receiver and one of the steadiest, most effective players on the squad.

Lew Byrer

Bernie Bierman knows today how Francis Schmidt felt back in 1935 after his Buckeyes had met Notre Dame.

Ohio had the better team on paper, that day. Ohio even dominated play for the first half and had a commanding lead at the halfway mark. But when it was all over it was Notre Dame 18, Ohio State 13 and some of the Buckeyes and their followers are still wondering seven years later what happened.

Byrer went on to describe Notre Dame's 28-0 victory over Iowa Pre-Flight and how the Irish benefited from the Seahawks coming off of three grueling games in a row. He finished his opening piece with this thought:

Whatever overconfidence the Seahawks had is gone now. They'll bounce. And they'll be plenty tough on Nov. 28 when they help the Bucks wind up the 1942 season in Ohio Stadium.

Little did Byrer know how important the game against Iowa Pre-Flight would be for the '42 Buckeyes.

Other Looming Threats

There are other things for the Bucks to worry about today as they start preparations to meet a thrice-defeated Northwestern team next Saturday at Evanston.

Northwestern lost to Michigan Saturday 34-to-16. That would seem to indicate an easy Ohio State victory---coupled with the fact that Purdue defeated Northwestern 7-to-6 one week ago Saturday and Ohio State won from Purdue 26-0 Saturday.

But do you remember any recent easy Ohio State victories over Northwestern? And did you read the description of the Northwestern-Michigan game?

Northwestern showed a lot of offensive power against the Wolverines. Northwestern made 16 first downs to Michigan's 13. The net yards gained were the same.

The Wolverines---as they have done so often in the past---crashed through when successful plays meant scores. But the Wildcats fought back to score 13 of their 16 points late in the fourth quarter.

They'll be fighting and fighting mad Saturday.

The Wildcat record for the season: Iowa Seahawks 20, Northwestern 12; Northwestern 3, Texas 0; Purdue 7, Northwestern 0; Michigan 34, Northwestern 16.

Ohio State's record for the season: Ohio State 59, Ft. Knox 0; Ohio State 32, Indiana 21; Ohio State 28, Southern California 12; Ohio State 26, Purdue 0.

The Complete Record Follows:
YEAR OSU NWST
1913 58 0
1914 27 0
1915 34 0
1916 23 3
1917 40 0
1927 13 19
1928 10 0
1929 6 18
1930 2 19
1931 0 10
1932 20 6
1933 12 0
1934 28 6
1935 28 7
1936 13 14
1937 7 0
1938 0 0
1939 13 0
1940 3 6
1941 7 14
TOTALS 344 122

Northwestern is a talented team, but have lost some tough games. Ohio State could be in trouble If the Wildcats play good football for four quarters. Byrer then turned his attention to the Buckeyes' opponent after traveling to Evanston.

And then there's Wisconsin at Wisconsin the following Saturday. Wisconsin defeated the Great Lakes 13-7 Saturday. In other games this this season Wisconsin has won from Camp Grant 7-0, tied Notre Dame 7-7, won from Marquette 35-7. The Badgers will be plenty tough.

Pitt, Ohio State's opponent three weeks hence, lost to Indiana, 19-7. But Illinois, their following week's foe, won from Iowa, 12-7, and Michigan, home-coming opponent won from Northwestern 34-15.

The schedule isn't going to get easier for Ohio State as the season closes its second half. Byrer turns his attention back to the Northwestern series.

Brown's One Defeat

Paul Brown's one defeat since taking over the reins as Ohio State's head coach was a 14-to-7 setback at the hands of Northwestern last season. In 12 games under Brown direction Ohio State has now won 10, lost one and tied one.

Which is one reason the Bucks will be keyed up Saturday against the Wildcats.

Another is that Northwestern is the only team to defeat Ohio State both in 1940 and 1941. The 1940 score was Northwestern 6, Ohio State 3.

The Wildcats hold an edge in their last six games against the Buckeyes. The two schools are even in their last 16 football battles.

In the 20 games in the series which started in 1913, Ohio State has won 12, Northwestern 7 and one has resulted in a tie.

Ohio, Alabama
AP POLL 10/19/1942
RANK TEAM RECORD (1 VOTES)
1 OHIO STATE 4–0 (58)
2 GEORGIA 5–0 (38)
3 ALABAMA 4–0 (8)
4 MICHIGAN 3–1 (2)
5 ILLINOIS 4–0 (1)
6 GEORGIA TECH 4–0 (1)
7 WISCONSIN 4–0–1 (2)
8 NOTRE DAME 2–1–1 (3)
9 SANTA CLARA 4–0 (2)
10 BOSTON COLLEGE 3–0 (4)
11 ARMY 3–0
12 TCU 4–0
13 MINNESOTA 2–2 
14 UCLA 2–2 
15 TEXAS 4–1
16 MISSISSIPPI STATE 2–2
17 PENN 2–1–1
17 TENNESSEE 2–1–1
19 NORTH CAROLINA 3–0–1
20 SYRACUSE 4–0

The second AP Poll was released and the Buckeyes' performance against Purdue was enough to earn the team the No. 1 ranking. 

Ohio State's Buckeyes and Alabama's Crimson Tide stood at the top of the national collegiate heap today after another unpredictable week-end which left only 12 major teams with perfect records.

The list of unbeaten and untied clubs was slashed by more than one-third Saturday as seven teams suffered their first setbacks to leave the following clubs with clean slates:

East---Army, Boston College, Brown and Syracuse.

South---Alabama, Georgia, Georgia Tech and TCU

Mid-West---Ohio State and Illinois

West---Santa Clara and California Pre-Flight.

Six other undefeated but tied are Washington, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgetown, Penn State and Georgia Pre-Flight.

Looking at the list of undefeated teams, Brown, California Pre-Flight and Santa Clara are the ones that look like they don't belong. 

Buried in Fraley's article was this about Ohio State's game against Purdue:

Ohio State rolled on with a triumph over Purdue as other Big Ten battles saw Illinois outlast Iowa, 12-7, and Michigan pound Northwestern, 34-16. Minnesota came back with a 15-2 win over Nebraska and Marquette downed Michigan State 28-7.

5 Surprises 10/19/1942 AP Poll

  1. Ohio State picked up an extra 46 first-place votes from Week 1 to Week 2 and takes the top spot away from Georgia.
  2. Notre Dame was unranked the week before, but climbs to No. 8 after beating the Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks.
  3. Minnesota is the highest ranked team with 2 losses.
  4. Syracuse is 4–0, but is Santa Clara and Penn.
  5. The Big Ten has five teams in the top 15. 

In other sports news, Babe Ruth has taken a liking to golf...and he is good at it.

Babe Ruth

Craig Wood, National Open golf champion, and Babe Ruth, home run king, turned in a combined 18-hole score of 136 to tie with Sgt. Vic Ghezzi, former PGA titleholder, and Mark Stuart, Metropolitan champion, in an Army emergency relief exhibition match yesterday.

Wood topped the field with a five-under-par 66 while Ruth carded 70. Ghezzi registered 69 and Stuart 67.

Ruth, for years baseball's home run king, has devoted much of his time to golf since his retirement from active baseball. He plays golf as he batted---left handed---hits terrific tee shots.

The cartoon picture that was next to the Ruth article was about Dominic Tiberi, the head coach of St. Charles. I wonder if Dominic Tiberi is related to 10tv's Dom Tiberi? I would venture to guess yes, but cannot confirm the family relation.

 

 

Today's Old Time Alcohol Ad

Gambrinus Beer

Gambrinus Beer went with a simple ad with a simple message, "It pleases everyone." I also like that they use the tag line, "The Beer Your Daddy Drank."  

SUCCESS

In any line of endeavor means a constant effort to please:

That's why

Gambrinus Beer

has long been a favorite! It pleases everyone.

Try it today...you'll like it!

AUGUST WAGNER BREWERIES, INC.

THE BEER YOUR DADDY DRANK

Jonathan Winters

Jonathan Winters (pictured to the right) was featured in commercials on WBNS 10TV in the '50s to sell Gambrinus Beer. August Wagner Breweries was eventually sold to Pittsburgh Brewing Company. Wagner was born in Bavaria.

Winters spent his formative years at WBNS before eventually leaving for New York. When he was in Columbus, he was known as Johnny Winters.

Below is an interview with Don Riggs sharing stories of Jonathan Winters at Channel 10 and how Winters made it to New York.

 

 

 

 

 

Previous Articles
OPPONENT PREVIEW PREVIEW PREVIEW PREVIEW GAME pics GAME RECAP
FT. KNOX 9/22/42 9/23/42 9/24/42 9/25/42 9/26/42 9/27/42  
INDIANA 10/1/42 10/2/42 10/3/42     10/4/42  
USC 10/5/42 10/6/42 10/7/42 10/8/42 10/9/42 10/10/42 10/11/42
PURDUE 10/12/42 10/13/42 10/14/42 10/15/42 10/16/42 10/17/42 10/18/42

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