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.

Today's installment has a Wisconsin player preview, updates on Ohio State's roster, injuries and travel plans, The Williamson Rankings and an AP piece on how Paul Brown is successful.

Coach Paul Brown didn't have to give himself any pep talk last night to convince himself that this week's Buckeye football game at Madison, Wis., against the Badgers of Harry Stuhldreher will be far and away from a tea party.

First of all, Assistant Coach Paul Bixler returned to campus from scouting the Wisconsin team in its game with Purdue and dished out the flat statement " the Badgers, in my opinion, are the best-manned team in the Western Conference both in talent and in depth."

That statement, in addition to the reports that Ernie Godfrey brought back from earlier Badger games brought furrows to the brow of the Buckeye mentor. "This sophomore halfback, Elroy Hirsch, is the best sophomore I've seen since Chic Harley," Godfrey said, "even better than Michigan's great Tommy Harmon was when he was a sophomore."

Two things. One, Brown has learned not to send Tippy "I get lost" Dye on scouting trips. Two, Hirsch is getting incredible praise and might be the real deal.

Then Brown looked at the Wisconsin roster and again found reason for fear. Of last year's starting team all eleven men are back but five of them have not been on the first team this season. 

This either means that the Badgers are incredibly deep, or that the players from last year weren't very good. I'm erring on the side that the Badgers are deep.

Hawk delves into the Wisconsin lineup.

New Finds

The main additions have been the halfback, Hirsch, and the center, Fred Negus. Hirsch replaces last year's first-string man, Ben Seelinger, with plenty of room to spare. He is six feet, two inches tall and weighs 185 pounds, but still has the speed and elusiveness to rate the praise he is constantly receiving from opposing coaches and players who rate him as one of the most elusive backs in the conference.

Negus helps in another way. He is the offensive center and backs the line on defense. Bixler calls him "the best center I've seen this season at that job." He is  a201-pound specimen of manhood standing six feet, two inches in his stocking feet and is as rough as they come. When Negus moved in, he showed so much stuff that last year's center, Dick Thornally, was promptly moved to a tackle spot, where he is now a second-stringer.

It appears that Hirsch and Negus are going to be a handful for the Buckeyes.

Three other regulars are now riding the bench replaced by sophomores and by lettermen from last year's second team. Pay Lyons was the starting left end last year, ranked even with Bob Hanzlik at the start of the year, but last Saturday Farnham J. Johnson, an up-and-coming soph rated the starting call over both.

Pat Boyle was a first-string guard last year, but now he's marking time behind Evan Vogds while George Madris, the other guard in '41, is also riding the bench looking on and replacing Ken Currier, another of the sophomore stars.

That should be proof enough for any coach that the Badgers will be hard to beat and Brown realizes that as he prepares his team for "the toughest game we've had this season." 

The young Badgers sound reminiscent of an Ohio State team that will take the field in 26 years. 

Powerful Wisconsin duo are Pat Harder, fullback, and Dave Schreiner, Badger end, who was rated as one of the top ends in the Western Conference last year. Harder was the star in last week's game with Purdue, when his bruising drive battered the Boilermakers line 25 times for a total of 99 yards. He accounted for one of Purdue's two touchdowns.

Hawk now focuses on Ohio State and its practice.

The squad took its usual Monday evening workout last night, starting with a discussion of the Northwestern game after a look at the motion pictures and ending up with the preliminary plans for a defense to stop Hirsch, fullback Pat Harder, who last year led the Big Ten in scoring and ground gaining, and the other halfback, Mark Hoskins, who is a fine runner but is used mostly for blocking duties.

No Serious Injuries

 The brightest spot in the Buckeye camp was the fact that the team came out of the Wildcat team (game) without any serious injuries despite the fact that the game was a bruising one. No new injuries were reported at practice last night and the old hurts were healing so that it seems possible that Coach Brown will have his team at full strength for the first time this year when he invades the Badgers' home ground.

Ohio State is entering this game at full strength. If the team can make it through the week without any harm, it should be in great position to defeat Wisconsin.

Hawk now turns the reader's attention to the travel schedule.

The team will go from Columbus to Chicago on the same train they took for the Northwestern game and will then move on to Madison Friday morning with a workout scheduled for the afternoon. They will stay at the Park Hotel while they are in that city and will return to Columbus as soon as possible after the game.

The Buck task for this week is harder because of the fact that the Wisconsin offense is different from any the Ohio State team has faced so far. Stuhldreher has equipped his team with the T-formation, with the regular Notre Dame offense, and throws in a number of plays with a flanker or with a man in motion.

The team should have smooth sailing to Chicago as they already know that train and route. The travel from Chicago to Madison will be on a new train and will hopefully go as smoothly.

Variety Offense

This variety of offensive tactics backed by an outstanding personnel gives the Badgers an offense that is dangerous to any team they meet. Harder is the outstanding power man on the team, Hirsch passes, runs the ends, and cuts back powerfully over the center of the line, while Hoskins is a vicious blocker and a fast, hard runner with the ball.

That's what the Bucks will be up against this week and they're out to sharpen their best weapons to meet the test. "We'll be following the old saying this week by making our best even better," emphasized Brown, "and we know that that will have to be plenty good."

If Paul B. Williamson's national rating system is correct, Ohio State will lose to Wisconsin, Illinois and the Iowa Seahawks and only nose out Michigan after a tremendous battle.

Mr. Williamson's ratings this week place Ohio State 10th among the college teams in the nation with 95.2. Wisconsin is fifth with 97 and Illinois sixth with 96.4.

The Iowa Seahawks lead the service teams with 96.5 and Michigan is 15th among the college teams with 94.4. Pittsburgh, Ohio State's other remaining opponent, is tied for 41st among the college teams with 89.9.

A New York writer, Paul Scheffels, spoke to former high school coach Lawrence Gligor to try to get a glimpse into Paul Brown's world. Scheffels wants to know how Brown, a high school coach, was able to transition to the college game and find immediate success.

An extensive farm system, supposedly a fixture of major league baseball, has put the Ohio State Buckeyes on the top shelf in the national football picture.

Sharing the national spotlight with Ohio State's talented aggregation today is Paul Brown, former Massillon, O., high school coach who took over the Buckeye coach last year and now ranks as one of the most able mentors in the land.

Ensign Lawrence Gligor of the Coast Guard, a former coaching rival at Alliance, O., said Brown served as a model for 700 high school football coaches in the state who are out to prove that scholastic coaches can move into college ranks successfully. 

Great Record

Brown became coach at Massillon High in 1932 and in nine years his teams won 80 games, lost eight and tied two---going through five campaigns undefeated. When he left, Massillon had registered 33 consecutive victories.

"To illustrate how the rest of Ohio gunned for this red-hot high school team," Gligor said, "one coach lost only four games in three years---but three of them were to Brown and Massillon, and he lost his job."

Gligor, who is stationed at the Manhattan Coast Guard Training Station, said that Brown's appointment to guide the Buckeyes was a triumph for the other high school coaches.

"We wanted to bridge the gap between high school and college coaches," he said. "It shatters precedent and can lead to better things for all fellows in that category."

Gligor goes on to describe how Brown and Ohio State owned recruiting in the 1940s.

And the rest of the coaches in the Ohio high school association are not letting the opportunity slip. Most all of them are measuring their best players for Ohio State uniforms, he said.

"Without any proselyting, the boys are advised to go to Ohio State," Gligor said. "The coaches select the boys, in and out of the state, and the list is turned over to Ohio State. Then Brown can take his pick.  

Some Get Away

"Of course, a few get away. Frankie Sinkwich went to Georgia before our system began to function, and then there are such men as Eddie Prokop and Clint Castleberry, who landed at Georgia Tech. But it won't happen in the future."

Since Brown took over at Ohio State, his teams have won six against, one defeat and one tie last year and have racked up five in a row this season.

"He's a stickler for fundamentals," Gligor explained. "He believes in speed and perfect condition. He also know how to handle the downtown Columbus quarterbacks. He just builds up the opposition---and then knocks them down on the field."

Paul Brown was building walls around Ohio before Jim Tressel was born. The great coach didn't play the recruiting game, he owned it.

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