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.

Ohio State's Paul Brown perched cross-legged on a dressing-room table, shoved his battered felt hat back on his head, unwrapped his last stick of chewing gum. His shoes were mud-crusted; his trousers splashed with mud up to his knees. He looked at his feet.

"were you ever as muddy as that and not give a darn?" he asked. "Wonderful, isn't it?"

The remainder of the after-the-game talk was in the same jubilant, somewhat vague vein. Paul and his boys had seen a dream come true, and they were still deliriously happy over mauling mighty Michigan, 21-7.

"We won. That's all that matters," said Brown. "We laid our plans to come to our peak today. Michigan had the misfortune to have Notre Dame on its schedule a week earlier and they had to come up for that one.

"But Michigan is the best team we've played this year. Crisler (the Wolverine coach) was fair and fine after the game just as he always is. He's really high class." Brown paused thoughtfully. "You know," he said with his boyish grin, "if I could grow up to be just like him---well, I'd settle for that."

Asked about individual players, the Buckeye boss said:

"That's a tough question. Shaw played a beautiful game. Houston was all man out there today. Lynn's quarterbacking was superb, Sarringhaus was swell---oh, they were all superb. You can't single out individuals. I'll bet if you ask the boys they won't be able to tell you who scored or who this or that. All they'll say is 'We won.' And that's all that matters.

"Me? I didn't do a thing. The boys did it. All I did was sit back and watch the ball game," and he grinned gleefully.

Brown was feeling great after the game. What was the mood like with Crisler and the Wolverines?

H.O. "Fritz" Crisler, Michigan's mentor, wasn't in a talkative mood. He was courteous but restrained and obviously disappointed. "Ohio State had a fine team. They got most of the breaks but they made the most of those breaks themselves and they took advantage of every one," summed up his statement. The Wolverines straggled into their dressing room, waded knee-deep in gloom.

The scene in the Ohio tower was about what you'd expect. Alumni who hadn't visited the boys in years were there slapping backs and squeezing hands. The ball players were shouting, singing, capering. Coach Brown was swamped with well-wishers. He and his boys had not only won a championship, but more important they had taken Michigan.

"We've waited five years for this," sighed one alumni, "and I'm still not sure it's really happened."

Next week?

Neither Coach Brown nor his team was in any mood to worry over what might happen with the Seahawks. "We've worked for this one today for a long time," Brown said. "We've won it. I have no idea what will happen next Saturday; we might get beat 100 to 0."

And next Saturday didn't matter yesterday. Brown and his champs were having their moment of grand glory; and they were quite properly wallowing in it.

Ironically, on the day that Coach Brown won his first Western Conference championship his old high school that brought him fame lost a game. Canton McKinley walloped Massillon, 35-0. It was as the Massillon coach that Brown gained a state-wide reputation, and from there leaped directly into the big time at Ohio State and in two years was now at the top of the heap in what is generally conceded to be the toughest football league in the nation.

Immediately after the game, Johnny White, Ohio State's end, rushed across the field and threw his arms around Paul White, his brother and one of Michigan's backfield stars. It had been brother against brother all afternoon, and more than once they had smacked into each other, but hard. Gene Fekete also trotted across the gridiron, shook hands with Paul White.

If Ohio State's Paul Brown isn't named coach of the year this year I'm going to demand a recount.

It was only two years ago this fall that I drove to Massillon to see Paul Brown's high school team defeat Toledo Waite in a game supposed to have something to do with settling the mythical Ohio high school championship.

What I saw that game led me to write, the next day: "Some of these days some college is going to get one swell coach when it signs Paul Brown."

Francis Schmidt "resigned" as Ohio State coach. After a lot of debate and conferring with this candidate and that Paul Brown was signed as his successor.

In 1941 his first Ohio State team won six, lost one, tied one. 

This year his second Ohio State team won eight, lost one and has one more to play on as tough a schedule as an Ohio State team has ever faced. It has the Western Conference championship cinched. It's the fifth time Ohio State has won a conference championship and the Buckeyes have been in the fastest and toughest conference in college football since 1913. 

At the start of the season Paul's Buckeyes weren't supposed to have a chance. They were outsiders in all the pre-season predictions.

They'd lost too many key men from last year. They weren't supposed to have adequate replacements. They were facing too tough a schedule.

But the Bucks started out making the best of it, playing hard football, fighting football, smart football, well-conditioned football, Paul Brown football.

Today they have the Western Conference title in their pocket. That title is the result of magnificent inspirational leadership by as fine a coach and as fine a guy as I've ever contacted. 

If he isn't named coach of the year it will be because the cards are stacked.

Maybe the Rose Bowl

Don't be surprised if one of these days Ohio State gets and accepts a bid to play the Pacific Coast champions in the Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, Cal., on Jan. 1, 1943.

It may not come. In fact it won't come unless the folks who run the Rose Bowl game are assured Ohio State will accept if invited.

But for years they've wanted an agreement with the Western Conference whereby the annual champions of the collegiate football world's toughest loop would meet the coast champions in the annual Rose Bowl classic.

That's right boys. At this point in time the Big Ten and Pac Ten did not have the agreement with the Rose Bowl. More astounding is that there was doubt in the minds of the Rose Bowl committee members on if Ohio State would go.

Why was there doubt?

And for years enough of the faculty advisors who dictate the policies of Western Conference schools in athletics have been opposed to make it impossible for such an agreement to be made.

That might happen again this year. If it does the bid will never come and if it did come Ohio State would not accept becuase Ohio State would not, under any circumstances, jeaopardize membership in the fine organization which is the Western Conference.

Ohio State's Athletic Director L. W. St. John and Ohio State's Coach Paul Brown would probably refuse to comment on the Rose Bowl possibilities if asked for a statement.

After all, you don't say publicly whether or not you'd accept an invitation you may never get.

But if I know Saint and Paul, and I think I do, they'd love to have this year's Ohio State team playing in the Rose Bowl.

And with war conditions what they are it's possible that the conservatives in the conference faculty group will forget their prejudices and let Ohio State accept if invited. 

The last time a Western Conference team played in the Rose Bowl game was on Jan. 1, 1921. The Buckeyes had won the 1920 championship in the Western Conference that year.

They lost to California's Golden Bears, coached by Andy Smith, 28-0.

Which may be one of the reasons why conference bigwigs have been reluctant to see teams from their group play in the annual classic.

Could you imagine the 11W boards if this conference committee still had the power to keep Ohio State from playing in the Rose Bowl. Oh wait, that kind of happened to the 2015 team when CFP committee regulated the best team in college football that year to the Fiesta Bowl to play sorry-ass Notre Dame.

It Finally Happened

We long-time followers of Ohio State are even happier than most over the 21-7 victory over Michigan which won the Western Conference championship for the Buckeyes yesterday.

So often, too often, we'd seen Ohio State teams fail in that big moment with the eyes of the sport world upon them, the big-shot writers and radio commentators covering their activity. 

The first time was Jan. 1, 1921, when they lost the Rose Bowl game to California, 28-0.

Then there was the trek to Princeton, that 1926 Michigan game, the first invasion of Pittsburgh, the 1935 game with Notre Dame, the first two games with Southern California, that 1939 game with Michigan when the last Buckeye conference champions lost to the Wolverines.

Always, when the big moment came, something seemed to be lacking.

It wasn't lacking yesterday. The Bucks won their game and won their championship. And they won it like champions.

Even the most prejudiced anti-Ohio Stater could find little wrong with the Bucks as they were yesterday, as winners, as football players, as sportsmen and as gentlemen.

I'm sorry to say I'm not an Ohio State alumnus. I'd be proud to be one today.