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.

In Today's Paper:

• Don Hawk looks at the coaches in Saturday's game, compares the lines and gives details of the Seahawks' big uglies.
• Paul Brown wins coach of the week honors from the United Press.
• Ohio State moves up in the Williamson Ratings.
• Lew Byrer looks at attendance numbers and addresses a letter wanting Ohio State and Wisconsin to play again.

It'll be the old story Saturday---the big toughies against the small, clean, hard-hitting youngsters---when Ohio State's Big Ten champs and the Iowa City Seahawks tangle in Ohio Stadium.

The coaches are opposites in mannerisms and types of play they teach. Bernie Bierman is a whit-haired sage, a veteran at big-time football coaching. Beside him the Buckeyes' Paul Brown is just a kid who has yet to shave the adolescent fuzz off his cheek. But that's in age only.

Whiler Bierman can point to his years at Minnesota---six conference championships in eight years as something to be proud of---Brown can point to his high school record; his 14 victories, two losses and one tie in one of the toughest of collegiate football circles; and most of all to the Big Ten crown he racked up less than two years after he entered the college circles.

Both Like Fundamentals

The secret of success for each of the two coaches is the fundamental foundation upon which they build their teams---sounder blockers, sharper tacklers, more precise timing and harder hitting teams just aren't put together.

But there the similarity in the type of play of these two teams stops. The Seahawks are veterans of college and professional gridiron campaigns. In age they will be from three to seven years ahead of the Bucks. In weight, the sailors will have a 10-pound advantage on the line and an 18-pound advantage in the backfield.

The Bucks have a record for the season of having a powerful ground attack. That attack is built upon speed alone. 

The Bucks have whipped linemen all season that were bigger but they've done it on speed in the charge and in getting into good blocking positions---their technique in applying blocks has been superb. But the point is that they are not huge men who can lean on the other line and their weight alone will open a hole.

Seahawks Have Weight

The Seahawks' main advantage on the line, on the other hand, is weight. They're all big fellows who are not at all slow on their feet but who depend largely on the things they have learned through experience---plus their tremendous bulk to get results.

The Bucks this week will be meeting a team that is just as well-conditioned as they are. The Seahawks get hard work in huge doses at the pre-flight training school and get plenty of football work under the watchful eye of Bierman so that they just can't help being in good physical shape no matter what they do off the field.

The Ohio State team, on the other hand, doesn't get so much hard work in a physical sense as do the Seahawks but the individual gridders take personal responsibility for being in good shape for every game.

Here's Lineup

A look at the starting line for the visiting team shows the tremendous amount of weight. At the ends are Ray Antil, a 200-pound ex-Minnesota great, and Mal Kutner, 194-pound All-American from Texas. Harlin Fraumann, Michigan's great wingman of a couple seasons back, is a third-stringer.

At the tackles are Charley Ream, 235-pound Ohio State alumnus who has been out of football for several years but who came back quickly when he joined the Seahawk squad, and Charley Schultz, 240 pounds, Minnesota, fresh from four years with the Green Bay Packers.

Guards are Gene Flick, Minnesota's great center of last year, and Fred Gage, 210-pound star who made the All-Big Ten teams while at Wisconsin and who has been playing for the Green Bay team for the last several years. John Kulblitski, 222 pounds, is only a second stringer after his days with the Packers beside Gage.

The center is George Svendsen, biggest man in the starting lineup. He is a six-foot four-inch giant weighing 245 pounds who starred as a Minnesota players and who has been the Green Bay center for five years. He is backed by Johnny Haman who was an All-Big Ten center before going from Northwestern to the Detroit Lions.

That's the line---big, rugged and experienced in years of collegiate and professional football.

The Buckeyes appear to be up against it as they will face men several years older and men who played professional football.

 

Williamson System Top 25

RANK	TEAM	MOVEMENT
1	GEORGIA TECH	(+2)
2	BOSTON COLLEGE
3	TULSA	(+1)
4	WISCONSIN
5	OHIO STATE	(+2)
6	GEORGIA	(-5)
7	ALABAMA	(+1)
8	MICHIGAN	(-3)
9	MISSISSIPPI STATE	(+3)
10	NOTRE DAME	(-1)
11	TENNESSEE
12	WASHINGTON STATE	(+1)
13	AUBURN	(+8)
14	ILLINOIS
15	TEXAS
16	INDIANA
17	WILLIAM & MARY
18	TULANE	(NR)
19	PENN STATE	(-1)
20	RICE	(NR)
21	MARQUETTE	(-11)
22	MINNESOTA	(-3)
23	NAVY
24	HARDIN-SIM	(-4)
25	LSU	(-1)

 

 

 

 

Georgia dropped from first to sixth, Georgia Tech advanced to No. 1, Wisconsin advanced to No. 4 and Ohio State to No. 5 as a result of Saturday's games, according to the ratings of Paul B. Williamson.

Mr. Williamson picks Ohio State over the Iowa Seahawks Saturday by a shade and Navy over Army also by a shade in the big service game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He wasn't good enough for the school as a player but as its head football coach he'll do.

Because he made good at a "coach's graveyard" and, when only two years out of high school coaching ranks won a Western Conference championship, the United Press selects its coach of the week Paul Eugene Brown of Ohio State.

His team won the title in the toughest football circuit in the land Saturday when it whipped Michigan and today out in the Midwest they are booming him as the coach of the year.

It is a pretty far cry from the skinny guy who left the Ohio State campus for Miami University at Oxford, O., after he wasn't given a chance to show his ability when he went out for freshman football because he was "too small."

Made Grade at Miami

He made the grade at Miami and became what George Rider, veteran Miami coach, characterized a "one of the smallest and yet smartest quarterbacks I've ever seen. When he played for us he had legs like gas pipes."

After he graduated from Miami, Brown coached for two years at Severn, Md., Academy, where his teams won 15 games and lost one. In 1932 he went to Massillon as coach of the high school football team there. He inherited a losing, dispirited team, a run-down athletic plant, and an athletic deficit of $37,000.

But it didn't take him long to overcome those handicaps. In nine seasons his teams won 81 games while losing six and tieing two. A modern stadium was constructed and before he left the high school was outdrawing every college team in Ohio, except Ohio State. In 1940, his final year, Massillon played to 180,000 fans in 10 games.

Brown "Boom" Started

When Francis A. Schmidt "resigned" after the disastrous 1940 season, the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association began a Brown boom. They held meetings all over the state, each one wrote to L. W. St. John, athletic director, advocating Brown's appointment and promising that if Brown were given the position they would do everything they could to send him their outstanding players.

It worked and the high school coaches have made good on their promise. They now form a sort of recruiting system for Brown and Ohio State.

Brown's first season was a successful one, his team winning six games, losing one and tieing (sic) one. He had taken over a disgruntled squad accustomed to doing things its own way and when it pleased. Brown changed all of that, and in a hurry. When one player who had played for him at Massillon broke from training, Brown dismissed him from the squad. The players quickly learned that Brown meant what he said but that he was a fair taskmaster.

1942 Team "Sub-Par"

Graduation riddled that team. The squad which reported this season was regarded as sub-par and the Buckeyes were ranged as possible fourth place finishers.

But Brown went to work with his system, his squad knew what he demanded and he was ready to provide it. "This is my kind of team," he said. "Every kid on it is a swell youngster. I never have to worry about breaking training or anything like that. They want to play football and will sacrifice the things that are necessary to do it.

Play football and they did. They were upset by Wisconsin, but they defeated Fort Knox, Indiana, Southern California, Purdue, Northwestern, Pittsburgh, Illinois and Michigan and have the Iowa Seahawks left to go. Outside the Big Ten, few teams in the country face schedules like that.

Brown's greatest attribute is his gift of organization. Each practice session is planned in advance and then run off with clock-like precision.

Lew Byrer opens today's piece with some words about a Columbus baseball player, "Billy the Kid" Southworth, but we'll skip that and go directly to his words on Ohio State.

Need 50,000 Fans

Ohio State needs 50,000 fans at the Iowa Seahawks game Saturday to surpass last season's all-time attendance record of 486,468 fans. 

Present indications at the Buckeye ticket office is at Saturday's attendance will fall considerably short of that.

Part of the reason is the Thanksgiving holiday. Another part is the fact that the game seems an anit-climax after Saturday's title-winning clash with Michigan. Another part is that Columbus fans have come to expect freezing cold weather after Thanksgiving games.

But considering transportation difficulties Ohio State has drawn remarkably well this year. If transportation hadn't been rough the half-million mark might have been reached. As an example last year's Purdue crowd was 66,000 and this year's 45,943. Some 31,000 youngsters saw the two games to which high school kids were invited last year and only about 11,000 turned out for the two corresponding games this year. Use of school buses was barred and the youngsters just couldn't get here for the games.

Ft. Knox drew 22,555 here. (A full house which wasn't a full house.)

Indiana drew 48,527, Southern California 56,436, Purdue 45,943, Pittsburgh 34,893, Michigan 71,896. Ohio State drew 41,000 at Northwestern, 48,000 at Wisconsin and 68,565 against Illinois at Cleveland.

Wants Buck-Badger Game

A letter from "D.C.," who asks that his name be witheld, suggests that Ohio State and Wisconsin meet in a post-season game to decide the argument over which is the better team.

The letter follows:

"Regarding the apparent differences on the positions of Ohio State and Wisconsin in the final Big Nine standing and considering that Ohio State and the Badgers played an unbalanced schedule why not help arrange a post-season game between the two teams for a USO benefit or some other worthy cause.

"Ohio State DID win the title and we're all happy here about that. But a return game between these two great teams would be a natural.

"We all know that the conference frowns on post-season stuff. Bit in a case such as this with proceeds going to the war effort don't you think the conference heads would be OFF in passing unfavorably on it?

"I doubt if Harry Stuhldreher, or any Wisconsin officials, would refuse a challenge for a game of this kind. The arguments to provide such a game are plentiful. Besides the schedule difference there would be the fact that Harder and Schreiner of the Badgers and Fekete, Sarringhaus, Horvath, Lynn, James & Co., will never meet again on a college gridiron because of future schedules and graduation.

"It's just a thought, Lew, but you and Mr. Gus Phan and myself would kick each other in the teeth to see it and Uncle Sam's (unreadable) Sons O' Guns would benefit.

There Are Objections

The suggestions for a Badger-Buck return game has merit, but there are also objections.

Ohio State should not challenge Wisconsin to the game. Ohio State has won the conference title on the accepted basis of awarding such titles---the percentage points. If a challenge is to come it should come from Wisconsin, regardless of the fact that Wisconsin defeated Ohio State, 17-7, in the meeting between the two.

Conference officials would hardly o.k. such a game, even for the USO, or some equally worthy cause. They don't recognize such a thing as a conference championship officially and sanctioning such a game would recognize it. They have frowned on such proposals in the past, even when teams were in an actual mathematical tie. The weather is another argument against it. The game would hardly draw a worthwhile crowd anywhere but in Columbus or Madison. And weather in Columbus and Madison by the time the proposed game could be played would probably be too cold for a good crowd or good football.

Ohio State had a 10-game schedule this fall. Wisconsin has played out its nine-game schedule. Ohio State is playing two more games and Wisconsin played one more than the regular conference (unreadable) which was suspended this year because of the war and to give service teams a chance to book games with conference teams officials would feel, and rightly, that the cause of education of the players would not be best served by extending an already long season.

I'd personally like to see the game---from a heated press box.

I doubt if it ever comes about.

75 years later, Ohio State and Wisconsin will face each other in Indianapolis for the Big Ten Championship. Funny how things work out. I wonder how Mr. Byrer would see today's game?