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.

The Friday before the game, the CJ puts its final touches on the game previews. Dan Hawk and Lew Byrer set the stage with previews for both the Buckeyes and Wildcats. A place on Parsons is selling sweaters.

If Coach Paul Brown and his Buckeye gridders are able to carve out a victory over Northwestern in Evanston, Illinois, Saturday afternoon, it will be a signal triumph for a fighting coach and a spirited team but also the elements and the old injury jinx.

For the second successive day, the gridders waded through a sea of muck and mud yesterday as they ran through the last full-length practice before the game with the Wildcats but this time a chill wind ripped across the playing field to add to the misery of everyone concerned and to make even more difficult the control of the pigskin.

Despite the "wind and the rain in their hair," however, the Bucks spent two hours taking a comprehensive review of all phases of their game both on offense and defense, brushing up their best weapons for use against Coach Lynn Waldorf's purple-clad team.

Brown has been waiting for this game for a year, ever since the Wildcats handed him his first defeat in collegiate gridiron warfare last year. Now that he has a really good team (Ohio State ranks first in the Big Ten in both offense and defense) it seems that he will still be behind the eight-ball as he enters the Wildcat game.

I might have to steal the line "collegiate gridiron warfare," that sentence is too good to remain in 1942. Hawk reiterates how much Brown wants to avenge the loss to Northwestern in 1941. 

Same Old Story

"It seems that the squad is always butchered up when we run up against this team," Brown lamented last night as the team left at 11:50 for Chicago and nearby Evanston. (Last year the Bucks were without the services of their sparkplug fullback, Jack Graf, for the Northwestern game). Paul Sarringhaus and Dante Lavelli will both be up against it in the way of injuries and probably will not play. I can't tell for sure just now but both may be out of the game while Bill Durtsch is out for sure."

But a list of those who will not play in the game at all goes only a little way in measuring the real casualties with which Ohio State enters the game.

Neither of the two left ends, Don Steinberg nor John White, is in first class order as both are recovering from shoulder separattions. Second string Tackle Jim Rees is suffering from a twisted ankle, Right Halfback Bob Frye has a groin injury, and at least half a dozen other players are nursing a variety of bumps and bruises which will hamper their play against the Wildcats.

With all of the injuries, both minor and serious, it makes you wonder how many bumps and bruises the modern day Buckeyes are currently nursing.

Arrive in Morning

The Bucks will arrive in Evanston tomorrow morning and will take up quarters in the Edgewater Beach Hotel. They will have a short practice at the Northwestern stadium at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon, will see a picture show in the evening, and will then return to the hotel to stay until game time, 2 p.m. Central War Time, 3 p.m. Eastern War time.

Instead of Central Standard and Eastern Standard time, the people living in the '40s used Central War and Eastern War Time. I wonder when society dropped the War Time? My guess would be at the end of WWII. I'm hoping a reader can help us out with that answer in the comments.

The team gets to watch a "picture show," I'm sure it was a good one. Hawk now dives into who made the trip and was able to watch the flickering glory of that show.

Those Buckeyes who are making the trip are Ends Bill Sedor, John White, Don Steinberg, Dante Lavelli, Bob Shaw, Cecil Souders and Tom Antennuci: Tackles Bill Willis, Don McCafferty, Jack Dugger, Charles Csuri, Jim Reese and Bob McComrmick; Guards Hal Dean, Bob Jabbuach, Warren MacDonald, Lin Houston, Wib Schneider and bill Hackett: Centers Bill Vickroy, Gordon Appleby and Jack Roe.

The Backfield men with the squad are Captain George Lynn, Paul Priday, Phil Drake and Paul Selby at quarterback: left halfbacks, Paul Sarringhaus, Tom James and George Slusser; right halfbacks Les Horvath, Bob Frye, Tom Cleary and Gen (Big Bertha) Ferkete, Dick Palmer and Cyril Lipaj.

Hawk now turns his attention to Northwestern.

Team Is Veteran

In Northwestern, Ohio State will be facing a squad whose first team is composed entirely of lettermen from last season, which is coached by the dean of Western Conference coaches in point of service in Lynn Waldorf, but which has to call most of its reserve strength from sophomores and untried upperclassman. The first team is strong, seasoned, and tempered in Big Ten play, but the reserve man may not measure up to the standards of play set in their league.

The main weapon of the Wildcats is their passing attack. Otto Graham pitched 29 passes last week, completed 20 of them for 295 yards and accounted for 10 Wildcat first downs. If that 's not proof of the kick in the aerial game as deployed by Waldorf, a good passing offense would be hard to find. The outstanding receivers of Graham passers are two long, lanky ends. Bob Motl and Bud Hasse.

Three-Year Man

Both of these men are playing their third season at their respective positions, both are six feet, two inches tall, both are fast and especially adept at getting out in the open behind the opponents' backfield men. Motl weighs 199 pounds, his teammate (Graham) only 175 but both of them are listed among the steadiest players on the Northwestern squad. 

Starting Lineups

OHIO STATE	POSITION	NORTHWESTERN
BILL SEDOR	LE	BOB MOTL
BILL WILLIS	LT	WARREN MARTISTAD
HAL DEAN	LG	ALEX KISTAR
BILL VICKROY	C	MAFAID HUDSON
LIN HOUSTON	RG	NICK BURKE
CHARLES CSURI	RT	H. VISSESSI
GEORGE SLUSSER	LHB	GEORGE (UNREADABLE)
GEORGE LYNN	QB	UNREADABLE
GENE FEKETE	FB	UNREADABLE
LES HORVATH	RH	OTTO GRAHAM
BOB SHAW	RE	ED (UNREADABLE)

Captain Nick Burke, starting right guard for Northwestern's Wildcats, is the bulwark of the line which Ohio State faces tomorrow in Evanston, Ill., when it seeks its fifth straight victory. Burke, who stands five feet, 10 inches tall and weighs 198 pounds, has been a brilliant performer in teh 'Cat line for the last two years and helped Northwestern administer a 14-7 licking to Ohio State a year ago, only Buckeye loss in Coach Brown's first season.

There was no cheer in the Ohio State gridiron camp today. Paul Sarringhaus, the Hamilton flash who was finally living up to the good things the sportswriters had said about him before he entered college and was one of the two top men in the Buck offense, had injured his ankle and Coach Paul Brown was "giving up hope that he'd be able to play" against Northwestern Saturday.

"We're all butchered up for this game," Brown said, as the apparent chances of gaining revenge for last year's defeat at the hands of Coach Lynn Waldorf's Wildcats waned. "And to top it all," he added as muddy squadmen straggled in from a two-hour practice session in a pouring rain, "we had to get this kind of practice just two days before the game."

And a glance at the injury list shows that the coach was not too much on the gloomy side in declaring that his squad had been butchered." At left end, three men were not in first class condition. Dante Lavelli is definitely out for the game, John White and Don Steinberg are not in good shape as yet. As a consequence, Bill Sedor, a good sound blocker and tackler but weaker than some of the others in finesse, will be the starter as he was against Purdue.

Coach Lynn "Pappy" Waldorf of Northwestern's Purple Wildcats is the son of a bishop as well as the present dean of Western Conference football coaches.

When a dean is also a son of a bishop, his words should be heeded with respect.

"When you're sending a team up against an outfit like Ohio State has this year," Pappy Waldorf says, in discussing tomorrow's game between Northwestern and Ohio State, "you're in the lather."

"You read and your scouts tell you how this sophomore Gene Fekete can punch the heck out of any sort of line he faces and how he's also a tough young fellow off the ends and in the open field.

"So you figure you'd better set up a defense for Fekete. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Just like Ohio State's opponents in the old days used to try and stop Harley  and didn't and Illinois' opponents tried to stop Grange and didn't.

Let's stop here for a second. Byrer just put Gene Fekete's name in the same breath as Chic Harley and Red Grange. That is some pretty high praise for a sophomore running back. 

"But still there are accepted methods of trying to stop one individual ball-carrying star. One way is to assign two men to him and keep him thoroughly covered on every play.

"Suppose you do that with Fekete. You might stop him. But Horvath or Sarringhaus are liable to run ragged while you're doing it.

"Another way to stop a hard-smashing fullback like Fekete is to play a seven-man line on defense with your secondary playing up close.

"If we do that Saturday, this Sarringhaus will throw passes to that big Shaw until we all go crazy."

Don't get the idea that Pappy Waldorf is giving up. He isn't that sort of hombre. His Wildcats will be out there wildcatting all over Dyche Stadium field tomorrow afternoon and it would be no stunning shock to close followers of Northwestern football if they'd turn in a surprising upset against the Ohio State team prematurely hailed as the best in the nation.

Old Pappy sounds as if this Ohio State team is world beaters and that his Wildcats don't have a chance in hell to stop Paul Brown's Buckeyes.

Waldorf an Upsetter

Physically, Big Pappy Waldorf is about as much like dynamic little Bob Zuppke as your perspiring reporter is like Paul Brown.

But there is similarity in their makeups. Zup used to take delight, those years when he didn't have the material to face a long, tough schedule successfully, in pointing for one game with a highly touted team and astounding the nation.

Minnesota, Southern California, Michigan, Ohio State, Northwestern, Chicago and many others felt the sting of the Zuppke yen to deflate the over-inflated.

Pappy Waldorf has that same elfin sense of mischief.

In 1935 he got acquainted around the midwest in a football way by knocking off a Notre Dame team which had been undefeated until then. That was the Notre Dame team of that lamented 18-to-13 score against Ohio State in Ohio Stadium.

In 1936 Pappy really got into the swing of things. That year it was Minnesota, Michigan and Ohio State who found there was burny-burny behind that placid pan atop the huge Waldorf frame. 

In 1937 it was Michigan. In 1938 and 1939 it was Minnesota. In 1940 it was Ohio State and Notre Dame. Last year Pappy handed Paul Brown's first Ohio State team its only defeat of the season.

So far this year Pappy hasn't upset anyone. The Wildcats have won only from Texas and that wasn't an upset, although Texas is hardly a setup either. They've lost to Bernie Bierman's Iowa Seahawks 20-to-12, to Purdue 7-to-6 and to Michigan 34-to-16. Only Michigan has defeated Northwestern decisively and the Cats out-gained and out-first-downed the Wolverines in that game.

Which may explain why there was a furrow on the brow of Paul Brown as he unloaded his Buckeyes here this morning. Pappy is going to upset someone before the season is over. He hasn't upset anyone yet. And Ohio State, rated No. 1 in the nation would be an ideal team to upset---from Pappy's standpoint.

It appears Pappy and the Purple Wildcats are in a prime position to upset Ohio State. At least, that's how Lew Byrer sees it.