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.

Paul Brown and the Buckeyes were able to get the Northwestern monkey off of their backs by defeating the Wildcats 20-6. Lew Byrer does today's heavy lifting as his words describe the big win.

Paul Brown, along with a few million other Ohioans, was very happy as he greeted his Buckeyes in the dressing room following their 20-to-6 victory over Northwestern's Purple Wildcats.

"We'd been waiting a year for this," he said, "and you know how it is when you want something badly. You're afraid you won't get it."

Paul wanted this win over Northwestern because Northwestern was the only team to defeat his Buckeyes last year.

"Lynn Waldorf had a fine defense figured out for us and his team played fine football," Coach Brown said. "What I liked especially was the way our boys adapted themselves. When they saw that Northwestern was stopping the plays we had figured out for them they used some others.

In four days, another Ohio State team is looking forward to replicating what the '42 team did 75 years ago.

Ankle's Better

"Sarringhaus' ankle is all swollen up again but it wasn't bumped badly. He just aggravated it by the way he kept driving. Maybe he's better with a sore ankle than with two good legs."

Sarringhaus looked better against Northwestern than in any game so far. He would start to sweep wide, then would cut back with a burst of blazing speed which either fooled would-be tacklers completely or just bowled them over.

Lynn Waldorf, Northwestern's coach, was a bit glum about it all, but high in his praise for the Buckeyes and for the way his boys kept fighting.

"Paul has a great team," Mr. Waldorf said. "And he's a great coach. We'd hope to do a bit better than we did but Ohio State deserved to win.

Ohio Fullback Gen Fekete finds Northwestern's left end an easy target behind perfect blocking in the fourth quarter.

Backs Were Too Good

"Sarringhaus, Fekete and those other backs or Paul's were just too much for us. I thought Otto Graham played a fine game for us. And listen, don't overlook that Ohio State line. Those boys are good on defense and good on offense.

Dr. Walter Duffee, Buckeye team physician, says the Buckeye squad should be better as a whole Monday than at any time in weeks.

He doesn't think either Sarringhaus or Willis was badly hurt in the Wildcat game and the rest of the cripples have been responding to rest and treatment.

I'm not going to argue with a doctor, but I didn't realize Ohio State had a bunch of cripples on the team. 

The Bucks have now played before 214,000 fans this season. The Northwestern game drew 41,000. Fort Knox drew 22,555, Indiana 48,527, Southern Cal 56,436 and Purdue 45,913. Last year in eight games, the Bucks drew 456,465. This year, with 10 games, they have a chance to equal or surpass that mark. They still have Pitt, Michigan and the Iowa Seahawks to play at home, and Wisconsin at Madison and Illinois in Cleveland.

Today, Ohio State plays in front of over 400,000 after its first four home games. 

Face Tough Foe

The Bucks are expecting the hardest sort of competition again next Saturday against Wisconsin. The Badgers are undefeated this year. They won from Camp Grant 7-to-0 in their opener, tied Notre Dame at 7-to-7, walloped Marquette 35-to-7, won from Great Lakes 13-to-7 and yesterday defeated Purdue but it was homecoming at Purdue yesterday and the Boilermakers were trying to come back after their defeat at the hands of the Buckeyes.

Byrer's second column of the day gives a brief preview of Wisconsin, compares football to warfare and small town charm.

About the time Paul Brown and his Buckeyes were checking in at the Edgewater Beach Hotel here Friday morning upon arrival for their game with Northwestern, another Massillon, O., boy who made good in a very big way in football, was having breakfast with his squad at the Palmer House.

Harry Stuhidreher, quarterback of Notre Dame's immortal Four Horsemen and now athletic director and football coach at Wisconsin, was taking his Badgers to Lafayette, Ind., to play Purdue.

The two coaches didn't meet. Neither did their squads.

But they'll be seeing a lot of each other in another week.

For it's Wisconsin's Badgers who furnish the next opposition for Paul Brown's Buckeyes and it's liable to prove the toughest opposition the Bucks faced this year.

Last year the two Massillon products clashed for the first time. Brown's Buckeyes won from Stuhidreher's Badgers, 46-to-34, in one of the big thrillers of Ohio Stadium history.

So Paul is one up and Harry isn't happy about it. He's hoping to even things Saturday and his hope isn't based upon a wishbone.

[...]

Like Paul Brown, Harry Stuhidreher seems small for a football player. Even today, nearly two decades after his playing days at Notre Dame, he'll hardly jiggle the bar of a scales at 176. He's a trim, snappily dressed intense guy with a lot of sparkle.

He's dead in earnest about his job of coaching football this year. "It's bigger than winning or losing games," he says. "I keep picturing the boys who are playing for me as they may be a year from now, battling a Jap or a Nazi with a bayonet. We've always wanted our players tough. Now we want them tougher than ever."

Brown and the Buckeyes are facing Notre Dame royalty and what appears to be a Badger team that understands the reality of the times. Wisconsin is shaping up to be another tough game.

Football and Warfare

"There's a real parallel between football and modern warfare," Harry continued. "And don't think the boys themselves don't realize it. There's a difference in attitude this fall over anything I've seen either as a player or coach. The boys are preparing themselves not only for the games to come, but for their future in the armed services. their imaginations are fired by what the Rangers and Commandos are doing to outsmart and outgut the enemy.

"Eventually the present day football players will go a long way in helping to win this war. You only need to talk to the veterans who won the last World War to learn that the trained athlete has what it takes for the toughest game of all.

"At the close of the last World War, at St. Nazaire, France, two football teams made up of the members of the Army of Occupation, were playing a championship game. France's Marahal Foch was a spectator. After watching the hard-hitting way the boys were playing, he remarked: "Any country which has its national sport such a game as football need never worry about security."

That was a wise statement and a true one. But there had to be another war to impress upon the critics of our athletic programs its wisdom and truth.

"Funny about those critics. You don't hear anything from them now. They've read about Colin Kelly, Tom Trappell, Arthur Wermuth and how these ex-football players were able to do what they did because of initiative, mental agility and courage they developed on the football field. That has shut the critics up. Now they have to admit that football helped these men and will help others lead the way to ultimate victory. We coaches don't like to be asked: 'How many boys did you lose to the armed forces?' We don't lose them. We contribute them."

It definitely was a different time.

Small-Town Scene

Residents of a city like Chicago or Columbus miss seeing some of the heart-touching things which a country at war produces.

In Chicago or Columbus you can't go down on the platform to bid farewell to a relative or friend who's going away.

When the train I rode to Chicago stopped in Findlay a group of 40 draftees boarded it and rode from there to Toledo, en route to Camp Perry.

The smoking car had been almost empty until then. The new soldiers filled it. All of them dropped their bags and piled up around the west windows of the car for that farewell look at their folks.

The platform was jammed with wives, mothers, dads, brothers, sisters and inlaws.

Just outside my window stood a young woman with a baby in her arms. The baby was waving, smiling, at the straw-haired kid just across from me. He had his face glued to the window.

Tears were streaming down the young woman's face.

"Your kid?" I asked the young man. "Yeah." he said. "That's my sister holding him. That's my wife right next, that tall girl with the brown hair."

The tall girl with the brown hair wasn't crying. She was standing there with hands at her side clenched into little fists, her whole body tensed, forcing herself to smile at the boy going away. Next to her was a tall, middle-aged man with tears in his eyes.

"That's her dad,"the kid said. "He didn't think she ought to marry me. I didn't think he liked me. But he gave me this."

As the train pulled out the kid opened a package. It contained six Marlboro cigarets.

"Strange, you know?" he said. "The last time I talked to the old guy he gave me hell for smoking too much." 

Caption:
Picture 1: Ed Hirsch, Northwestern Halfback, is being stopped after making six yards in the opening quarter of the battle.
Picture 2: Northwestern's Otto Graham sweeps end for three yards against Ohio State in the opening quarter of the Bucks' 20-6 triumph yesterday.