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 Citizen Journal is full of good information. Don Hawk starts with his reports on Ohio State and Wisconsin. Al Getchell provides an interesting cartoon, Lew Byrer examines the Buckeye/Badger series through 13 games and addresses how southern schools reach for a recruiting advantage (bagmen). The last piece is by Tommy Devine who explores the ties between Paul Brown and Wisconsin coach Harry Stuhldreher.

If the Wisconsin Badgers are able to break the Ohio State football winning streak at five straight for this season in the game between the two teams at Madison, Wis., Saturday, it may easily be a repeat performance of the old thing the Bucks stopped by a product of an Ohio high school gridiron.

The Ohioan who may do more than a little to worry Coach Paul Brown's eleven is Center Fred Negus, a highly-rated Badger sophomore, who had his high school work at Martins Ferry in the Buckeye state.

"That guy has made the Badger defense strong where it was weak last year." Brown commented today as he prepared to lead his team outside the huge stadium for practice. "In 1941 the badgers scored plenty of points to win the game but the middle of that line was weak and we poured through time and again and just outpowered them to score more points. Negus takes care of that problem."

Is it just me, or does the name Negus also make you think of Negan from The Walking Dead? For some reason, I don't think Wisconsin's Negus will carry a barbed-wired baseball bat.

"He's Best"---Bixler

Scout Paul Bixler who looked on as the Badgers subdued Purdue last week, is even higher in his praise of Coach Harry Stuhldreher's star sophomore. "He's the best center I've seen in the Western Conference this year at backing the line,' Bixler vowed, adding "he's a good one all the way round."

Negus is one of those rare fellows who turn out to be all-round athletes. He is six feet, two inches tall and proportioned to carry 201 muscular pounds. He is both powerful and well co-ordinated.

In high school, he played basketball, football and baseball---captained all three teams in his senior year. He was on the All-Ohio Valley All-Star team for two years, at center in his junior year and at fullback in his last year.

I have a question for any readers with knowledge of Martins Ferry. Does the school have anything honoring Fred Negus at the stadium or in the building? Seems like he was a big-time stud.

Went to Kiki

After graduation from high school, Negus moved to Kiski Prep School, then on to Wisconsin. He has demonstrated his versatility on the football field by successfully playing three positions. He started as a center, played there regularly during his first two years in high school, but moved to the fullback slot for the senior campaign. Then, at Kiski, he was used at guard, but he was moved back to his first position, center, when he joined the Badger squad.

Proof of Negus' ability comes from a glance at the caliber of the men he has beaten out on the Badger squad. Dick Thornally, regular center last season, has been shunted over to left tackle where he is now a second-stringer to make room for Negus while Senior Robert McKay, a letter winner from last year is riding the bench spelling in at center occasionally. 

Hawk finishes the piece by focusing on the Badgers offense.

Offense Back

"It wouldn't be so bad to be facing a tougher defense," Brown added, "but their last season's offense is back and the combination of sturdy defense and flashy offense makes this team dangerous."

Last year, the Badgers had a fullback who topped the conference in rushing and in scoring---Pat Harder---and who was a big factor in the 34 points the Badgers racked up against Brown's first Buckeye team. He's back, a greater threat than before because the rest of the backfield is better too.

Len Seelinger was the left halfback last year and he's back too, but he doesn't get to play any more. Sophomore Elroy Hirsch, 185 pounds of fast, elusive, triple-threat man, has moved in and captured the fancy of football desk experts, who say he's red hot.

Hoskins, Wink Start

The remaining two starters are Mark Hoskins, the blocking star at right halfback, and anther soph. Jack Wink, in at quarterback.

Meanwhile, the Bucks went resolutely and thoroughly about preparations to stop the Badger attack with a two-and-a-half hour drill, featuring defense, especially defense against the Wisconsin aerial game as shown by George Slusser. A group of freshmen, directed by Bixler, ran Badger plays as Brown finished plans for halting the dangerous Badger land assault.

Although the Wisconsin power has not been so evident in the scoring columns so far, Buck coaches know that it is there and are determined to hold the scoring down this Saturday. Wisconsin is undefeated for the season, as are the Bucks, with only a tie against Notre Dame to mar an otherwise perfect record---if a tie with the Fighting Irish is a mar.

The teams have met in 13 contests before, Ohio State winning seven, losing four and tying two contests. Brown has the edge in his personal score against the Badgers by virtue of the 46-34 victory last season.

Al Getchell's cartoon has Paul Brown reeking havoc on a Wisconsin dairy farm. The Buckeye coach is depicted kicking cows that represent Wisconsin's undefeated season. If only the game was that easy.

Lew Byrer took to the pages to look back on Wisconsin games of the past, delves into the Paul Scheffels story about Paul Brown in yesterday's paper and explains why some Ohio players leave the great state.

Ohio State holds a two-point lead over Wisconsin in total scores of the 13 past games between the Buckeyes and Badgers.

Ohio State has won seven games, Wisconsin four, and two have resulted in ties. 

Some of the most thrilling games in Buckeye history occurred in grid battles with the Badgers. 

Wisconsin won the first three games after Ohio State entered the conference in 1913. The 1915 game was decided by the biggest margin of any in the series.

Since 1915, however, the Badgers have only one (sic) once.

In 1916---Ohio State's first championship year---Chic Harley and company managed to nose out the Badgers 14 to 13.

In 1919---at Madison---Wisconsin chased Ohio all over the field for most of the game and then, in the closing minutes, Chic and Pete Stinchcomb struck with a couple of runs and a pass and then Chic kicked a field goal to give Ohio State a 3 to 0 win.

The 1920 game is still well remembered in Columbus. Wisconsin was leading, 7 to 0, with less than two minutes to play. Two great Hogs Workman to Pete Stinchcomb forward passes connected to give the Bucks a 13 to 7 win.

Last year's 15 to 34 Ohio State victory was on of the high spots in Ohio Stadium History.

The complete record follows:

Year	OSU	W		Team	OSU	W
1913	6	12		1920	13	7
1914	6	7		1930	0	0
1915	0	21		1931	6	0
1916	14	13		1932	7	7
1917	16	3		1933	6	0
1918	3	14		1941	46	34
1919	3	0		Total	120	118

Going into this tilt, the last time Ohio State lost to the Badgers was 1918. However, those seven games played between 1919 and 1941 finished tight.

Byrer switches gears and addresses the article about Brown in yesterday's paper.

The Brown System

Bob Considine and Paul Scheffels got a bit silly in one part of their stories yesterday, quoting Ensign Lawrence Gligor, former Alliance coach, now in the Navy, on the reasons for the success of Paul Brown at Ohio State

They wondered how, if Ohio high school coaches are pulling for Paul Brown and sending their best prospects to him, Frankie Sinkwich, Clint Castleberry and Ed Prokop, Ohio boys starring at Georgia and Georgia Tech, were ever allowed to escape from the Ohio State net.

Sinkwich is a senior. I don't know what year Castleberry and Prokop are in. But they're at least sophomores. And if they're sophomores they were signed, sealed and collected by Georgia Tech before Paul Brown became coach at Ohio State. Sinkwich had been at Georgia two years before Paul became head coach here.

And it might interest some of the folks to know that Sinkwich talked some of leaving Georgia and coming to Ohio State even after he'd played varsity football at Georgia and might have done just that had he received much encouragement from the Ohio State end.

It looks like recruiting was also a hot topic in 1942. Imagine what Georgia fans would be screaming today if one of their stud players was wanting to go back to Ohio State. Byrer continues the Sinkwich story.

Buckeye authorities didn't exactly shut the doors in his face. But they didn't encourage him either. If he had come to Ohio State he'd have had to stay out of football for a year before being eligible for Western Conference competition. And the conference frowns on transfer athletes, anyhow. But Sinkwich wanted to play under Paul Brown.

But Ohio high school coaches ARE doing their best to persuade promising football players to enroll at Ohio State.

It isn't just because they want to graduate from their ranks to make good and show that a high school coach can successfully direct a big college team. It's also because they know that boys playing under Paul Brown are taught to be gentlemen and sportsmen as well as fine football players.

Does the last paragraph describe recent Ohio State coaches? Rings true to me. 

There's Another Reason

There's another reason, of course, why some athletes go to southern schools after attending northern high schools. Southern schools can, freely and openly, do far more to help an athlete get an education than a northern school---especially a member of the Western Conference---can do.

Southern schools can supply books, free tuition, room and board and even spending money to promising athletes.

When an athlete gets that sort of assistance in a Western Conference school he has to work for it.

So a lad who wants to ride the gravy train generally migrates south to play his football.

Your correspondent ran into that situation a couple of years ago when he took Ohio high school all star teams to St. Petersburg to play in the Kumquat Bowl game.

Southern coaches and assistant coaches flocked to St. Petersburg for the game and spent a lot of their time talking things over with Ohio boys on the squad.

A few of them accepted attractive invitations and ended up in southern schools.

But most of them turned down the offesr. Notable instances are Cecil Souders, Ohio State end, and Bob McBride, Notre Dame guard.

So, the SEC bagmen were alive and well in the 1940s. It appears that the south has always looked for a "competitive" advantage.

Massillon Products

Two products of a small, football-mad, community who traveled far different routes to gain big time coaching berths match their gridiron skill Saturday when Ohio State and Wisconsin meet at Madison in the Mid-West's outstanding game.

The rivals are Harry Stuhldreher, who has directed Wisconsin to five victories and a tie this season, and Paul Brown, whose Ohio State outfit is the mid-West's only undefeated and untied combination.

Stuhldreher and Brown are both from Massillon, O., a busy, little steel-making town that takes its football very seriously.

Brown's Boyhood Idol

Stuhldreher is 41 and seven years Brown's senior. When Brown was a grade school "kid," the quarterback of the Massillon High team was Stuhldreher. As such, he was on of Paul's boyhood idols.

After finishing at Massillon, Stuhldreher enrolled at Notre Dame and became one of the game's outstanding performers as the field general of the famed "four horsemen" of Knute Rockne.

While Harry was starring for the Irish, Brown was struggling along as the 122-pound quarterback at Massillon High. Later he enrolled at Ohio State, found himself "too little" for big league football and transferred to Miami (O.) University---a school far down the list of gridiron ratings.

Started at Villanova

Stuhldreher's great play at Notre Dame earned for him a college coaching job at Villanova immediately upon graduation. He remained there 11 seasons before switching to Wisconsin in 1936.

Brown was forced to start his coaching career with a high school team and despite a distinguished record in prep circles, it was 11 years before he could get a crack at a college job. His break came when rival high school coaches in Ohio launced a high-pressure "lobby" to back his candidacy after the ousting of Francis A. Schmidt in 1940.

Stuhldreher and Brown clashed for the first time as rival coaches a year ago at Columbus. In one of the season's greatest offensive shows, Ohio State won 16 to 34. 

While it would take a confirmed optimist to predict a repetition of that wild contest, a free-scoring duel is the prospect.

 

There weren't any old school ads in today's paper.