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 Ohio football team is back from its two consecutive weeks of playing on the road and in the words of Coach Paul Brown they're "mighty glad to be able to play the next one at home."

What was wrong with the team last week?

"Why," Brown explained upon his return from Madison, "There just wasn't anything wrong with us so far as team play is concerned. We just fumbled the ball away every time it seemed we started to move. It wasn't the trouble with our team as a whole. We were able to gain ground as the statistics show but we just couldn't keep going."

Brown again took the high road as he didn't divulge the stomach ailment that struck the team. However, Don Hawk was able to get him to talk about it.

A great deal of the difficulty of the Ohio State team may be traced to the attack of dysentery that struck the entire team.

"Half of my kids were just downright sick at halftime," Brown admitted, "and for some of them it was the second week in a row that this thing has happened. Don't misunderstand me," he added, "we met a good team---easily the best we've played so far---but we might have shown a little more life if we hadn't been physically week."

And there it is. It wasn't just a handful of starters that had stomach issues, it was half of the team. Brown showed great restraint to not reveal that immediately after the loss.

Easily Best So Far

"Wisconsin has the best personnel we've run up against so far," Brown judged, "and they'll go well against the rest of the teams on their Big Ten schedule, Minnesota, Northwestern and Iowa. Hirsch and Fred Negus, their star were all they're supposed to be."

Ohio State came out of the game with quite a number of bumps and bruises with the open-season on left ends still prevailing. Bill Sedor suffered the worst injury of the day, a knee injury, which looked bad when he came off the field. The actual seriousness of the injury was not definitely known, however.

Several of the other Bucks were just "touched up a little" in the words of their coach. James had a leg that was bumped, Gene Fekete had a bad leg, Lavelli had his knee hurt slightly again, and the squad was a victim of a good, hard physical beating.

Reading over the injury list, the Buckeyes took a beating on both the field and the scoreboard.

One of Pitt's hopes for a better break against Ohio State in the Buckeye Stadium here Saturday will be pinned to Frank Saksa, their fast fullback whose powerful pitching arm is a constant scoring threat even on the Panthers' weak offense.  .

Bucks Were Good Too

"For the Buckeyes, Tommy James played a great game and George Slusser was also doing very well," said Brown. "In fact, our whole team didn't do badly at all. Charley Csuri played a very, very fine game---one of the best of his career---while the whole center of our line took a back seat to nobody in this game."

As for next week, Brown was "just glad not to travel. The Panhters," he added, "had an easy game last week and will probably be at full strength for us next week for the first time in some weeks."

They've Won Only Two

On the whole, the Panthers have been having a poor season. In six games so far, the Panthers have won only two games, beating Southern Methodist, 19-7, and whipping Carnegie Tech last week by a 19-6 margin.

Minnesota handed Pitt a 50-7 shellacking, Great Lakes beat them in a close game, 7-6, Indiana won, 19-7, and Duke walloped the Panthers, 28-0.

Looking over Pitt's schedule and results, Ohio State should easily win this game. However, the physical beating and stomach issues from the previous week might prevent that from happening 

The strong points on the Pitt team are at the tackles and at halfback. Jack Durishan and Joe Salvucci are the regular tackles and "gave us a lot of trouble last season..." "Wild Bill" Dutton is back from last season at the right halfback post and is a hard runner.

The Bucks will have a long skull drill tonight in preparation for this week's game and will see the pictures of the loss to Wisconsin. They may or may not go out for physical work, depending on their recovery from the bumps, bruises, and illness which came with the game last week.

They won't be rating Ohio State as the nation's No. 1 college football team this week since the Buckeyes lost to Wisconsin 17-to-7 Saturday at Wisconsin.

It may be just as well.

As a matter of fact your correspondent has been trying to find the guys who rated Ohio State No. 1 in the first place. In the Camp Randall press box after the game, on the train on the way back to Chicago Saturday night and around the Windy City I couldn't find anyone who'd own up.

The boys covering the game---mostly guys who have been covering Ohio State all fall---figured the Bucks played just about up to form in losing to Wisconsin Saturday.

As they see it an inspired Wisconsin team won from an Ohio State team which wasn't at its peak but wasn't far off form either.

And the opinion was general that the Bucks never did rate that No. 1 spot they've been getting for the past three weeks.

Byrer had been critical of the No. 1 ranking and is on record as believing Ohio State should have been ranked No. 10.

Perhaps now that that exaggerated rating is disposed of the Bucks can get down to the business at hand---which is disposing of Pitt, Illinois, Michigan and Iowa Seahawks in their remaining four games.

If they can do that they'll have a highly successful season regardless of their loss to Wisconsin. In fact they've already had a highly successful season.

Byrer spent the next couple of paragraphs recapping the seasons of the Buckeyes' remaining opponents. Let's skip ahead.

[...]

On those comparative records Ohio must be given a good chance to win from Illinois or Michigan or both.

If the Bucks can win those games and Iowa, Northwestern or Minnesota bump off Wisconsin, Ohio can still win or tie for the Western Conference title. 

Insert "so you're telling me there's a chance" gif here. Byrer looks back on the Badger game.

Wisconsin Has Class

Don't be too sure, however, that Wisconsin is going to be beaten this season.

The Badgers were a great football team Saturday---a team capable of giving anyone a whale of a football battle.

Ghost Hirsch, their sophomore halfback sensation, is one of the best running backs the conference has seen since Harley and Grange. When he tucks the pigskin under his arm and starts he's generally going somewhere.

Byrer continues his superlatives about Wisconsin, so let's jump ahead a bit.

[...]

In short there was nothing fluky about Wisconsin's victory Saturday. It was a well-earned victory won by a good team.

Answering a few questions heard since arriving back in Columbus:

Why did Ohio State fumble so often? The Badgers were tackling the ball and tackling it hard.

Was the officiating bad? I didn't think so. Neither did I hear any serious complaints from Ohio State coaches or players. They though the lateral which got away from Wisconsin, was recovered by Ohio and then given to Wisconsin, should have been ruled a fumble and Ohio State's ball. But it was only the sophomoric diehards who seem to think there has to be something crooked about it any time Ohio State loses who were doing any real kicking. 

Remember this phrase "sophomoric diehards" if you ever venture into the 11W gameday open threads.

Was Ohio State outclassed? Hardly. As a matter of fact when the Bucks struck back with that 96-yard touchdown march in the fourth quarter I thought they'd started on their way to victory. They seemed to be hitting their stride as they had been doing late in the game all fall. But the Badgers had too much left.

From Byrers' answers it appears he's not buying into the dysentery excuse.

Only four teams---Boston College, Georgia, Georgia Tech and California Pre-Flight---remained in the ranks of the country's undefeated and untied college football teams today as the season headed into the home stretch.

Wisconsin, which upset favored Ohio State by a 17-7 count, has its record only marred by a tie with Notre Dame.

Six clubs which previously had perfect records---Alabama, Detroit, Ohio State, T.C.U., Army and Syracuse---all were knocked off while once-tied Penn State was defeated for the first time.