Ann Byers - Ohio State Football

Published in 2014 by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

29 East 21st Street, New York, NY 10010

Copyright 2014 by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Byers, Ann.

Ohio State Football/Ann Byers.First edition.

pages cm.(America's most winning teams)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4488-9401-7 (library binding)ISBN 978-1-4488-9438-3 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-1-4488-9439-0 (6-pack)

1. Ohio State UniversityFootballHistoryJuvenile literature. 2. Ohio State Buckeyes (Football teamHistoryJuvenile literature. I. Title.

GV958.O35B94 2014 796.332'630977157dc23

2012047049

Manufactured in the United States of America

CPSIA Compliance Information: Batch #S13YA: For further information, contact Rosen Publishing, New York, New York, at 1-800-237-9932.

N o one expected the Buckeyes to win. Like the trees of western Ohio for which they were named, the Ohio State team was smaller than average. They had played in the Western Athletic Conference for only three years, and their record was less than impressive. Illinois, on the other hand, had been in the conference since the team was founded twenty years earlier. The Fighting Illini had been undefeated the last two years. The crowd in the stands was fully anticipating another Illinois triumph.

But the crowd had not yet seen Ohios rookie halfback, Chic Harley. The sophomore could run, kick, pass, receive, and play defense. Despite his talents, however, Illinois dominated the game. With a minute and ten seconds left on the clock, the Buckeyes were behind 6-0. Thats when Harley faked a pass, bolted past the Illini defenders, and tied the game with a touchdown. Then the multitalented halfback called a timeout, changed into dry shoes, and kicked the point after the touchdown. In the final seconds of the game, the relatively unknown Ohio Buckeyes defeated the two-time conference champions.

Harleys performance catapulted his team into the national spotlight. In that year, 1916, Ohio State enjoyed a perfect recordseven wins and no lossesand won its first Western Conference championship. The Buckeyes were finally in the big leaguesa winning team. They would remain one of the most winning teams in college football for close to a hundred years. Ohio State has won seven national titles and been conference champion thirty-four times. Seven Ohio State players have received the Heisman Trophy, and seventy-eight have been named consensus all-Americans. Thirty players or coaches have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and eight are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In 2009, ESPN ranked the team the third most prestigious in the country.

S ports at Ohio State University (OSU) were pretty informal until 1890. In that year, George Cole talked some of his fellow students into starting a football team. He had a rulebook from the Spaulding Athletic Company and a friend who had played at Princeton. The friend, Alexander Lilley, agreed to coach. The school did not pay him, and the students had to pool their money to buy a football. In its first game, Ohio State beat Ohio Wesleyan 20-14.

Unfortunately, that win was the only victory for the new team that entire four-game season. The 1891 season started out just as poorlywith two losses. But the team managed to pull out the last two, and the school and the community began to be interested in football. The university hired its first paid coach, Jack Ryder, in 1892.

Ryders first game was against Oberlin, which also had a first-year coach, John Heisman, for whom the most coveted trophy in college football is named. Ohio lost that game 40-0, and the team lost a second time to Oberlin 50-0. But the 1892 season had eight games instead of four, and Ohio finished with its first winning record: five wins to three losses. Enthusiasm for the sport was growing.

The team struggled in the early years, with more wins than losses in only one of the next six seasons Interest dwindled until John Eckstorm became coach in 1899. Eckstorm led the team to its first undefeated season. That was the beginning of a long winning streak; in the twenty-three years from 1899 to 1921, Ohio had no losing season. In Eckstorms third winning year, ticket sales for games made the football program profitable for the first time. In 1904, fifteen hundred seats had to be added to accommodate the growing crowds. Many at Ohio State felt the team was ready for the big leagues.

In its first five years, all of the universitys games were against other Ohio teams. Gradually, the school scheduled contests with squads from other states. (This was probably the time the players were first called Buckeyes, a term widely applied to anyone from Ohio.) Still, most of the games in Ohio States first twenty-two seasons were against small local schools. When the school had racked up a string of thirteen victorious seasons in a row, its athletic board decided it was time to play more state universities. In 1912, the board asked to join the Western Athletic Conference.

By then, the conference was sixteen years old. It had begun when presidents of seven large colleges met to organize and manage the way they played various sports against one another. Other colleges joined, and when the number reached ten in 1917, the organization began to be called the Big Ten Conference. OSUs request was accepted, and the Buckeyes played their first conference game in 1913.

The first game was a disappointing one-point loss to Indiana. The second game was worse: a 12-0 shutout against Minnesota. But the Buckeyes redeemed themselves in the final conference game of the season; they pummeled Northwestern 58-0. Three of their nonconference matches were big victories90-8 for all threeand one was a scoreless tie. The team and the fans felt good about Ohios first year in the Big Ten.

Much of the success was due to the new head coach, John Wilce. Wilce had graduated from Wisconsin, where he was captain of the football team for one year and assistant coach after graduation. He was only twenty-five years old when he came to Ohio. Before Wilce became coach, OSU had eleven coaches in twenty-three years. Wilce stayed for sixteen seasons, the second longest time of any coach in the schools history. Only two were losing seasons. In one game against Oberlin, the unbeaten Buckeyes scored their biggest margin of victory ever: 1 28-0. The young coach led the school >to three conference championships and its first Rose Bowl game. Fourteen of his players were named all-Americans. He was still at the school in 1954, when he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Football fans all over the country began to pay attention to Ohio State.