Big-time Wartime Teams

[OrangeAfroMan]

Just sharing some info.  You know, football stuff.  If you have questions, I'll try to help out.
All of these teams had All-Americans and good players on loan from other schools and younger pro players as well.  Additionally, players would come and go from rosters, as needed in the war effort.
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1943 Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks (Iowa City, IA)
9-1
#2 final ranking
only loss was by 1 point to #1 Notre Dame - XP hit an upright and their best player got hurt in the game
vs ranked opp:  ND was only ranked opp
Avg score for season:  28-10
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1943 March Field Flyers (Riverside, CA)
9-1
#10 final ranking
only loss was by 20 points to Washington (4-1), who wound up ranked 12th.
vs ranked opp:  beat #9 USC 35-0......MF beat the hell out of USC, UW beat the hell out of MF, and USC beat the hell out of UW
Avg score for season:  29-7
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1943 Great Lakes Navy Bluejackets (North Chicago, IL)
10-2
#6 final ranking
losses were by 10 to Purdue and shut out 13-0 by N'Western
beat #1 ND in season finale, on last-minute 46-yard TD pass
Avg score for season:  21-9
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1944 Randolph Field Ramblers (San Antonio, TX)
12-0
#3 final ranking
had 8 shutout wins, won @Texas 42-6
only ranked opponents faced were last 2 games:  #14 March Field (on the road, 20-7 win)
Invited to Treasury Bond Bowl in Polo Grounds (NYC) vs 2nd Air Force (CO Springs), winning 13-6
Avg score for season:  40-2
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1944 Bainbridge Commodores (Bainbridge, MD)
10-0
#5 final ranking
beat #8 NC Pre-Flight by 29 points
Charlie "Choo-Choo" Justice had 14 TDs on only 48 carries (11.0 ypc for season)
Avg score for season:  33-7
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Notable players and their wartime teams:
Charlie Justice (UNC):  Bainbridge Commodores (Bainbridge, MD)
Charlie Trippi (UGA):  3rd Air Force Gremlins (Tampa, FL)
Otto Graham (NW):  NC Pre-Flight Cloudbusters (Chapel Hill, NC)
Emil Sitko (ND):  Great Lakes Navy Bluejackets (North Chicago, IL)
Bruce Smith (Minn):  St. Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils (San Francisco, CA)
Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch (Wis, UM):  El Toro Flying Marines (El Toro, CA)
Bear Bryant coaches at multiple Pre-Flight schools
Paul Brown coached one, too
One had a high school HC (one detailed above, actually)


[img width=499.988 height=422.998]https://i.imgur.com/FhNCOvZ.jpg[/img]

[medinabuckeye1]

The wartime teams for both the schools and the Military Units are hard to understand because the rosters were so ridiculously fluid.  

Here is Ohio State, for just one example (but obviously the one I am most familiar with):

Paul Brown became HC at Ohio State in 1941.  IMHO, Brown was the greatest football coach ever but not the greatest at Ohio State nor in the B1G because he was only at Ohio State for three seasons (1941-1943).  Ohio State was coming off of a rather lackluster few years including 4-4 in 1940 then went 6-1-1 in 1941 with a loss to Northwestern (QB was Otto Grahm whom Brown sought out for his Pro Squad postwar).  The tie was with Michigan in Ann Arbor.  In the final AP Poll tOSU was #13 while Michigan was #5 and Northwestern was #11.  

In 1942 Paul Brown coached Ohio State's first NC.  The team went 9-1 and was ranked #1 in the final poll.  The lone loss was at Wisconsin 17-7 and supposedly the Buckeyes were all sick due to the drinking water on their train being contaminated because the cars had sat unused due to the War.  Also, Wisconsin was VERY good, they tied ND, lost to Iowa, and finished 8-1-1 and #3.  

In 1943 the Buckeyes were awful.  The finished 3-6 with the wins coming against fellow-3-win-teams Mizzou, Pitt, and Illinois.  The Buckeyes got drilled:

• 28-13 by Iowa Pre Flight
• 30-7 by Purdue
• 45-7 by Michigan

They were THAT bad because they had affiliated with the Army's rather than the Navy's Specialized Training Program.  The Army's did not allow trainees to participate in varsity sports while the Navy's did.  Notably Michigan and Purdue were affiliated with the Navy's program.  Ohio State's players were all 17 year old freshman awaiting enlistment at their 18th birthday and they got annihilated by IPF, PU, and M's much older players.  

The next year, in 1944 the Buckeyes had Service Trainees able to play and they went undefeated (9-0) with only the Michigan Game (18-14) being close.  They'd have been National Champions again except that Army which had essentially their pick of recruits was 9-0 and even better.  Ohio State was the only non-military in the AP final top-6:

• 9-0 Army
• 9-0 Ohio State
• 9-0 Randolph Field
• 6-3 Navy
• 10-0 Bainbridge Naval
• 10-1 Iowa Pre-Flight
• 7-0-2 USC
• 8-2 Michigan
• 8-2 Notre Dame
• 7-0-2 March Field/4th Air Force
• 6-4 Dook
• 7-0-1 Tennessee
• 6-0 Norman Pre-Flight
• 8-2 GaTech
• 5-4-1 Illinois
• 7-1 El Toro Marines
• 8-2 Great Lakes Naval
• 8-0 Fort Pierce Naval
• 5-3 St. Mary's Pre-Flight
• 8-2-1 2nd Air Force

As you can see, 12 of the AP top-20 were military teams and of those only Army and Navy were permanent Military Academy Teams, the rest were temporary.  

Over those three seasons Ohio State had a NC and a near-NC with a flat awful team sandwiched between them and almost no body was on the roster for even two of those seasons let alone all three.  

[medinabuckeye1]

As it turned out, both World Wars interrupted what were likely Ohio State Dynasty's in the making.  

Ohio State's first season in what would become the B1G was 1913.  That season the Buckeyes played four of their old in-state rivals and three league games.  They went 3-0-1 against the in-state teams but struggled with the upgraded opposition, going 1-2 in conference for a final record of 4-2-1.  

In 1914 the Buckeyes dropped down to three in-state teams (3-0) and increased to four league games (2-2) for a final record of 5-2.  

In 1915 the Buckeyes again swept their in-state opponents (3-0) and finished above .500 in league games for the first time (2-1-1) for a final record of 5-1-1.  

In 1916 Ohio State swept both their in-state (3-0) and league (4-0) opponents for a final record of 7-0.  

In 1917 the Buckeyes again swept their in-state (3-0) and league (4-0) opponents then tied Auburn in Montgomery and beat Camp Sherman (temporary WWI Military team).  

[847badgerfan]

Michigan got favorable treatment even back then. Crazy Legs was sent there from Wisconsin.


After watching Hirsch in pre-season practice, Associated Press football writer Jerry Liska referred to "squirming Elroy Hirsch" as "Wisconsin's gold-plated wartime gift to Michigan."

[OrangeAfroMan]

Hirsch really got around - UW to UM, and then 2 different installments at Marine Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, NC and El Toro in CA.  I read he played football at both, but that's all there is.

[medinabuckeye1]

Hirsch really got around - UW to UM, and then 2 different installments at Marine Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, NC and El Toro in CA.  I read he played football at both, but that's all there is.

There was a lot of roster-fluidity around WWII.  I remember reading about one guy who went 4-0 in Ohio State/Michigan games but the odd part was that he won with both teams.  IIRC he was at Ohio State in 1944 then went into the Army and missed a year, then went to Michigan postwar and went 3-0 against Ohio State in 1946-1948.  

[CatsbyAZ]

Correct me if wrong, but ALL male university students were enrolled in their respective ROTC programs after the Pearl Harbor attack. Might only be true for certain regions.

[medinabuckeye1]

A little more on Ohio State and the war years:
Ohio State's two coaches preceding Paul Brown were both forced out for being not quite good enough.  Sam Willaman coached the team for five years from 1929-1933 and went 26-10-5:

• 4-3-1 in 1929, beat M
• 5-2-1 in 1930, L to M
• 6-3 in 1931, beat M
• 4-1-3 in 1932, L to M
• 7-1 in 1933, L to M

As I understand it, he was fired mostly for the 2-3 record against and two-game losing streak to M.  

When Willaman was forced out, Francis Schmidt was brought in from TCU where he had been successful.  He coached the team for seven years from 1934-1940 and went 39-16-1:

• 7-1 in 1934, lost to IL by a point on the road, beat M
• 7-1 in 1935, lost to ND by 5 at home in an epic game, beat M - Michigan game moved to end of season
• 5-3 in 1936, beat M
• 6-2 in 1937, beat M
• 4-3-1 in 1938, L to M
• 6-2 in 1939, L to M
• 4-4 in 1940, L to M

Obviously the three-straight losses to Michigan didn't help Schmidt but I think he was pushed out more for the problematic trajectory.  

Paul Brown really bridges the gap between Ohio State's foundation and the modern program.  When Ohio State hired him he was a High School Coach.  That would be crazy today but in 1941 it seemed to make sense and worked out REALLY well.  

Brown won Ohio State's first NC.  I think that is a big deal at any school because after that you are trying to get back to past glories.  That first guy is doing something nobody ever did before and getting over that hump can be quite difficult.  

At the end of the 1943 season Paul Brown went into the Navy where he ended up coaching Great Lakes Navy very successfully.  When he left he became Ohio State's "coach in abstentia" and Carroll Widdoes was basically what we would now call an interim coach for 1944-1945.  

The expectation (on all sides) was that Paul Brown would return once the war was over.  However, while he was gone the owners of the new Professional team in Cleveland (what would become the Browns) offered him a FORTUNE to coach there so he took that job and never came back to Ohio State.  

Ohio State went through three coaches in fairly rapid succession:

• 1944-45 Carroll Widdoeos
• 1946 Paul Bixler
• 1947-1950 Wes Fesler

None could quite return to the heights of the short-lived Paul Brown era so Wayne Woodrow (Woody) Hayes was brought in for the 1951 season.  He coached 28 seasons and won five NC's and the rest is history.  

[medinabuckeye1]

Correct me if wrong, but ALL male university students were enrolled in their respective ROTC programs after the Pearl Harbor attack. Might only be true for certain regions.

I think you are right for those over 18 but, for example, Ohio State's 1943 team was made up entirely (as I understand it) of 17 year olds who were too young to enlist.  I don't think they were ROTC/Special Training because they weren't there to get ready for service, they were just killing time until they turned 18.  

[OrangeAfroMan]

Some big-name programs didn't even field teams in 1943.  
I just bought a book on the subject, hoping it'll have data I can use to create more teams for Whoa Nellie.  

If not, I might gift it to my uncle who loves college football and was in the Air Force for 30 years.

[Hawkinole]

Forest Evashevski, a Micigan QB played for Iowa Preflight, and would later coach the Hawkeyes to two Rose Bowl wins.

[FearlessF]

you just had to bump this thread

[OrangeAfroMan]

What's wrong with this thread?  Anyway, I finally got the book after 2 failed attempts.
What it lacks in stats it makes up for in rosters/results.  Unfortunately, it's not what I was hoping for.
.
But if you want to know how any and all wartime teams did and the scores, it's great!

[Hawkinole]

you just had to bump this thread

Our power was out at home tonight as a result of a storm. I was going through old posts I missed while sitting in the dark when nothing productive could be done. I thought this was a very cool thread. There were accomplished football players on military teams in the 1940s.