MOST SHOCKING :HOW OHIO STATE’S 1940 LOSS TO MINNESOTA LED TO THE END OF FRANCIS SCHMIDT’S…

 

The 1940 matchup was only the fifth time Ohio State and Minnesota had met on the gridiron since OSU became a Western Conference member in 1912. The 1940 contest was the first with both teams ranked in the Associated Press’ top 20: Minnesota was ranked seventh and Ohio State was ranked 15th. One program was on a climb to a storybook season, the other was on a path toward one of its most embarrassing seasons ever.

Ohio State fans were very excited prior to the 1940 season. The Buckeyes were the defending Western Conference champions and had a loaded roster including All-American quarterback Don Scott and All-Conference center Claude White. The fervor was amped up a bit more than usual because some of the national press had singled out Ohio State for postseason honors. Most notably, The Saturday Evening Post’s “Pigskin Preview” written by Francis Wallace. Long before the Internet, sports cable networks or even Beano Cook, the entire college football pundit industry was essentially a handful of syndicated newspaper and magazine writers. Wallace was “by far the most nationally circulated [football] critic” and his annual forecasts were greatly anticipated and noteworthy.

There seemed to be a consensus among Columbus’ famed “Downtown Coaches” and the local sporting press that Ohio State’s greatest foe was the Buckeyes themselves, and the 1940 squad seemed to make it their mission to prove it…

Ohio State’s head coach, Francis Schmidt, was hired in 1934 to breathe life into an Ohio State program that had grown stale under previous coach Sam Willaman. Despite producing consistent winners, his teams were criticized for being “dull” and “uninspiring,” and some had dubbed the former Buckeye star, “Sad Sam.” Most concerning to OSU officials was that the crowds at Ohio Stadium had fallen to around just 20,000 per game, and apathy was as big a factor as the Great Depression was. Despite a 7-1 record in 1933 – the loss was a 0-13 drubbing by Michigan – Willaman was forced to resign. At Schmidt’s hiring, one Columbus sports writer wrote that fans would “rather see a Schmidt team lose colorfully than a Willaman team win drably.”