History of Ohio State Buckeyes Football - 1934-1943: Francis Schmidt and Paul Brown

1934-1943: Francis Schmidt and Paul Brown

In hiring Francis Schmidt in March 1934 to coach its football team, Ohio State moved an already "big-time" program to a higher level of competition. Schmidt was a well-established high-profile coach, having successfully coached Tulsa, Arkansas, and Texas Christian University, and he was both an appealingly eccentric personality and an acknowledged offensive innovator. His TCU teams had won two straight Southwest Conference championships and had only lost five times in five seasons. Schmidt's offensive schemes—which totaled more than 300 plays using seven formations predicated on speed, passing, trickery, and numerous laterals (a "wide-open" style called "razzle-dazzle")—were always changing. He did not neglect defensive play, either; his TCU teams had won 34 of their 47 victories by shutout. Schmidt was the first Buckeye football coach granted a multi-year contract.

Schmidt's 1934 squad opened the season with a 33-0 victory over Indiana, the initial shutout of the 25 registered during Schmidt's 56-game career at Ohio State. The first touchdown scored by a Schmidt team was a fake reverse that went for 78 yards, epitomizing his style. The Buckeyes won seven of their eight games in 1934, four by shutout (including a 34-0 defeat of Michigan, the first of 4 straight seasons in which the Buckeyes held the Wolverines scoreless), but finished second in the Big Ten to National Champion Minnesota. The only loss of 1934, to Illinois in an away game that honored Red Grange, resulted from a missed point after touchdown. A 76-0 rout of Ohio Wesleyan ended scheduling against other Ohio universities until 1992. (Its record against in-state college opponents through 1934 was 153—45—15.) Recognizing that he had been hired in part to beat Michigan, Schmidt's first four seasons saw victories over their archrival, all by shut-out, beginning with a 34-0 trouncing in 1934. Quarterback Tippy Dye became the first Buckeye signal caller to win three consecutive games over Michigan.

The 1935 squad also went 7-1 but were co-champions of the Big Ten with Minnesota. The sole loss was to Notre Dame, 18-13, in the first contest between the programs. Ohio State had dominated the first half in all aspects, leading 13-0, but did not gain a yard in the second half. Notre Dame took advantage of a serious player substitution mistake by Schmidt that by the rules of the day deprived the Buckeyes of their first string backfield in the last quarter, and also recovered a Buckeye fumble with less than a minute remaining in the game that set up the winning touchdown drive.

Schmidt's next three seasons were less successful, finishing second in the conference twice and just sixth in 1938. However in 1939 the Buckeyes won the Big Ten championship despite a final-game loss to Michigan; this has only occurred twice in the rivalry since, in 1982 and 2004, when Michigan won the Big Ten despite losing to Ohio State. Quarterback Don Scott was named an All-American, and the team reached its highest ranking at number four following a win over Minnesota on October 21. The next week it hosted its first ever top-ten matchup, against No. 7 and eventual national champion Cornell, but lost 23-14. Schmidt's popularity had been fading for a number of reasons, including the mediocre showing in 1938, but the championship in 1939 and anticipation of an even better season in 1940 with 21 returning lettermen appeared to have secured his job. However the Buckeyes lost three games in a row for the first time under Schmidt, culminated by 21-7 loss to Cornell in Ithaca, New York, in its first-ever matchup against a No. 1 ranked team. Three weeks later the Buckeyes were routed by Michigan and its senior Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon, 40-0, to drop to 4-4. Schmidt's entire coaching staff resigned in early December, followed by Schmidt on December 17, 1940, widely believed to avoid being fired. The Athletic Board accepted all six resignations that same day.

Immediately following the resignations, the Massillon, Ohio newspaper, The Independent, touted the coach of Massillon Washington High School's football team, Paul Brown, to succeed Schmidt. Brown's Tigers had just won their sixth straight state championship and had outscored opponents 477-6 while drawing an attendance of 116,000. An organized movement to hire Brown spread with the endorsement of his candidacy by numerous Ohio periodicals, and by a statewide letter-writing campaign orchestrated by the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association. The Athletic Department interviewed four candidates in a brief but intensive national selection process, and despite his having no previous experience coaching college football and being just 32 years of age, Brown was named head coach on January 14, 1941, with a 3-year contract.

Brown immediately changed Ohio State's style of offense from the complex "razzle-dazzle" schemes of Schmidt to a power attack using the single-wing and T-formations, stressing precise play execution. He also hired a coaching staff of three former assistants from Massillon, two coaches he knew from rival high schools, and one member of Schmidt's deposed staff. Brown planned and organized his program in great detail, delegating to his assistant coaches and using highly structured practices limited to 90 minutes duration to create a strong sense of team unity and identity.

The 1941 season was colored by the possibility of America's entry into the Second World War and ended just two weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the opener against Missouri, the Tigers befuddled the Buckeyes with a new offensive formation, the Split-T, but failed to score on a number of drives, allowing Ohio State to escape with a 12-7 victory. The Buckeyes then defeated a West Coast school for the first time, stunning the USC Trojans 33-0 in the Los Angeles Coliseum. The remainder of its games were all close, losing only to Northwestern and tying Michigan. Northwestern was led by sophomore tailback Otto Graham, who so impressed Brown in dominating Ohio State that Brown later made him the centerpiece of his AAFC-NFL Cleveland Browns professional team. At 6-1-1 Ohio State tied Michigan for second place in the Big Ten.