History of Ohio State Buckeyes Football - 1944-1950: The Graveyard of Coaches

1944-1950: The Graveyard of Coaches

Eligible for call-up into the military by the Selective Service, Paul Brown accepted a commission as a lieutenant (junior grade) in the United States Navy on April 12, 1944, and was assigned to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center at Chicago. Brown submitted the name of his assistant coach, Carroll Widdoes, to direct the team in his absence. Widdoes had been an assistant to Brown since 1934 and had turned down the prestigious head coach position at Washington High School to go with Brown to Ohio State. Though his only head coaching experience was at Massillon's Longfellow Junior High School, Widdoes was appointed acting head coach by the OSU Athletic Board on April 14.

The 1944 team fielded only thirteen upperclassmen and 31 freshmen, and lost standout halfback Dean Sensenbaugher to an appointment to West Point. However in August it received a tremendous boost when the U.S. Army's ASTP training program was discontinued at Ohio State and the Big Ten granted dental school student Les Horvath, discharged from ASTP, a fourth year of eligibility. Widdoes moved him to quarterback in the T formation and played him at tailback in the single wing in an otherwise freshman backfield, and as a result Ohio State went undefeated and untied. One of their victories was over Paul Brown's previously unbeaten Great Lakes Navy team, with Horvath scoring two of the Buckeyes' three final quarter touchdowns. The Buckeyes preserved their perfect season with a dramatic 4th quarter drive for a come-from-behind victory over Michigan. Ohio State finished second in the national rankings behind Army and Horvath became the first Buckeye to be awarded the Heisman Trophy.

The football program took an unexpected turn when Paul Brown, still in the Navy and with the war continuing, signed a contract on February 6, 1945, to coach what would become the Cleveland Browns of the professional All-America Football Conference. A week later Carroll Widdoes was made the official head coach of Ohio State. World War II ended by the time the 1945 season began and Widdoes integrated a number of returning military veterans into his team, and although the Buckeyes had a creditable year at 7-2, they were manhandled at home by Purdue and lost a tight game to Michigan, finishing third in the conference behind Indiana and Michigan. Despite having the highest two-year winning percentage of any Buckeye coach, Widdoes asked to return to an assistant's position, which was granted. A few years later he left Ohio State to take the head coach and athletic director's position at Ohio University.

Offensive coordinator Paul Bixler switched positions with Widdoes in 1946. Bixler had been hired away from Colgate in 1941 by Paul Brown, familiar with his work when Bixler was an assistant at Canton McKinley High School, and had never head-coached a team before taking over the Buckeyes. Although personable and detail-oriented, Bixler did not garner the respect of his players, partly because he rarely played anyone but the starters, and Ohio State endured a mediocre 4-3-2 season. The season ended with a humiliating 58-6 loss to Michigan. Bixler resigned and returned to Colgate to be its football head coach. Talk of Ohio State being a "graveyard of coaches" became commonplace, a reputation that lingered for decades.

Wes Fesler became head coach with a five-year contract as the result of a collaborative selection process by retiring Athletic Director Lynn St. John and his successor, Dick Larkins. Fesler was an Ohio State alumnus and had been a star athlete, winning nine letters (three in football), had been a three-time All-American, and was Big Ten MVP in 1930. As head coach at Pittsburgh he had nearly beaten Ohio State in 1946 and seemed the best choice to bring stability back to the program.

Fesler employed a single wing offense with returning Dean Sensenbaugher at tailback and Joe Whisler at fullback, but two of his key veterans, Tommy James and Tony Adamle, had left school to play professional football and the Bucks had a dismal 2-6-1 record, shut out four times and scoring only 60 points the entire season. Finishing last in the Big Ten for the only time in team history, only an improbable win against Northwestern had kept the record from matching 1897's worst ever.

Trailing the Wildcats 6-0 and having already turned the ball over on downs with two minutes to play, Ohio State threw an interception on what was apparently the last play of the game, but a penalty gave the Buckeyes an extra play after time had expired. That too was stopped and again negated by penalty. The Bucks then tied the game on a pass, only to have the try for extra point blocked. Again a penalty negated the play, and on the fourth extra play of the game the Buckeyes made the conversion and won 7-6.

Although again hurt by players leaving to play pro football, Ohio State improved greatly in 1948, winning six games and losing three in a year when the Big Ten was an exceptionally strong conference. In 1949 the Buckeyes overcame an early lopsided loss to Minnesota to go on to a successful season, due in great part to the play of sophomore Vic Janowicz. Tying Michigan in Ann Arbor to become Big Ten co-champions, Ohio State also received the Rose Bowl invitation, where they came from behind to defeat California.

1950 was thought to be a rebuilding year for Ohio State after 21 seniors on the 1949 team graduated but that team's sophomores were a very strong class, having been recruited in part by an alumni organization known as "The Front-Liners", and Vic Janowicz was moved to quarterback. Fesler, rumored to be resigning because of pressures associated with the position and abuse of his family by anonymous critics, returned to coach the Buckeyes on a run for a national championship.

Fesler's 5-4-2 defense while strong against the run, proved vulnerable to the pass, and an opening game matchup between Janowicz and SMU's Kyle Rote (the recipient and runner-up, respectively, for the 1950 Heisman Trophy) was lost when the Mustangs overcame a 17-point deficit with four touchdown passes. Fesler responded by playing Janowicz at halfback again, although he continued to be a serious passing threat to opposing teams, and Ohio State won six games in a row, most by wide margins, to move into the top ranking in the AP poll. However the season fell completely apart in the final two games when the Buckeyes turned the ball over seven times to lose to Illinois, and in a game known to Ohio State fans as the "Snow Bowl", lost to Michigan 9-3 in a blizzard. The teams punted a combined 45 times and all the scoring—a Janowicz field goal and a safety and touchdown for Michigan—resulted from blocked punts. Fesler's decision to punt on third down with 47 seconds remaining in the first half, recovered for a touchdown by Michigan, was severely criticized.

Two weeks after the Snow Bowl, citing concerns about his health and family, Fesler resigned to go into real estate. Less than two months later, however, he was named head coach at Minnesota. Detractors of Ohio State in general and Woody Hayes in particular have cited Fesler as a victim of unremitting abuse by "big football" at Ohio State but throughout the 1950 season speculation that Minnesota's Bernie Bierman would retire had repeatedly suggested that Fesler was a prime candidate for his replacement.

While newspaper references to the "Buckeyes" date back to at least 1919, it was not until 1950 that the school officially adopted "Buckeyes" as the nickname of its athletic teams.