Ranking the 25 best head coaches in college football history
By Zach Bigalke
4. Woody Hayes
Woody Hayes spent several years as a high school coach in Ohio before enlisting in the Navy in World War II. After the war, he returned to Ohio. There he got his start in college coaching at his alma mater, Denison University. Hayes went 2-6 in his first season with the Big Red before going a perfect 17-0 between 1947 and 1948. That success earned him a promotion to coach Miami University, where Hayes won the MAC title in his second season with a 9-1 record in 1950.
From there Ohio State came calling, and Hayes began his meteoric rise in earnest. His first national title came in 1954 as the Buckeyes went 10-0 and won the Rose Bowl. The second national title came three years later as Ohio State won the Rose Bowl again. A third championship arrived in 1961, when the Buckeyes went 8-0-1 but did not play in a bowl game. From there Ohio State suffered through a drought of sorts, going six years without winning the Big Ten.
The rebound was complete in 1968. Ohio State went 10-0 and won a fourth national title under Hayes. The team followed up with a fifth national championship in 1970. They remained atop the Big Ten for much of the 1970s under Hayes, but the Buckeyes never managed to capture another national crown. The lasting image of the coach, thus, was not of his championship moments but his sideline punch thrown against Clemson’s Charlie Bauman in the 1978 Gator Bowl. That punch has long complicated his place among the greatest head coaches.