The USC Trojans and Ohio State Buckeyes met multiple times in the 1940s. Ohio State won the national title in 1942. USC made four Rose Bowls from 1943 through 1947. At the end of the decade, Ohio State produced a Rose Bowl season, but the Buckeyes couldn’t defeat a USC team which labored through a difficult season.
Ohio State might have finished No. 6 in the polls at the conclusion of the 1949 college football season, but USC stood its ground against that particular iteration of the Buckeyes. OSU and USC tied in the 1949 game in Los Angeles, 13-13.
The Trojans finished with a 5-3-1 record and Ohio State ended up at 7-1-2 with a Rose Bowl victory. This was the only season in Wesley Fesler’s eight-year coaching career (four years at Ohio State, three at Minnesota, one at Pittsburgh) in which he made and won a bowl game. Fesler was the Ohio State coach who immediately preceded Woody Hayes.
USC coach Jeff Cravath was excellent during the World War II era and immediately thereafter, but following the 1947 season, his Trojan tenure ran out of steam. The 1949 campaign would be his last winning season. He endured a sub-.500 record in 1950 and would be replaced by Jess Hill before the 1951 season.
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Story originally appeared on Trojans Wire
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