20 college football moments that deserve to be made into movies
By John Buhler
11. A Punch Too Much
Woody Hayes may have won 238 games as a college head coach, won five national titles and might be regarded as the best head coach in Ohio State Buckeyes football history, but his astonishing coaching career came to an end in one holiday season bowl game back in 1978.
For whatever reason, an angry Hayes decided to throat-punch Clemson Tigers defensive lineman Charlie Bauman for forcing Ohio State to throw a costly interception in the 1978 Gator Bowl. That would be the last game that Hayes would ever coach for the Buckeyes, as he was relieved from coaching after that national embarrassment.
To say that moment is a black eye on his College Football Hall of Fame coaching career would be a gross understatement. It’s the one thing that people bring up more than anything about his coaching legacy with the Buckeyes. Five national titles and 13 Big Ten Championships are completely overlooked by this massive “what were you thinking?” moment.
Hayes was 65 years old at the time and toward the end of his coaching career in all honesty. This movie would be about if there were any signs that led this all to come to a crashing end down in Jacksonville back in 1978.
Some might argue on his behalf that the diabetic’s blood-sugar was low and he didn’t mean to punch Bauman in the throat. However, he had been previously reprimanded by the university for swinging at a camera man at the Michigan game in 1977. This didn’t seem to be an isolated incident and this movie would be a tell-all about all that inevitably led up to a punch too much versus Clemson.