The success of the Buckeyes that began with Chic Harley just prior to 1920 would one day grow into the dominance OSU enjoyed throughout the late 1960’s and in the mid 1970’s.
Cassady was the bridge between those eras.
Like Harley and Archie Griffen, the most decorated Ohio State player of the century, Cassady came out of a Columbus high school to star in the backfield for the Buckeyes.
Without Cassady, though, there might not have been a Griffin, for without Cassady, there wouldn’t have been a national championship in 1954 and therefore almost certainly wouldn’t have been the leeway for Woody Hayes to retain his job and build the program into the machine it became.
Hayes was on the ropes when Cassady arrived out of Central High School in 1952, having gone 4-3-2, in a rookie season that ended with a 7-0 loss to Michigan. Ohio State had gone through three coaches in the seven years prior to that, the last three of which ended with much more successful seasons than the one Hayes produced during his debut. The grumbling wouldn’t stop the instant Cassady arrived on campus, but from the minute he took the field as a freshman, a seed began to flourish that would bloom by the time he graduated.
In his first collegiate game, the season-opener in 1952, Cassady came off the bench to score three touchdowns in a 33-12 victory over Indiana. He became a starter from that day forward, and later in the year was crucial to OSU’s 23-14 upset of No. 1 Wisconsin and 27-7 victory over Michigan, the Buckeye’s first win the series in eight years.
The sensational freshman season, in which Cassady tied for the team lead with six touchdowns, only foreshadowed the success that was to follow. Two years later in 1954, he led OSU to an unbeaten season and the national championship. Calls for Hayes firing were again at fever pitch entering that year because of a 20-0 loss in Ann Arbor to end the 1953 season. Cassady silenced them with a brilliant season in which he rushed for 764 yards and led the team in receiving with 148 yards.
His biggest play, however, was an 88-yard interception return for a touchdown against second-ranked Wisconsin in the season’s fifth game, a play Hayes later termed “the most spectacular play in 20 years of football in our stadium.” OSU trailed. 7-3, prior to Cassady’s momentum shifter, but went on to a 33-14 victory aided not only by Cassady’s interception, but also by his 39-yard touchdown run.“That was a great win for us,” Cassady said. “Wisconsin was really a great team. They were ranked very high and had Alan Ameche, who would win the Heisman trophy that season. Beating them really gave us a springboard for the rest of our schedule.”
The Buckeyes closed the 1954 season with a 21-7 comeback victory over Michigan that turned on Cassady’s 52 yard touchdown run, and a 20-7 win in the Rose Bowl over USC, a game in which Cassady slogged for 92 rushing yards on a field muddied by day-long rains. It was no surprise, therefore, that Cassady finished a strong third in the Heisman Trophy voting that year, just 28 points behind runner-up Kurt Burris of Oklahoma and 258 points back of Ameche.
That made ”Hoppie” the overwhelming favorite for the covered honor in 1955 and he didn’t disappoint, offering the best season yet.
“The Heisman wasn’t talked about in those days the way it is now.” Cassady said. “There wasn’t the attention given to who would win it in the pre-season. I sure wanted to win it, though. If you were a competitor, you wanted to win everything you could..”
The Buckeyes lost a pair of non-conference games that year to Stanford and Duke, but nevertheless defended their Big Ten championship thanks to Cassady’s 958 rushing yards. He broke Harley’s Ohio State scoring record in his final game at the Horseshoe, getting the mark on a 45-yard touchdown run, one of Cassady’s three touchdowns that day against Iowa.“I scored three touchdowns my first game in Ohio Stadium and three touchdowns in my last one.” Cassady said with a laugh. “I guess I didn’t get any better.”
The Buckeyes couldn’t go to the Rose Bowl that year because of the league’s no-repeat rule, so their season finale at Michigan was for the pride of defending their league title and making sure the Wolverines couldn’t go to Pasadena, either.
“That was the win I enjoyed the most in my career.” Said Cassady, who rushed for 146 yards on 28 carries and one touchdown in the 17-0 victory, running his career-scoring total to 222 points. “They never crossed the 50 on us. If they had beaten us, they would have gone to the Rose Bowl. But because they lost, Michigan State got to go.
Cassady headed off for New York and the Downtown Athletic Club, where his 2,219 points – a 742 margin over second-place finisher Jim Swink of TCU – made him the first Heisman winner to get more than 2,000 points and gave him the largest victory margin ever.