Former Ohio State coach Bruce, a Hall of Famer, dies at 87

COLUMBUS, OHIO — Earle Bruce stepped into his dream job, football coach at Ohio State, under challenging circumstances, replacing the program’s revered longtime leader after a fall from grace.

Bruce embraced the task of following Woody Hayes, and went on to have his own Hall of Fame career. He never did quite match Hayes’ record or status at Ohio State, but Bruce earned a special place of his own in Buckeyes football history as adored patriarch and sage and the mentor to the program’s current coaching star.

Bruce died in Columbus at 87, according to a statement released by his daughters through Ohio State on Friday. He’d been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

He had a record of 81-26-1 as Ohio State’s coach from 1979-87. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003.

Bruce was hired after the revered Hayes was fired for punching a Clemson player in the 1978 Gator Bowl. Even after Bruce was fired by Ohio State, he never lost his passion for Ohio State football.

“He was just so genuine,” said former Ohio State All-American Chris Spielman, who played for Bruce from 1984-87. “I think the one thing that stood out to me, and I heard other people describe him this way: There was nothing phony about him.”

Ohio State coach Urban Meyer began his coaching career as a graduate assistant under Bruce in 1986, and later worked for him at Colorado State. “I’ve made it clear many times that, other than my father, Coach Bruce was the most influential man in my life,” Meyer said in a statement.

Raised in Cumberland, Md., Bruce had come to Ohio State in the fall of 1949 to play football. He sustained a knee injury that in effect ended his playing days. He was a high school assistant coach and later head coach before Bruce joined Hayes as an assistant at Ohio State in 1966. Bruce was in charge of a bruising offensive line that paved the way for the Buckeyes to win three Big Ten titles, two Rose Bowls, go 43-14 and win the 1968 national championship.

After six years, Bruce became a head coach at the University of Tampa and went 10-2. After a stint at Iowa State, Bruce was hired in January 1979 to replace his mentor and friend. He went at the job with characteristic energy despite some criticism from fans who compared him to Hayes, the Buckeyes’ coach for 28 seasons.

Bruce took over a 7-4-1 team that had lost its last two games and finished fourth in the Big Ten in 1978. He promptly took the Buckeyes to within a whisper of a national title. Ohio State went unbeaten through the 1979 regular season before losing the national title to USC, 17-16 in the Rose Bowl.

After winning or sharing four Big Ten titles, he was fired in 1987. He went on to coach at Northern Iowa and Colorado State before returning to Columbus in retirement and again becoming an integral part of Buckeyes football. He worked for years as a radio analyst and was well known for saying how he “bled scarlet and gray.”