 As in 1940, the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association voiced their support for Brown early on.However Brown had also alienated many Buckeye alumni by failing to return to the coaching position reserved for him at the end of World War II, and the athletics department by signing Buckeye players, Lou Groza chief among them, to professional contracts before their college eligibility had ended.A unanimous vote of the board of trustees endorsed the choice of the selection committee and on February 18, 1951, named as head coach Wayne Woodrow Hayes, who had achieved success as head coach of both his alma mater Denison University and Miami (Ohio).