Every former Ohio State Football player in the Pro Football Hall of Fame
By Ryan Stano
Ohio State football Hall of Famer No. 2: PK Lou Groza
Everyone in America knows that the Lou Groza Award goes to the best kicker in college football. Not many people know that Lou Groza actually kicked for the Ohio State football team back in the 40s. He actually ended up kicking for them in just one season before fighting in WWII.
After the war, Groza played for his former Ohio State coach Paul Brown for the Cleveland Browns. He ended up being one of the best kickers in NFL history after that. Quite frankly, he was the standard by which all kickers were measured until Adam Vinatieri came around.
Groza ended up playing 21 seasons in the NFL and won four NFL Championships with the Browns. He was a nine-time Pro Bowler, made four First-Team All-Pro teams, and made two Second-Team All-Pro teams. He led the NFL in scoring in 1957 as well.
Groza was named to the 1950s All-Decade Team and to the NFL 50th Anniversary All-Time Team. He’s in the Browns’ Ring of Honor and has his number retired. Despite making just 54.9% of his field goals, he showed that kickers could be a weapon in the future.
That was actually a pretty high conversion percentage for kickers in those days. That’s why he was considered so good. Groza was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1974 and obviously has the kicking award named after him.
The next player on our list is someone not a lot of Buckeye fans have ever heard of, but he was really good.