“It’s probably the biggest win I’ve been a part of,” said Isphording, the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach then.
Ever?
“We had been so good for so long and then got shipped down there,” Isphording said, “and nobody gave us a chance to win.”
That’s the first game that comes up if Isphording is talking Wittenberg football with Hauser, who was a senior safety on that team, or Joe Fincham, Wittenberg’s head coach from 1996-2021, or anyone associated with the program in those years.
“That’s kind of the big one,” Hauser said.
That game was 24 years ago, but the bonds that formed then remain strong. Isphording is now the offensive coordinator with the Ohio Bobcats, and Hauser is the defensive coordinator. Ohio’s linebacker coach is Chris Woods, who worked on Fincham’s staff from 1996-2000.
Last month, Fincham visited all three coaches during a game at Peden Stadium in Athens. The coaches posed for a photo after the game. Marty Bannister, the play-by-play voice of Ohio who called games at Wittenberg early in Fincham’s tenure, joined them.
Fincham is a 1987 Ohio University graduate and a former captain of the football team. He now works on the coaching staff at Kenton Ridge High School, where the head coach is one of his former Wittenberg players, Jon Daniels.
Fincham didn’t need an extra excuse to visit his alma mater, but reconnecting with three members of his coaching tree, plus Bannister, was a good reason.
“Really good guys,” Fincham said, “and obviously I was fortunate to have them during my time, and they’re doing awesome stuff in Athens.”
Ohio won its first Mid-American Conference championship since 1968 last season.
Isphording has coached at Ohio since 2014. He earned a promotion to offensive coordinator in January when Brian Smith took over the program following the departure of Tim Albin, who took the head coaching job at Charlotte.
Wittenberg was the third stop on Isphording’s coaching journey. He worked at Fort Hays State University and then the Colorado School of Mines before landing on Fincham’s staff in 1998.
“Meeting Joe for the first time, he was this big guy with a deep, booming voice,” Isphording said, “and I somehow got the job. We had another big, strong imposing guy named Chris Woods, who was the D coordinator. I just remember being intimidated a little bit by the whole situation.”
Wittenberg finished 10-0 in the regular season in Isophording’s first three seasons, running the winning streak to 31 games before losing at Alma in 2001 in one of the few games played the week of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Isphording coached at Wittenberg through 2003. His wife Shelly (Ambuske), a graduate of Northwestern High School in Clark County, is friends with Fincham’s wife Rita, who’s from Springfield.
“I think the biggest thing from Joe that I learned,” Isphording said, “is no matter what — whether you’re a quarterback or a lineman, linebacker, kicker, whatever — you better be tough in this sport, and demanding toughness from your players, from your coaches, I would say that’s probably the focal point of Joe Fincham and what he believes.
“But I also think he understood that they weren’t just numbers and jerseys running around out there. They were 18- to 22-year-old kids. I took a lot of that from Wittenberg. With the transfer portal, it’s kind of forced you to really develop more relationships with kids to try and keep them. But I do think there’s also a time and a place where you’ve got to demand toughness.”
Hauser is in his third season at Ohio. Along with defensive coordinator, he also has the title of associate head coach. He coached with the Miami RedHawks for eight seasons before moving to Ohio.
At Wittenberg, Hauser was a three-time first-team All-North Coast Athletic Conference selection.
Hauser said he learned how to win at Wittenberg from Fincham.
“He was the boss, and we just did whatever he said,” Hauser said. “We were bought in. He had us all believing in and doing whatever he asked. It wasn’t as if he had to convince us. We just did it. That concept’s kind of changed now.”
Fincham helped Hauser every step of the way in his coaching journey.
“He’s one of the few people that I call to bounce things off of,” Hauser said. “It’s kind of cool when you go from the player-coach relationship, to then talking to him as a father figure and then just as a normal person. It was kind of weird at first because I was kind of scared of him for a few years, but now he’s just a good friend that I look to for advice on everything from whether it’s being a coach or being a dad or anything.”
Woods arrived at Ohio in March after three years as the linebackers coach and interim defensive coordinator at Temple.
Woods met his wife, Stephanie in Springfield. She’s the daughter of Larry Baldridge, a longtime member of Fincham’s staff.
“We were a really tight staff,” Woods said. “Joe was my boss, but he was an even better friend. We had a great relationship. We’d hang out constantly all the time off the field. Really good years, good memories.”
Woods started as a linebackers coach at Wittenberg in 1996 but earned a promotion to defensive coordinator in 1997. He still puts the blame on himself for a 21-19 loss to Mount Union in the playoffs in 1998. It was the best chance Wittenberg had to beat the D-III powerhouse, which knocked Wittenberg out of the playoffs three times in a four-year span.
“We had a great, great defense that year,” Woods said, “and we played really good in the second half, but I kind of handcuffed them in the first half. That kind of taught me a lesson. You’ve got to be who you are. When it was all said and done, when you looked at it, it was like, ‘Man, that was the national championship game.’ We were clearly the two best teams in the country.’”
About the Author
