Woody Widenhofer obit

Former Vanderbilt football coach Woody Widenhofer has died at 77

 He was not on the list.

Former Vanderbilt football coach Robert "Woody" Widenhofer has died. He was 77 and living in Colorado Springs.

Ryan "Woody" Widenhofer, who lives in Nashville, said that his father suffered a minor stroke earlier this month. While still in the hospital and preparing to begin rehabilitation, the elder Widenhofer suffered a second more severe stroke Saturday night and died Sunday.

"He had the biggest heart of any man I knew and loved his children unconditionally and had a lot of people that cared for him," Ryan Widenhofer said. "He would have done anything for us. He stretched and stretched to do everything he could for us. Obviously, his career was very nomadic moving everywhere; the life of a football coach takes a lot of your time. But he was there for us as much as he could be."

Widenhofer was Vanderbilt's head coach from 1997-2001. He was 15-40 overall, including a 5-6 record in 1999.

Widenhofer arrived at Vanderbilt in 1995 as defensive coordinator for coach Rod Dowhower. Widenhofer and Dowhower had served together previously on the Cleveland Browns staff under coach Bill Belichick.

Earlier in his career, Widenhofer, a native of Butler, Pennsylvania, developed a reputation for being a defensive genius. He was the linebackers coach (1973-78) and defensive coordinator (1979-83) for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Widenhofer was credited with helping to build Pittsburgh's Steel Curtain Defense, which played a vital role in helping the franchise win four Super Bowls (IX, X, XIII and XIV) in six years. He also coached in the USFL.

During his time at Vanderbilt, Widenhofer’s defenses were consistently among the best in the SEC. In 1997, the Commodores' allowed only 18.5 points per game.

"It was fun defense, and I think Woody kind of helped change the SEC with a bunch of zero pressures and no help, and we blitzed the (heck) out of people to stay in the game," said former Vanderbilt defensive back Roc Batten, now the coach at Ensworth. "If you were a defensive player, you wanted to play in the Vandy defense."

After Batten suffered a career-ending injury, Widenhofer persuaded him to become a student coach. Batten then became a graduate assistant and defensive assistant after he graduated.

"He was a player's coach," Batten said. "He would get in your face, but it was fun because you wanted to play hard for him because you knew he knew what he was doing. To be a part of the Steel Curtain Defense, if you knew anything about football and what Pittsburgh did in the '70s, you knew you were playing for a guy and working for a guy who knew defense and knew football."

Hi Lewis was the quarterback of Widenhofer's first team in 1997.

"He was an awesome guy with a big heart," Lewis said. "He cared about everybody. He was just a great coach to play for."

Former Vanderbilt All-American linebacker Chris Gaines was the Commodores' strength and conditioning coach when Widenhofer became the head coach. Widenhofer took advantage of Gaines' on-the-field expertise and made him the linebackers coach.

"He had the most brilliant defensive mind that I've ever been around, and I've seen a lot of them," Gaines said. "It was incredible the way he thought and could put people into position to make plays and could scheme a defense based on patterns and recognizing sets. He was unbelievable at making adjustments prior to a game, during a game, at halftime. I had a tremendous amount of respect and loved the guy."   

Widenhofer also was the head coach at Missouri from 1985-88.

After leaving Vanderbilt, Widenhofer served as defensive coordinator at Southeastern Louisiana (2003-04) and New Mexico State (2005-07). He spent one year as head coach of the short-lived United States Football League team, the Oklahoma Outlaws.