Two of the 14 members of the 2016 College Football Hall of Class have strong Browns connections.
The class, which was announced last Friday, includes Tom Cousineau, a linebacker at Ohio State from 1975-78, and Bert Jones, a quarterback at LSU from 1970-72.
Cousineau, a graduate of Lakewood (Ohio) St. Edward High School who is back there as an assistant coach, played for the Browns from 1982-85 and was part of a well-known group of linebackers that included Clay Matthews, Chip Banks, Dick Ambrose and Eddie Johnson.
Cousineau, who was born May 6, 1957, two days before another of his Cleveland linebacker teammates in that first season of 1982, Bill Cowher, was selected No. 1 overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by Buffalo but refused to sign with the Bills and instead opted to play in the Canadian Football League, spending three seasons (1979-81) with the Montreal Alouettes. The Bills still owned his rights when Cousineau decided to go to the NFL in 1982, but he still didn’t want to play for them. He wanted to go to his hometown team, the Browns, who made a blockbuster trade with Buffalo to get him. It was such a big deal that Cousineau was a cover boy story in Sports Illustrated.
Things were fine until Sam Rutigliano, the head coach who was there when he arrived in Cleveland, was fired halfway through the 1984 season and replaced by defensive coordinator Marty Schottenheimer.
“Marty didn’t like me for whatever reason, said Cousineau, who went from being a full-time starter to a part-timer. “I could never figure it out.”
At the end of Schottenheimer’s first full season as coach in 1985, the Browns cut ties with Cousineau and he finished out his six-year NFL career – and nine-year pro career — by playing two seasons with the San Francisco 49ers.
Jones never played with the Browns, spending almost all of his 10-year NFL career with the Baltimore Colts. But his dad, Dub Jones, is a Cleveland Browns Legend.
Dub Jones was a running back and wide receiver for the Browns for eight seasons (1948-55), playing in the league championship game each year and winning five titles in the NFL and All-America Football Conference. At 91 years young, he is the oldest living former Browns player.
He also was the offensive coordinator of the 1964 NFL champion Browns under Blanton Collier.
Playing with a bevy of offensive stars in Cleveland who made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Jones was overshadowed and never really got his due. But Jones does have something for which he is widely known, sharing the NFL record with two Hall of Fame running backs in Ernie Nevers and Gale Sayers for most touchdowns in a game with six. It occurred in a 42-21 win over the Chicago Bears on Nov. 25, 1951 at Cleveland. He scored on runs of two, 12, 27 and 43 (twice) yards, and on a 34-yard pass from Otto Graham.
Sayers, of course, would play with the Bears a decade and a half later, while Nevers played two decades before with Chicago’s other team at the time, the Cardinals.
Interestingly enough, that win over the Bears 64 years ago also set Browns single-game records for most penalties (21), most penalty yards (209), most penalty yards by an opponent (165), most penalties by both teams (37) and most penalty yards by both teams (374).
