Jeff Cravath Newell " Jeff " Cravath ( February 3 , 1903 – December 10 , 1953 ) was an American football coach best known as the head coach of the USC Trojans football team from 1942 - 1950 . He compiled a 54 - 28 - 8 record while coaching at USC , and is known to have introduced the T formation to the USC program . Jeff was a nickname given to him when he was very young as he was a " fighter " like Jim Jeffries . He was called " little Jeffries " . Early life . Cravath was born in Breckenridge , Colorado ; his mother died in childbirth . Jeff as a baby was brought to be raised by his maternal grandparents Augustus and Kate Cravath of Santa Ana , California , as well as his uncle , major league outfielder Gavvy Cravath , and grandparents in Kansas ; his father died when he was six . Playing career . He graduated from Santa Ana High School in Santa Ana , California , and entered the University of Southern California , starring as a center on the football team from 1924 to 1926 ; among his teammates was a young John Wayne . Cravath also became a Sigma Chi member at USC . In his senior year , in which he was team captain , USC began its intersectional rivalry with Notre Dame ; the team finished 8 - 2 , with both losses ( to Stanford and Notre Dame ) coming by 13 - 12 scores . All - America n teammate Jess Hibbs would later note , " I played with Jeff the year we opened the series against Notre Dame . He should have been made All - America center . That year the Notre Dame center [ Bud Boeringer ] made the team and Jeff completely outplayed him . He was a champ on and off the field . " Cravath went on to play in the January 1927 East - West Shrine Game . Coaching career . He became a USC assistant coach under Howard Jones in 1927 - 28 , with the 1928 team becoming national champions . Cravath next became the head coach at Denver University from 1929 to 1931 , with a record of 11 - 9 - 1 , and then served one year as an assistant at Chaffey College . He returned to USC as an assistant coach from 1933 to 1940 , including the 1939 national championship team on which he was the line coach , and was head coach at the University of San Francisco for one year in 1941 , with a record of 6 - 4 . Jones died in July 1941 , with assistant Sam Barry taking over the USC team for that season ; but when World War II began and Barry entered the Navy , he recommended Cravath for the position on a permanent basis ( Barry returned as an assistant from 1945 to 1950 ) . The new coach , rejected for military service due to poor eyesight , became the first USC alumnus to lead the program . In nine seasons Cravath led USC to the Rose Bowl four times , after the 1943 , 1944 , 1945 and 1947 campaigns . The Trojans defeated Washington 29 - 0 in the 1944 Rose Bowl and Tennessee 25 - 0 in the 1945 game , but lost to Alabama in 1946 and to Michigan in 1948 – they were USC ' s first losses in the Rose Bowl after eight victories . Known for their excellent defense , his 1943 team began the year with six consecutive shutouts , and his undefeated ( 8 - 0 - 2 ) 1944 team ended the season ranked seventh in the nation . After the 1945 season , Cravath was offered a five - year contract by Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall , and he told acquaintances he was going to accept ; but he ultimately changed his mind and signed a five - year extension with USC . He signed another four - year extension in August 1949 . Cravath ' s players at USC included Ralph Heywood , Jim Hardy , John Ferraro , Paul Cleary , and Frank Gifford . But his later teams showed a sharp decline in performance from those of the war years , and USC was 11 - 11 - 4 from the third game of 1948 through 1950 . His final game was a 9 - 7 victory over Notre Dame , his first win in six tries against USC ' s major rival , and also USC ' s 300th victory all - time . Although he had a record of 8 - 3 - 1 against crosstown rival UCLA , the three losses were the first for USC in the series , including a 39 - 0 defeat in the second to last game of 1950 . Cravath was also criticized for losing his last three games against California , each by six points . He was forced to resign when the 1950 season ended with a 2 - 5 - 2 mark after beginning the year ranked 12th in the nation , and was succeeded by former USC player Jess Hill , who was an assistant under Cravath from 1946 to 1948 . After football . Afterwards , Cravath became a racing official at Santa Anita Park for two winters before moving to El Centro , California and becoming a rancher . He also served as a technical advisor on the 1953 football film " Trouble Along the Way " , starring his old teammate John Wayne . He died in Calexico , California at the age of 50 , one day after suffering numerous injuries when his pickup truck collided with a dump truck ; he underwent an emergency tracheotomy , but never regained consciousness . He was survived by his wife Margaret " Peggy " ( Colegrove ) ( b . 1907 - d . 2010 ) and their two daughters Anne ( b . 1930 ) and Carol ( b . 1936 ) . Sportswriter Braven Dyer noted , " For a man who was orphaned early in life , he grew out of rough surroundings to a point where he seemed always to know the right thing to say in public . I have known Cravath for something like 30 years . In many ways there was no better sport in the football coaching ranks than Cravath . " Jim Hardy said , " I would go to Cravath for advice where I would not even have gone to my family . He was a friend of all his players and a good coach . He was subjected to unreasonable pressure in his last year at SC , but he never lost his interest in the game and his deep attachment to the men who played for him . " Cravath was a 2005 inductee to the USC Athletic Hall of Fame .