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2009 JT Press Conferences

BB73

Loves Buckeye History
Staff member
Bookie
'16 & '17 Upset Contest Winner
The full transcript from yesterday's press conference at the Big Ten Media Days.

Official.site

OHIO STATE HEAD COACH
JIM TRESSEL: It's good to be back with
all of you, and this always is kind of our time that
we know it's time to go to work. Our coaches just
came back from vacation, and hopefully they
enjoyed some well-deserved time. I know our
young people just finished a summer term and
have a little bit of time off, and then they come
back at it here in a week. We're ready to head into
preseason. It's an exciting time for us because
it's probably the youngest group that I can
remember that we've had. Twenty-eight seniors
graduated and three juniors graduated. So spring
practice was a lot of fun. It was one of those types
of springs that you could really notice improvement
because of how young we were and guys getting
opportunities. So it's really an exciting time for us.
I'm sure our guys have worked
hard this summer. I know they worked extremely
hard in the spring, and I know they're anxious to
get back at it on the 9th of August as we report.
We most certainly have to mature
quickly because our September is an extraordinary
one. We're going to have to be ready on
September 5th to face Navy coming in. It's an
exciting thing for us because we haven't had an
academy in Ohio Stadium since about 1930. And
it's really going to have some extra excitement and
energy as the Naval Academy comes in with their
unique style of play where they've led the nation in
rushing the past four years, and they give you
some problems that you probably haven't
rehearsed against for many, many years.
And then Southern Cal comes in,
and enough said there. A great football team.
Then we go up to Cleveland
Stadium to play in the Browns' stadium, which will
be exciting for our young people, to play in an NFL
stadium and play against the University of Toledo
there.
And then we open the Big Ten
with the University of Illinois. In my opinion, they
may have as much or more talent than anyone in
this league. I know they're going to be a very
veteran team, very mature team. So that's going
to be quite a September for us.
So we're going to need to have a
heck of a preseason. We're going to need to grow
very, very quickly. Unfortunately sometimes the
only time you grow is through real experiences, so
we're going to have to train and get ready for those
real experiences, and then handle those bumps
and ups and downs and so forth and see if we can
become a good football team.
I think we have excellent
leadership. We have 19 seniors that I think about
10 or 11 of them are fifth-year guys and may be
taking on both some playing and leadership
responsibilities that they haven't had, and they're
excited to do that. We're looking forward to see
where they can take us.

Q. Terrelle Pryor was the first
quarterback to start as a true freshman in over
30 years. How is he handling, I guess, the
leadership role for playing nine games last year
and then coming into this year?

JIM TRESSEL: Yeah, I think the
experiences Terrelle got this past fall were very,
very valuable. I think they were tough. When you
step in and you take over for a guy like Todd
Boeckman who was our captain and who had done
a lot of good things. I think that's a difficult
assignment, and I thought he handled them well.
He has a real passion to do well.
He wants to make sure he can do all that the team
needs, and I thought for a freshman he was pretty
careful with the football and grew to learn from
every experience he had. There were some tough
experiences along the way.
I thought his bowl preparation was
very, very good, and then of course we're playing
against a very good team in Texas. That was
another lesson that he had a chance to be a part
of, and then I thought his preparation this spring
was excellent. He's a guy that's passionate about
being good. He's very serious about the game,
studies the game extremely hard, loves to study
film, loves to just be on his own with his DVDs and
grow as a quarterback.
But not unlike our team, the
maturity in September is going to be a great
challenge. I think that will be a real plus for him to
face the challenges that we have. But we feel real
good about him.

Q. Coach Zook and Illinois are going to
play a schedule that are almost nontraditional
by Big Ten standards because it goes later into
the fall. Would you like to see more coaches in
the league have the moxy to go out and play
the Texases and USCs and during
nonconference which could help down the
road?

JIM TRESSEL: I think any time
you challenge yourself -- I'll answer the second
one first. I think any time you challenge yourself
it's a positive thing. But as I look at our
conference's schedules, there are a heck of a lot of
challenges on those schedules we all take very
seriously representing one another and
representing the conference.
But there's no doubt about it, when
you're taken to your limit and then some, it can
make you better.
As far as playing later and those
kinds of things, you know, part of me is an old
traditionalist that I always enjoyed Thanksgiving
weekend because my dad was a football coach,
and typically his season had just ended. We got to
see him for the first time since the massive Ohio
Conference media day that he would head out to,
so that was a special time.
I also have an affinity for the fact
that our players who really train all year-round in
our conference setup, they have a chance to be
home for an extended Thanksgiving weekend,
which really there's nothing more important in any
of our lives than our family and having the chance
to be with them.
On the other side of things,
certainly the arguments about the exposure later in
the year with the Conference Championship
games and all those kinds of things, I'm sure
there's validity from that standpoint. As far as how
many days you have in between games, you know,
the difference between 46 and 38 or something
like that, I'm not sure it's that significant.
We've not felt in any of our Bowl
situations that because we happen to have a lot of
days in between -- I think when we played Miami
back in '02 we might have had 43 days in between
the end of the season and the championship
game, and it worked out. Other times we've had
46 or 45 and maybe it didn't work out as well.
The whole picture is bigger than
just football, whether it's the discussion of a 12th
team or a Conference Championship or the
calendars and all that. You know, we're on board
with whatever is best for the conference, whatever
is best for the institution, all the while keeping in
mind what's best for the student-athlete and trying
to make it as great an experience for everyone as
we can.
Like any complicated matter it will
continue to be discussed, and we'll come up with
good solutions.

Q. Could you talk about the state of the
running back position and replacing Beanie
Wells, what needs to happen there, and the role
of Dan Herron and how he's developed?

JIM TRESSEL: Well, it's difficult to
replace a Beanie Wells. Beanie was an
outstanding player, and he was the kind of guy that
as the season went on or as the game went on, he
got stronger and stronger. We used to talk about
there was a cumulative effect when he carried the
ball through the course of a game or through a
season. So you can't replace exactly what he
does or what he did.
We feel real good about Boom
Herron. Danny Herron is a tough kid, a good ball
carrier, excellent pass protector, is solid in the
passing game. We'd like to think that Brandon
Saine, another young man that had a real solid
freshman year and then had some injuries this past
year that kept him from being in the plan as much
as we had anticipated, Brandon had a very good
spring, as well, as did Danny.
He's the kind of guy that not only is
he an excellent running back, but he's a real fine
receiver and has tremendous speed. He owns the
state 100-yard dash -- or I guess it's not 100 yards,
it's 100 meters there in the state of Ohio at 220
pounds. Brandon, we would like to believe, will be
a heck of a runner there.
We've got some other guys that can maybe run the ball in different type scenarios
than a traditional running back with some of our
wide guys and our quarterback and those types of
things.
But Danny Herron and Brandon
Saine, it's their time to step up.

Q. Often successful teams are copied,
or you start seeing some of the schemes that
maybe your team is using on other teams. In
the case of Ohio State, have you seen that?
Have you seen maybe some of your scheme or
maybe a formation or some of the things that
you guys have done successfully starting to
pop up on other teams around the league?

JIM TRESSEL: You know, I think
one thing about us coaches is we all copy off each
other. There's no doubt about it, that as we study
all that film and we watch what someone does, you
say, boy, that's a heck of an idea. And then you
have to sort out is it a good idea because they
happen to have the people that have those skills,
or is it a good idea because it can cross over to
some of the talents that our guys have.
You know, there are only so many
ways you can line up 11 guys, and defenses
around the country, I think, are doing them all, just
about anything that you can possibly do.
Offensively you have to have five of them. They're
at No. 50 through 79. So there's only so many
ways you can line up the other six.
I think we all do a good bit of all of
them, and I think the secret to all the good teams is
that they find out the things that their guys can do
the best. Sometimes it's simply by their design
and their experimenting and so forth, and
sometimes it's by, ooh, look what this group is
doing. I can see Terrelle Pryor doing that or I can
see Boom Herron doing that or whomever.
There's a little bit of it all.
The one thing that college football
is great about is in the off-season you see teams
getting together all the time and sharing ideas and
sharing thoughts, and it's a little bit unusual that
that's the way it is with all the sharing of
information. But that's how we all get better.

Q. A couple of the coaches basically
indicated that you guys have actually talked
about a little bit of the perception situation out
there about the Big Ten right now from maybe
a little bit of an inferior complex situation or
something like that. What is your feeling about
that, and do you feel the worm is turning?

JIM TRESSEL: Well, we spend
time in meetings, whether it was our meeting at the
national coaches' convention that we met as a
conference or the meetings in May, and we always
talk about how we can get better. I mean, that's --
even after the years where we might be 5 and 2 in
bowls, you're sitting there talking about, How can
we get better? This year we were 1 and 6, and
maybe that discussion gets even more impactful or
whatever.

But that's an ongoing thing that we
talk about. I don't know that anyone in this
conference has an inferiority complex. If you
watch ball games, our guys will play toe to toe with
anyone. If you watch the NFL draft, they'll get
selected at the regularity of almost every
conference.

But it is something that, as I
mentioned earlier, we take very, very serious, that
every time we line up outside our conference,
obviously we're representing ourselves and our
institution, but we're representing this league.
That's important to us.
When those bowl games are going
on, we're rooting like crazy. That's something
that's very, very important.

FastScripts by ASAP Sports.
 
Tuesday presser before the Navy game.

Ozone.video (almost 35 minutes)

Official.site

COACH TRESSEL: Quite a crowd here. Exciting. No one's more excited than our players and coaches to have a chance to line up and see if all this hard work has helped us move toward where we'd like to be. We thought our guys did a good job throughout the course of the entire preparation year. Their winter showed a lot of improvement and the spring football felt like we progressed to the degree you can when you have 15 practices, and by all appearances to us, they worked extremely hard this summer.

They came in in good shape. Probably had as good a fitness testing the first day of camp as we've had and I thought we had a good rugged training camp. And I hear some of the guys saying that it's by far been the most rugged one we've had. I don't have any proof of that, but they seem to be going hard at it and they spent a lot of time together.

We thought one of the important things with this group -- I think somewhere in the 35 to 37 range of people out of 105 had never been to training camp with us and that's a large portion of your team, so we felt as if they needed to spend a lot of time together and they did that during the preseason. They came up with some good ideas to spend even more time together and now they're anxious to get ready to go and play against a great Navy team.

There's a whole bunch of excitement, I think, and you folks can feel it as well as we can, energy and electricity about the United States Naval Academy coming here. Everyone knows about their successes and we talk a lot about those big games that you play in and so forth and I think they've won 12 of their big games in a row when you count their games against Army and Air Force, which is as big as you can get. And eight-win seasons, one after the next, multiple bowl games in a row, and they've been very, very successful and they have good consistency going on, which I think consistency is the key to any operation.

And so our guys are keenly aware as you study the film, it's very unique for our defense and it's an opening game, so you can see as we move each day closer, the younger guys, you can tell they get even more looks in their eyes like 'here it comes,' and they're excited to get out there for the first time.

It's going to be a neat atmosphere. A whole bunch of special things planned. Gene Smith just told me this morning that there's been as much or more interest in Navy tickets as any game on our schedule and perhaps we may have a record crowd here on the 5th of September, which is an exciting thing, and flyovers planned, and it's a special weekend in all of college football. The American College Football Coaches Association and the NCAA has deemed this Sportsmanship Weekend and a big overlying theme about the good things and sportsmanship in the game of football. And football's the most visible game we have in the NCAA, so there are some special things going on in terms of that. And John Glenn coming in to dot the "I" and the alumni band is back and all those things, so it's exciting.

And our guys have been training hard and working hard and I think we're progressing -- I happened to have a chance to get some of that good Donatos pizza today, sit down with this group, and I think the feeling is that we should throw more because there was a youngster here that's a writer or somewhere that's from Marietta College and he reminded me that Marietta was the place where they threw the first forward pass and we might try to do that, something along those -- something. And then I think it was Lori Schmidt said, Coach, did you notice there's 22 sophomores in your two-deep, and I hadn't stopped to count them. But it is exciting. There's a lot of things we can talk about.

I think our guys have gotten better as time has gone on. I thought
yesterday's practice was sharp. Sometimes you don't know after a hard training camp and you give guys a couple days off and you don't know if they're going to come back a little sluggish and thinking, okay, I've done the work and it's time to play, but I thought they came back sharp both mentally and bounced around the practice field pretty well. The hardest part about first week game week in my opinion is that it seems like it lasts forever.

And here we sit on Tuesday and have got a lot of work to do. I mentioned to the offensive guys last night as they were in there feverishly planning, I said, you've had like nine months, you can't get any more plays, can you? We just need to find out if any of these great ideas work. So it's that time of year.

We're pretty healthy. We'll be close to full speed ahead. We've got, I think, five or six or seven guys that, for one reason or the other, perhaps doghouse reasons or injury reasons or whatever won't be with us, but really coming off a tough training camp, I feel pretty good. In fact, I even show that I would be accurate in not -- I even highlighted them on my personnel sheet here, of course you know Tyler Moeller, you know, won't be with us all season and that's -- you wish you had a guy like that. It's been good. He came back to town the last couple days and he's doing great and progressing well and there's no question in our minds that he's going to be back playing for us shortly after the new year and into spring practice and so forth.

Melvin Fellows will probably miss a little bit of time. Mike Adams, Orhian Johnson, Travis Howard, Jermale Martin won't be with us probably on Saturday, but outside of that, even some of the guys that as you've been out of practice and so forth that haven't looked like they were full speed seemed like yesterday and in today's report seemed like they're going to be full speed with us. So to have a good, tough training camp and be relatively in good stead, we feel good about that. It's going to be a nice, hot day. We're going to need to make sure we have lots of folks.

It's going to be interesting to watch our special teams. I think you'll see, A, you know we've put a lot of focus on that, but, B, you'll see some jerseys maybe that haven't been in there before that we're really counting on and so it's going to be exciting for them and so obviously our defense has got a tremendous challenge. It's not something we face every week. Someone asked me on the Big Ten call what makes it so difficult and I think first and foremost is that they really know what they're doing with their offense. Not that many people do it. We have not faced it for many, many years here. It's tough to emulate it.

Our guys, I think, are working hard. In fact, some of you were there a week or so ago when our scout team busted a long touchdown against us. So our scout teams are working extremely hard with it, but I don't think you know what you're in for when you face this offense until you're out on the field and it's going to be a tremendous challenge. Our guys are going to have to stay on their feet, because if they're not on their feet, they're in trouble. But our guys are preparing hard, our defense, I think, has a good plan.

Offensively, we face a little bit different look than many teams, but there's enough that's similar conceptually that I don't think it's as much of a different preparation and there will be perhaps more carryover. The difficult thing perhaps about playing against Navy's offense is there's really not much carryover, after that you probably don't use that package the rest of the year. But offensively the defense we face from Navy, there will be some carryover through the rest of the season. What I love about the Midshipmen and it's what I'm sure we all love about them is they play extremely hard, they never stop playing, they play low, they play tough, they play fast. Every special unit is full speed and they're never going to stop playing. So it's going to be a tremendous challenge for us. They've got a number of kids back on both sides of the ball. They played multiple quarterbacks last year.

In fact, Earle and I were just talking, who knows, that young man that they've got now might be better than the one that played most of last year and that's just what you do when you play that offense, you keep training those great players at that position and so it's a great challenge for us.

We're looking forward to it. Can't wait to get in the Horseshoe. Can't wait to be a part of all the festivities and the atmosphere and the things that are going to -- Gene Smith told me to give you this message, I wrote this down, when your boss gives you something, you write it down. Here's a tip for you. "Get there 20 minutes, in your seat, before the game starts. You won't be disappointed." That was his message. So I'll be there. Yes, sir?

REPORTER: Coach, with all the talk of the respect and appreciation for what the Naval Academy kids do, how do you get your guys to maintain the level of aggression that they need to play ferociously and, quote, unquote, take their heads off when the time comes if needed on the field?

COACH TRESSEL: To me the greatest respect you can give to a competitor is compete just as hard or harder. I mean, that's what the competitor wants. A competitor doesn't want any quarter or whatever they say, competitors want to compete. So the greatest respect you can give is play over your heads and out of your minds. That's just -- that's how you show respect.

REPORTER: Jim, in regards to the true freshmen on your roster, can you give us an idea of who's going to probably play, who's going to redshirt, maybe who's on the bubble?

COACH TRESSEL: Glad I brought my little sheet here. Okay. Let's see here. I would say Jamie Woods at safety is probably on the bubble. He's on some special units in two deep but we'll see. C. J. Barnett probably will, because he's on a couple special units. Right near the top we'll have to see this week of practice. Dorian Bell probably will. Again he's on some special units. Jonathan Newsome probably is on the bubble as to whether he will or won't. Obviously all of it's based on health and everything else. Storm Klein will probably play. Jordan Whiting is probably on the bubble.
Adam Bellamy probably will not based upon our depth inside there. John Simon probably will. Let's see who else we've got here. Melvin Fellows, I mentioned won't. Jack Mewhort is probably on the bubble in the offensive line, he's in the two-deep but we'll see how that unfolds. One thing Coach Bollman is comfortable with is we've got three or four guys that can play center. Sometimes you get nervous about you don't have enough centers, make the calls and snap the ball and all the rest, so Jack's been doing a good job in there.

Marcus Hall is on the bubble, but, you know, probably closer side of the bubble, whatever that means. Corey Linsley probably will. Reid Fragel probably will. Duron Carter probably will. James Jackson and Chris Fields, probably on the bubble, maybe more towards the side of the bubble that might not, according to how our depth is going out wide and so forth. Kenny Guiton right now is number three, so we'll see. Jordan Hall and Jaamal Berry probably will. Zach Boren and Adam Homan will. Who have I missed there?

REPORTER: Dominic Clarke?

COACH TRESSEL: Dominic Clarke probably won't. Probably won't.

REPORTER: Will means will play, right?

COACH TRESSEL: Probably will play, yeah.

REPORTER: Corey Brown?

COACH TRESSEL: Corey Brown, on the bubble, probably closer to the bubble not this week, but we hope we stay -- you never know. And you never know how guys progress.

REPORTER: You can activate mid-season if you'd like to.

COACH TRESSEL: You can activate a guy whenever you want to. One is developmental redshirt, you can activate a guy until you think he's ready, and as soon as he plays one play that counts as one year. And then there's medical red shirts where if he's played in less than 50 percent of the games in the front half of the season, he can be medically redshirted.

REPORTER: How big of a change do you see in Terrelle as he gets ready to start his second year and just what's his reaction, or excitement level, I guess, heading into this game?

COACH TRESSEL: I think his excitement level is about the same because he's always excited to play. I think his basis of what he knows and what he's experienced and so forth is dramatically different. A year ago this time, he was getting, I don't know, 15, 20% of the snaps and just doing a very limited amount of things and just trying to figure out what the formations meant.

Now, he's studying film like crazy, really -- has really progressed. But he'll be excited, he'll still be nervous, he's still a sophomore but he's got a tremendous amount more vantage point than he had a year ago.

REPORTER: Do you hold anything back at this point or does he pretty much have it all?

COACH TRESSEL: You know, he's got all the changes at the line of scrimmage and protection calls, sight adjustments and based upon what we'll do, the better you get you probably do less, and so we'll hold back from a standpoint of what we don't think we're executing yet very well, but as to what needs to do to play his position, he's got to do it all.

REPORTER: Where do you think he is transitioning from -- to become a great athlete to a great quarterback?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, you know, he's obviously been a great athlete for a long time and he was a great high school quarterback. I think no one would question that. And he came in and did a highly unusual job for a true freshman quarterback, so when you lead the league in passing efficiency and all those kinds of things, that's pretty darn good as a freshman. He's progressed from that point. He's got a different cast of characters around him and so forth. He's got to adjust to that. But I think he's progressing.

I don't know when you make that determination that a guy reaches the level you want him to reach because whenever he -- I'm sure Colt McCoy wants to get better than he is right now, Bradford wants to, Tebow wants to get better than they are right now, we're going to keep progressing but he's progressing.

REPORTER: Have you said he's got to get this a little better?

COACH TRESSEL: Oh, we've got to get a lot of things a little better. We haven't arrived. But we're not to the point where we say, well, there's just a couple little things we've got to do better. We've got to significantly get better. We think that it always starts with your decision making in your feet and he's working hard on those two things and the better his decision making and his feet get, he's got all the tools to do everything else.

REPORTER: Jim, number one, why did you decide not to name a permanent offensive captain this year and number two, do you have one already for this game or a temporary captain, whatever you call it, a week-to-week captain? I forgot what you called it.

COACH TRESSEL: Let me answer number two, I don't know what we call it, but the fourth guy that walks out to the toss. You're only allowed four, so to answer that one, no, not yet. The reason we did it just like we do every year when we look at the voting and you see what the voting tells you to do, I think there was one year here when Donnie Nicky and Michael Doss were the captains and offensively we walked two other guys out. One year I think James Laurinaitis was captain and a different defensive guy walked to the toss. So it just varies. But the voting kind of shows you who the team would like for sure and then there's a whole smattering of other guys that say, man, you know, they got significant votes so they ought to get to do this some, but you can't walk nine guys out there.

REPORTER: Will younger guys like Terrelle or Dan Herron be in the mix?

COACH TRESSEL: That will be an offensive decision. I know a year ago or two years ago when James was the only one on defense, the defensive staff and team and seniors decided each week. That will be an offensive decision each week.

REPORTER: Jim, you had mentioned the guys who are not going to be available this game. Mike Adams specifically, is he suspended?

COACH TRESSEL: Is he suspended?

REPORTER: Yeah.

COACH TRESSEL: Well, he won't be with us this week, I can't really talk too much more about --

REPORTER: Will he be with you for the USC game?

COACH TRESSEL: We'll have to see.

REPORTER: So that has not been determined yet.

COACH TRESSEL: Not yet.

REPORTER: You talked about all the young guys on the roster, do you have more or fewer questions as you head into this season than other seasons or how would you compare your level of, I guess, comfort and confidence?

COACH TRESSEL: I think you have more questions the more people you had out there doing what you're asking them to do on a Saturday, so I think you have more. Now, do I think we can do the things that we'd like to do? I'm sure we can. Not will we. To me, that's the biggest question. But what you hope when you have a veteran coming back is you'd like to say, well, he's going to be better. Rusty's been here a long time, you'd think he'd be better by now, you know. Maybe you assume, you know, that they'll progress but still that's a question, will he? So we just don't have as much film data. We have a lot of practice, but boy, as you know, it's different when you get over there.

REPORTER: I guess does that make this week or this game a little more interesting for you personally? Last year you had some of your established guys back and probably had an expectation, does it just add to the --

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah, I think a variety of things make this game really interesting. One is that. We've got a lot of new guys that we've got high hopes for and they've been working hard and let's see how they do. And it's Navy, which is a special thing. And so to me, there's a lot of neat things and all the things outside of the festivities involved and so forth, there's a lot of things that make this a pretty special opener. But, yes, those questions are -- that's one of them.

REPORTER: Can you talk a little bit about Ricky Dobbs and what kind of an option quarterback he is, on film, what does he look like he likes to do? How does he run the attack.

COACH TRESSEL: I have not spent a whole bunch of time studying him on film. I've listened to our defensive guys talk about the fact that he throws it extremely well. Obviously he runs it well. He's had huge games running the ball. He brings back experience. He stepped in and took advantage of his opportunities, but the thing that I keep hearing as I listen is he's a very, very good passer and that's scary in this offense because if you don't have the play action covered, there could be a sinking feeling when you see that ball flying out there knowing none of our guys are around.

REPORTER: Is it hard getting your secondary prepared for Navy?

COACH TRESSEL: Oh, absolutely. There's to me, two huge things about the secondary. One is that they will never have seen so many guys flying at them at the speed at which it happens here and the number of cut blocks and so forth they're going to have to deal with and number two is the speed of hard play action and you're on your horse heading into the pursuit lanes and all of the sudden the quarterback's off the line of scrimmage and here goes a receiver running by you. Maybe a guy you were running away from, so you didn't get cut by him, now all of a sudden he's running by you so, yeah, it's tough for the secondary.

REPORTER: Are you moving any of your coaches from the sidelines to the press box or vice-versa, any changes like that?

COACH TRESSEL: I think there's two changes. Obviously Joe Daniels. Nick Siciliano I don't know is going to be on the field. Doc Tressel is going to go up in the press box and then Luke's coming down on defense and Jim Heacock's going up.

REPORTER: Can you talk about why you're moving guys around? Is there a benefit to being on the field?

COACH TRESSEL: Some people feel as if they can see it much better upstairs. Other people feel as if they need to feel the game from the side line, it's a little more difficult to feel it from upstairs. I think the two staffs did it more on the makeup of their staffs as to who they wanted doing what at this moment.

REPORTER: Is it important to have Nick down on the sideline in your opinion so he can talk face-to-face with Terrelle and the receivers, et cetera? What's your feel on that.

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah, I think Nick does a great job. He's got a tremendous relationship with Terrelle and I think that will be a real positive thing. Doc has probably not been upstairs recently because he was a head coach for 20 some years and then here he's always been down, I think he's always been down, but Jim Heacock has the been up in a while, but the two staffs decided that that's the way they wanted to go and usually before every year I always have to ask them, now, which one of you guys are down and which are up, I'm kind of busy what I'm doing, and I can hear them all so I don't know where they are.

REPORTER: Jim, where would you put your feelings or emotions about your offensive line right now from the standpoint of progress? What do you see that you like? What do you see that still needs to come around and specifically is Miller really -- has he stepped up in the last couple of weeks, become a solid left tackle? What are your feelings there?

COACH TRESSEL: I mentioned to Earle when we were outside enjoying that good Donatos pizza that I thought yesterday's practice -- and again, we had kind of limited down, sometimes in preseason you get to doing so many different things, we'll be doing this against this kind of looks or doing this -- or doing a million things and how do you do any of it fast? So we had narrowed down a little bit of what we might do. And I thought yesterday in full pads, it wasn't like it was shorts or anything, in full pads, that our offensive line looked a little bit crisper and quicker and more confident in what they were doing than I had seen them in the last week or so.

So, now, we've got to block the real guys coming up and all that type of thing, but I think -- you know, I think I mentioned to you a week or so ago, I thought they were showing some signs, you mentioned Andrew Miller, I think really going as far back as last spring, he was coming along and taking advantage of opportunities and he's a tough guy. To me the key with the offensive line is no different than with the quarterback. If you do what they can do, then they're going to have a lot better chance of being successful because the other guys are allowed to try too. But you've got to do what they do best.

REPORTER: It's funny, you've got three starters back, but Brewster's the only one who's in the same spot he was. Justin was a starter at Michigan of course a couple years ago. But is that kind of strange to you to think that kind of mix? What does Brewster bring, I guess, that gives you kind of a settling feeling there?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, Michael did a good job stepping in as a freshman and he had some tough moments. Every play wasn't wonderful. Every game wasn't wonderful. And I'm sure we have to remind ourselves that he's a sophomore. But I think he's pretty darn solid and understanding what we want to do. Jimmy Cordle has made the move outside, which a little bit like what Doug Datish did, and Jim Bollman felt Doug had his finest year, the year that his quickness could kind of take over and not have those 320-pounders over him all the time and that type of thing. But Mike has been solid this summer and Jimmy's move outside seems to be a good thing and Bryant is steady. Bryant is good at tackle and I think even better at guard.

Justin's been back now for five or six practices and looks very good. We tease him a little bit because he's got fresh legs, everyone else is exhausted, he's out there because he didn't practice for a while. So I'm sure that as you look at any lineup in game one, it isn't going to look exactly the same throughout the year, if you're lucky to have no injuries or something, you're awfully fortunate, but hopefully we can build a little bit of depth, but that's going to be key. Coach Bruce reminded me today that the key is in the trenches and he's right.

REPORTER: How far is Adams from being a factor, what he has to do on the field and what he might have to do off the field if that's an issue?

COACH TRESSEL: I think he's coming along in all aspects. He's a young guy and I'm not sure, especially when you play those tackle positions whether he or J.B. Shugarts or any of those guys that are extremely young, there's a lot buzzing around on those edges, especially when it's Thaddeus Gibson and Nathan Williams and Lawrence Wilson. They've been going spring and fall through all that but I think they're coming along.

REPORTER: But is he in the discussion right now?

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah.

REPORTER: He is?

COACH TRESSEL: Absolutely.

REPORTER: You'd still consider him third?

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah.

REPORTER: Is Cameron healthy a hundred percent?

COACH TRESSEL: I don't know a hundred percent because he turned an ankle or whatever, but he won't leave the practice -- they kept saying let's give him two/thirds of the reps yesterday and Jim Heacock couldn't get him out of there, so he seemed awfully good yesterday.

REPORTER: What are some of the most recognizable names off your defense, could you talk about the progress these guys made in kind of accepting responsibility?

COACH TRESSEL: I think one thing that's a little bit of an indication of how that defense has come along, in fact, in about two minutes I'll bring them up, is the fact that when you have Austin Spitler, Kurt Coleman and Doug Worthington clearly voted as three guys that the team wanted out front, that just goes to show you that there's pretty good -- they've made a pretty good impact on everyone through their training, through the leadership, through the things you do in the summer when no coaches are around. They have done a good job and when you have leadership, that was probably one of the questions as we talked about, okay, what are some things that need to happen as we go into 2009, one was going to be see where the leadership emerges and through the voting for captains, it seems like it really emerged with some key guys. And as was mentioned many times, it isn't the most recognize age names, but I think they'll be very recognizable as time goes.

REPORTER: There have been the allegations at Michigan recently about them going over the limit of practice time in the 20-hour week. How does Ohio State monitor itself to stay within that 20-hour limit and walking the line between what is mandatory for players and what is voluntary on their behalf? How do you do that? Is that ever a difficult thing to do?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, we all have compliance forms and so forth that we fill out and so forth. I mentioned on the Big Ten call when someone asked a similar question is that what makes it difficult is how good these kids want to be. Sometimes you have to chain the doors of the Woody Hayes center, you know, to get them out of there. Act like you're cleaning the floor of the weight room or something because these kids want to be good. They want to train. They want to get their buddies in there and throw the ball around, those kinds of things.

So what's important is, A, we're not around and, B, we don't prescribe things. Do kids ask, hey, what do I need to do to get better? Okay, son, you need to work on your foot work, you need to do these things and so forth and if they go out and do them, it'd be like telling our med students, we're going to close the library, you've got to let them go to the library, you've got to let them train. There is a fine line, but the safeguards we have are we have set schedules and forms that we fill out, just like everyone.

REPORTER: Have you ever had any indication from players of guys saying, this is too much or getting an idea that too much is expected of them? Too much time is expected of them?

COACH TRESSEL: Oh, I think we all have those moments in our lives that we feel a little bit like maybe more is asked of me than is fair or whatever, but I haven't seen -- you know, I've never had anyone come into my office and say, hey, Coach, I think too much is being asked of me. In fact, honestly, I've taken over two programs and been an assistant for a third and whenever you go to a program and you interview each kid that comes in, he says, you know, Coach, we lost our discipline, we lost our toughness, we need to work harder, we didn't spend enough time at it, you know, all those things, and we need to work more at it.

So I think deep down kids want to work hard and I haven't had anyone come in and say, you know what, Coach, we spent too much time at it and that's why we didn't do as well as we wanted to do. You've got Branden Joe a former player back there and I'm sure he could answer it if
you get a chance to get an exclusive with him, but --

REPORTER: Have you followed then what Michigan has been dealing with?

COACH TRESSEL: I really haven't, other than I heard that -- you know.

REPORTER: Do you think a distraction like that affects every team in the Big Ten or have you been able to curtail its impact on your team?

COACH TRESSEL: A distraction?

REPORTER: Yeah. Is it a distraction for the entire Big Ten?

COACH TRESSEL: Oh, no, the only distraction we have right now is Navy and figuring out how to stop that option and all that stuff. Got to give Lori the last call. I've got three captains all dressed up in their Sunday go-to-meeting clothes, so --

REPORTER: What are the things that you feel your offense is doing best right now?

COACH TRESSEL: I think we're playing with a little more confidence now that we've played together a little more. I don't know that I could truly answer that until we do it against someone and it's for real and it's every down and distance. Sometimes when you're practicing, you don't make third down, okay, you go over to the side line and the second unit goes in and tries to make third down or whatever.

So until there are consequences, I don't know for sure, but I think they're a little more confident in what they can do and their confidence will get shaken at moments in the first game, second game, third game and beyond. How they'll adapt to what the other people are doing will be another step we need to take, but I think they're getting confident in believing in they have a chance to be a good group and I think they're doing a good job doing it as a group.
 
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COACH TRESSEL: Hope all of you had a great Labor Day. Got to labor on my 35th straight Labor Day. Coach Bruce used to always come in every year and tell us what year number it was in a row he was laboring on Labor Day.

It was a great weekend to be a part of last weekend. I think all of our players and coaches and fans alike will remember the 5th of September in 2009 as being a special time in Ohio Stadium. The opportunity to host the Naval Academy and all the energy and excitement that that brought with it, I thought our administration did a great job of creating the atmosphere that was tremendous for everyone involved, fans alike, and there was something special about that opening, you see those planes fly over and if that didn't give you a little perspective, then I'm not sure you were breathing.

And I thought the game was a good opportunity for us as well. You knew that we had some young guys who were excited to see how they could do and you knew that Navy would come in and bring to you some things that you don't face every day. And we said to our scout team before we left the building on Friday to begin the weekend, we gave them a standing ovation because they did the best job they could possibly do not doing their normal techniques to prepare us, and I thought that our players then responded.

Navy's a tough one. Last year 12 out of 13 games they scored in the opening drive and we made it one for one for them this year, and you knew they were never going to stop playing. And I thought that we did some good things in the ball game. We did some things that we've got to get better at. And now we have all that film. I think we had 64 plays on offense and maybe 57 on the defensive side to grow from.

Some people might ask, well, what's the carryover for our defense, and no matter what scheme you're playing against, there's no question about it, you have to play it perfectly, your techniques, your assignments, your reads and so forth, and anytime we weren't successful on defense, it was those fundamental things.

Offensively we got to go against a little bit different look, probably not as unconventional as their offense is, and so our young people, for the first time in a game being together with those units had that chance to grow from that. Probably didn't play quite as many guys as I thought we might. You never know how the flow of a game is going. And when you play in a game against Navy, there's probably less possessions that you have in a ball game, and so it's a little bit harder to substitute.

We were able to get http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1175673Joe Bauserman in, which I thought was critical to make sure we did that because we feel as if you always have to have two quarterbacks ready to step in front of that huddle. So all in all, I thought it was a good experience. I'll be the first to admit we have a long way to go and our guys came back anxious on Monday to labor on Labor Day and get ready for a great Southern Cal team.

And Southern Cal was obviously very impressive in their opening game. They're going to be a great football team again. I thought their young quarterback demonstrated a command that might have been beyond his years for a youngster that just came in in the spring and had some spring practice and probably had some increased reps a little bit this preseason because of the injury to the other fellow and took advantage of that, grabbed the job, and stepped up and was very efficient. He's got some great people around him and he recognizes that and distributes the ball very, very well, gets them in the right plays, make the checks and all those things.

And their offensive line is a veteran group. They had a couple injuries off and on last year, so they're probably deeper right now than might be normal because they've had some other guys play. And we understand that their outstanding center, O'Dowd, will probably be back, which he's a heck of a football player. And their receiver corps is very, very talented and dangerous and they spread it around whether it's throwing to the backs or throwing to the tight ends or throwing to the wide people. They have a great group of running backs. Joe McKnight is as talented as perhaps they've had, and so our defense has got a tremendous challenge.
Offensively we face a group that conceptually is very, very similar to what they've been. They do have a significant number of new faces, although those faces were on the field a year ago, a lot of them in the special teams and some of them in back-up roles and throughout the course of the year did have some opportunities to play, very talented, great speed, great team defensive speed, excellent knowledge of what they're doing. They're not extremely complicated, but they are extremely good at what they do and you're going to have to earn every yard you can possibly get.
From a specialist standpoint, their returners are frightening. They have any one of two or three guys that could bring a punt back on you and the same on the kickoffs and the pressure they can put on you with the speed they have on their field is outstanding. Their specialists that kick and punt are a little bit newer, but did a solid job. I think they had three touchbacks on kickoffs which, when they moved the kickoff back, it became a lot more difficult to get touchbacks and they got three of them there.

So all in all, it's what all of us would expect from a Southern Cal team. They're going to be very polished, very confident in their system. I think when you're confident in your system, you're capable of executing and it will be an exciting time. I think our guys are excited to have a ball game like this. It's one of the things, I think, when our kids looked at coming to Ohio State over the last four or five years when they could look at playing in a great conference in the Big Ten and also having some of these national stage games sprinkled through the schedule over the years, it's what makes it special.

So obviously we need all the help we can get from the folks being nice and loud and we were thinking about imposing a curfew for all the fans all week long so they come with a lot of energy and be louder than they've ever been in their entire lives. But our guys will be excited and they came in yesterday, I thought, with a good attentiveness to be willing to look at what they need to be better at on the film from the Navy game, but also to look forward and see if they can take the next step in becoming a good football team.

REPORTER: Jim, with Bradley, have they broken him in slowly or --

COACH TRESSEL: Barkley?

REPORTER: I'm sorry, Barkley, have they thrown him into everything or have they broken him in slowly?

COACH TRESSEL: You know, their ball game against San Jose State, I don't know that they did an extraordinary number of things, but as you look at them throughout the course of the years, I don't know that they have a six-inch thick playbook, and I think they do what they do and you better stop what they do.

He has obviously grasped what they do, but I thought it was -- I thought it was a typical opening game amount, they didn't overdo it, which sometimes when you overdo it with genius, you don't get execution. So it looks to me like they had the right formula for the ball game.

REPORTER: With any freshman quarterback, how much of a difference does it make, the fact that Barkley had spring ball, had a lot of reps with the ones in preseason compared to, for instance, Terrelle last year didn't have spring ball, wasn't taking all the reps with the ones in preseason, is that a big deal?

COACH TRESSEL: I think repetitions are huge in no matter what you do. You could go all the way back, they have spring practice all through high school and seven-on-seven passing leagues and I think the more you experience things the better you can become at them. But most especially when you're trying to grasp a new system, having that spring, having that preseason, and he had a little bit of the bonus when the other fellow got hurt, so all of a sudden there's less arms in there to take the reps, so absolutely. And that's why it's important, the more reps we can get for guys, whether they're quarterbacks or whatever, you'd like to think they'll grow.

REPORTER: Where did they hurt you the most last year offensively? When you look back on it, what really hurt you the most with their offense?

COACH TRESSEL: What did their offense do to hurt our defense?

REPORTER: Last year.

COACH TRESSEL: They have an excellent knack of coming up with what we call explosive games. They might go a couple plays and it's business as usual and then, boom, all of a sudden it's a 17-yarder. And so they hit us with a couple big ones, but probably the thing that affected our defense as much as anything was the fact that we turned it over on offense. And we always talk about the marriage between the offense and the defense and the special teams. You could probably go back and study a lot of good defenses that all of a sudden the kick teams killed them because there was great field position all the time or the offensive teams killed them because they turned the ball over back in their own end or like in our case we had one for a touchdown. But it was some of those explosive gains at opportune times. They have a tremendous ability and knack of doing that.

REPORTER: From a psychological standpoint, Coach, do you have the guys forget last year? Do you use it as motivation? How do you approach that part of this game?

COACH TRESSEL: I'm sure the guys that played in the game last year have a little bit different vantage point than the guys that didn't, and I think motivation at the end of the day ends up how does it motivate you personally. So there will be some guys that say, hey, I could have done this or that better the last time we played, but I hope they said that the week following that game and started working on that. But as a whole, will we sit and pound on the fact that we weren't successful? No.

REPORTER: Jim, what is your policy on, for want of a better word, maybe on personal expressions such as the Michael Vick eye black, I know you weren't aware of it during the game, but do you have a policy about that?

COACH TRESSEL: Right. You know, I really don't. In fact we talked a little bit about that because it's not the first time that we've had letters and emails and so forth about something that someone has personally expressed, whether it's on their eye patches or someone might write something on their shoe, or on the tape on their wrist and those kinds of things.

So it's a little bit tough in this country to have too much of a policy on personal expression, but it's unfortunate when that distracts from situations that were so extraordinary as the weekend we had. And I guess you'd have to know Terrelle like I know Terrelle. There's probably not a more compassionate human being in the world than Terrelle. We were sitting watching film last night and a text came in from Terrelle and he said, hey, Coach, we've got to pump up T-Wash. He's a little bit down. He dropped a ball or whatever. And that's just the way he thinks all day long.
I remember about 1:00 in the morning after we lost the National Championship to LSU I got a text from Terrelle saying, hey, don't worry about it, Coach, we're going to get it done in the future. And unfortunately I couldn't text him back, but --

REPORTER: He's a kid, but he had to perhaps expect that this could be controversial.

COACH TRESSEL: I think that's probably -- you would think, but on the other hand, Terrelle's of the opinion that, you know what, I'm not any big deal, I haven't done anything, and like anything else, whether it was a coverage read or a defensive guy not playing a gap or whatever, these are all moments that we can learn from, but again, I guess I would refer back to the fact that you have -- you would have to know him the way I know him to understand that he didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, to be insensitive to something that someone feels strongly about, that's just not him.

If there's ever anyone that feels bad about something or downtrodden about something, he's the first one there with his arms around them, that's just the way he is. So as they say, it is what it is and you learn from what you learn from and it's -- to go back to your original question, I don't know the answer to that because if someone came in and wanted to put "Mom" on their eye patch or their wrist, I've got a tough time questioning that.

And so that's part of life and I'm sure Terrelle -- he's one of those guys that he feels terrible about anything that's not just right. And I know he doesn't feel good that that disappointed someone. And his intention would never be to make anyone disappointed about something and that's just his nature and we all sometimes miss the mark, but as I say, teachable, learnable moment.

REPORTER: Will you tell the players, though, that their eye black now will be subject to review before they go out?

COACH TRESSEL: No, haven't even had a discussion about it, and I'm open for suggestions from the body of free speech. Anyone have a suggestion?

REPORTER: You used to have big Buckeyes on those things at one point or Ohio State emblems, now they're blank.

COACH TRESSEL: Are they? I've got to be honest with you, I am a micromanager, but I haven't micromanaged that one honestly. So I apologize, I'll get a little more hands-on. But we live and learn. And as time goes on, you'll grow to understand Terrelle like I do and there's not a more compassionate, caring person than I've ever run into.

REPORTER: Can you give updates on http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1383739DeVier Posey and http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059239Ray Small?

COACH TRESSEL: Ray looked a little peaked on Sunday when he came into the training room and yesterday looked like he was getting a little more life back in him, but he had a good case of it whatever it was, so I think he's coming along. DeVier didn't work much yesterday. I expect him to here in the next day or so.

REPORTER: Dane is listed as the number one punt returner, but do you expect Ray will be the number one punt returner?

COACH TRESSEL: That will be something I can answer a little bit better on Thursday.

REPORTER: Aside from Terrelle's eye black issue, could you assess his day? The pick after the game, he said he thought that was a grabbable pass.

COACH TRESSEL: Well, we always talk about the fact that we're sure nothing poor's going to happen if the ball's delivered from the numbers or lower because even if we err, the error lands on the ground. Sometimes guys go up and make a play for you, maybe save you. Other times you hit them in the breadbasket and they don't come through for you. We keep talking about the fact that we need a ball -- whenever there's a defender behind a receiver, the ball needs to be delivered numbers or lower. That's just what we work on.

So obviously that was a mistake that we've got to eliminate. But all in all, I thought Terrelle had a command of what we were doing. He did a good job leading the group. He was into it and understood what they were trying to do against us, which sometimes in an opening game -- they were probably a 12% blitz team coming into the game and I don't know if they ended up 65% blitz or I don't know what, and handled that change and those kinds of things. I thought all in all, he had a very efficient day.

REPORTER: In your mind, Jim, is this bigger than just this season, this game kind of thing, they've beaten you six straight times, the school, not many schools have that success rate against Ohio State. In your mind, is this -- will this have a bigger scope Big Ten-wise?

COACH TRESSEL: I probably don't think that far out. The opening kickoff, if we're kicking to them, is going to be the biggest thing going on in the world and the next play and the next play. And at the end of the game, if we're successful, all of a sudden the world isn't perfect because we're still going to have to grade the film and come in and get ready to do it again. And if we're not successful, chances are, as long as there's no tragedies, the world won't end. But we're excited about this opportunity and we think this is a big deal. If you put our guys under hypnosis or whatever in the summertime and ask them the question, what game are you thinking about, you know, I'm sure it would be Ohio State/USC and that's -- it's big.

REPORTER: You want Terrelle to progress basically along the lines Troy did instead of beating guys with his legs --

COACH TRESSEL: I'd like him to beat them with both. Absolutely.

REPORTER: I was wondering, even in football terms if Vick is what you want him to be.

COACH TRESSEL: Well, I haven't studied his style of play or anything, but I think and have always felt, hope Craig wouldn't get mad at me, but I even wanted Craig with his legs to beat people with legs. That adds a dimension to your offense that I think is difficult for the defense to deal with. So I hope he can do it with both and I hope he gets very, very good at both and he sure works like he wants to be.

REPORTER: Pete Carroll seems to have indicated with Barkley that for all the great quarterbacks he's had at USC there's just something about this kid that he's doing things as a freshman that he hasn't seen before. At a place where you have great talent all the time, do all coaches in your career have just a couple of those guys that just have a little something extra, and if so, who's on your list of the guys that just are a cut above?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, there are guys that come in and just seem to have a seamless transition. Chris Spielman, who was just honored at our game, was a guy that came in and we didn't put him in the game, when, until you made him, right, Coach Bruce? And then he made about 26 tackles.

COACH BRUCE: Halftime.

COACH TRESSEL: He made a great transition. http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660297Duron Carter and I were laughing about the fact that Cris Carter's first pass, Coach Bruce, do you remember?

COACH BRUCE: Remember well.

COACH TRESSEL: Dropped it. Wide open. But after that it was special. Obviously Maurice Clarett came in and was outstanding. We've had a number of guys that have come in and made a difference. But it's a long year. And we have to weather whether it's one of those freshman jumping in there and helping us or whether it's one of the sophomores that you need to raise up that level that you need to win. You just keep plugging away.

But I can see why Pete's talking that way about Barkley. I saw him a little bit in the all-star game he was in and I can't remember which one it was, either the Army or the Under Armour or one of those, and I mean you could see he was really good there and he hasn't disappointed.

REPORTER: Might this be a week that you assemble a tape or a package of clips or stories of the overwhelming sentiment that seems to be that you can't win the game?

COACH TRESSEL: No.

REPORTER: Is that something you would remind them of?

COACH TRESSEL: I don't think so.

REPORTER: You've done that in the past.

COACH TRESSEL: At times.

REPORTER: Jim, you mentioned that Terrelle said to you, T-Wash maybe needs to be pumped up a little bit. Do you get that feeling with http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059435Anderson Russell after getting beat the last game and going back to Texas too, that's two games in a row.

COACH TRESSEL: I think anytime you feel as if you could have done something that the group needed -- I mean, I should have texted Terrelle back that I needed to be pumped up for not going for a field goal. I mean, anytime you do something that you wish you could have done better, you hope you don't need to be pumped up for long because you've got to pump yourself up and I don't mean that in any negative way. But you have to handle adversity. If you're fortunate to get off on a great start in a season, I don't know if you need someone to remind you to pump you down because you've got to handle success too. But that's something that hopefully we can help our guys understand that that's part of life is that when there are disappointments, how you react to it is everything.

REPORTER: Jim, you dropped two spots on the AP poll. Are you surprised by that? Do you think it's fair?

COACH TRESSEL: Gosh, I don't know. Yeah, I guess. I'm trying to remember, I catapulted someone way up, I think Ole Miss moved up significantly and Oklahoma State had a heck of a win. To me there were some impressive wins. Boise State had -- Cincinnati had an impressive win. You know, it's so early that those are irrelevant unless you win all your games or nearly all your games.

REPORTER: How do you feel the guys up front offensively did in this game and speak of the challenge that they go into against USC.

COACH TRESSEL: I thought there were some moments where we did some pretty good things up front. I thought there was some indecisive moments. There's so much to the communication that goes on in the course of the trenches there. You had a couple critical penalties and the one that comes to mind most is we go out second half saying, hey, we've got to -- we better understand what Navy's all about, we've got to come storming. So, boom, the kickoff team stormed, three and out, we get the ball on the plus side of the field, five yards on the first play, boy, that's just what you want, then all of a sudden, you know, penalty, penalty, penalty. And you talk about taking the momentum away. And a couple of those were on the offensive line. We had a holding, then an off-sides, so we have to eliminate those. We had another penalty down in. We were going down in. So there were some things that looked like we had a chance and then there were some things that make you recognize that you've got a ways to get better.

REPORTER: How critical is it to recruit the state of California?

COACH TRESSEL: How difficult is it? It depends on where you're located. For us, it's a long way. If you get on a plane, you're passing over a whole bunch of schools that are very, very good and that's real.

REPORTER: Is the difference more of a factor in recruiting the state of Florida which you guys have done decently well in the last few years?

COACH TRESSEL: Florida's much closer, I mean, it is, significantly closer and less schools in Florida. I mean, that whole state of California is chalk full of Pac-10 schools, and Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State are right there too, but when you recruit California, you've got to fly over a bunch of good schools, and that's not easy.

REPORTER: How much is the team aware of what this game can or can't do for your reputation nationally?

COACH TRESSEL: Gosh, I hope they're not thinking about that, because if you're thinking about something that's at the end of those 60 minutes, I'm not sure you're going to play each of those minutes the way that you should. As they watch the film and you ask them what they're thinking, I hope they ask you, what play was called, because that's what's important. What play's called? What defense is called? What's the situation. And not, well, I was thinking if we win this game that will be awesome.

Well, you know, we can't -- we've got to think about the moment. And good teams have that ability to stay in the moment and ignore anything positive or negative or anything along the way and just stay in the moment of what's going on. And that's a great lesson, in my mind, to try to teach people because no different in our lives. If you don't stay in the moment and start wishing this and, oh, my gosh, if that happens, you won't do very well in the moment.

So that's critical for us, especially at a young age, sometimes maybe for an older guy, he's been through so many ups and downs and so forth that he's got a perspective, but sometimes for the younger guys, maybe you could get caught thinking that way and to me, that's dangerous thinking.

REPORTER: Is that something you need to address because the team's a little bit younger?

COACH TRESSEL: We address often about staying in the moment, and it's today's practice, it's period three, the player in practice that keeps glancing up to see what period number it is tells me he's looking forward to the end of the C period 24 up there, and what good is that doing in period seven, so we talk about that constantly.

REPORTER: Do you think the defense got out of that, for example, Saturday a 89-yard drive, an 85-yard touchdown?

COACH TRESSEL: As I listened, and I'm far from an expert on anything, but most certainly that as I listened to Jim and Luke and Taver and those guys talk, when we stepped away from simply playing our responsibility and playing our technique was when we didn't play well, and when we did do that, we really played pretty well. So, yeah, I'm sure Jim could probably pull you out seven snaps and say, you know what, if we had played this technique and if we'd have just stayed home or whatever you do, we might have been more successful. But that's exactly what you have to do when you show the film, and you hope that -- one might have thought, well, let's not even grade the Navy film for our defense because they'll never see that again, at least for 11 more games, but that's not the case. We had to talk about what we taught, what we executed, why we succeeded, why we didn't in the big picture. Now let's go talk about Southern Cal because they've got a whole different set of problems that you have to have solutions for.

REPORTER: Do you sense what he was asking about, that over the summer maybe and maybe leading up to the game that the guys have been talking about, thinking about, how important this game was?

COACH TRESSEL: Oh, sure.

REPORTER: In terms of their perception and all that stuff?

COACH TRESSEL: There's nowhere they'd rather be than playing Ohio State and USC. I'm sure that that was in the forefront of their mind. To me that's one of the exciting things about having a schedule like we have is that you get to -- you get to daydream for a moment about, man, I better get ready. This is going to be something right off the bat, so --

REPORTER: Do you think they know in terms of national perception and all that that it's important to -- really important to win a game like this?

COACH TRESSEL: You know, I would like to think that they do, but I don't know if that's the most important thing I want them thinking about, that's the problem, is that okay, fellows, this is important. Okay, now, on the first play you better do this. Forget what I just talked about, you know, you better do this or that might never happen, you know. So I don't know that -- I don't know that you can talk in those abstract ways. To me that's an abstract. Reputation? I mean, to me that's an abstract. Now, did you block that guy? I can grade that.

REPORTER: Are you familiar with this Taylor Mays quote that, I'm the big deuce, Terrelle's the little deuce?

COACH TRESSEL: He said that? Today?

REPORTER: It's online.

COACH TRESSEL: They're both big deuces if you ask me, man.

REPORTER: What about his contribution on the defense, two time All-American?

COACH TRESSEL: He's kind of quarterback of the defense there and he can make up for errors that occur, the way he closes on the ball when it's in the air, the way he closes on a runner if they would happen to wiggle through. I'm sure he gives that whole group confidence as he's standing right behind them like, hey, don't worry about it, I've got your back, and he truly has their back, he's a good player.

REPORTER: How important is it for your defense to get pressure on Barkley.

COACH TRESSEL: How important? We should get those little cards that -- Bill Livingston -- to us, the key to the game of defensive football is applying pressure and applying pressure to pass protections which, therefore, ultimately you want to apply pressure to the guy that's got the ball in his hands, what it's a back that sees four silver helmets coming or a quarterback who feels a lot of pressure. So without a doubt, that young man is far enough along that if he has a chance to just stand around, he's not going to miss. He's a good -- he knows where his guys are going. He knows what you're in. And if he has time, he's going to complete them. Bill Livingston. Oh, I'm sorry, my bad. You were just his agent.

REPORTER: He's 0 for 23.

COACH TRESSEL: I'm sorry.

REPORTER: Going back to the abstract of reputation, whenever Ohio State faces one of these national games as you mentioned, invariably, even with all the success Ohio State has, you'll lose, does that bother you personally, is it fair that only winning one of these things will end all that?

COACH TRESSEL: It's a fact, so it's fair. So outside of that and as you look at what you need to do to win this game or any of "those" games or those X number of games in between, you have to go to work at what you need to do to get better. And no one spends any more time trying to figure out how to fix their world they live in than we do.

REPORTER: Jim, they go five deep at running back, we talked so much last week about the Air Force offense being a unique challenge for you guys --

COACH TRESSEL: That was Air Force we played?

REPORTER: I'm sorry, Navy. But they seemed to run the ball right at people, you guys don't see a lot of that during the course of the season. Is this almost as unique of a challenge?

COACH TRESSEL: I think what makes Southern Cal a challenge, talent aside, they're so talented, but they're so balanced. You can't say we're going to force them to pass, we're going to put 16 guys in the box and they're not going to run it, well, then they're going to pass it. And just the opposite, oh, we're going to double those great receivers and all that stuff. Well, if you're doubling those great receivers you don't have many guys in the box and they're going to hurt you running. So to me the fact that they're so balanced and they do run at you and misdirect you and have got lots of speed lots of places, speed is crucial, so real challenging.

REPORTER: It's not very often that Ohio State is an underdog at home. You guys are six and a half, seven-point underdogs, do you like the underdog role and are you surprised that the line is that big?

COACH TRESSEL: I learn something from you guys every day I come. I had no idea on the line, other than their line, their line is darn good, on both sides by the way. I don't know. The role I like is that I'm on Ohio State and we're playing USC, that's what I like. Lori, last question. My guys are chomping at the bit.

REPORTER: USC outscored opponents 94 to 7 in the third quarter of
games last year and I'm wondering when a team comes in with that kind of track record does it make you willing to consider more dramatic halftime adjustments than you otherwise would?

COACH TRESSEL: Be more animated and --

REPORTER: Does it change anything you do at halftime knowing they make great adjustments?

COACH TRESSEL: I haven't studied exactly the different things maybe that they do in the third quarter, I would venture to say they run the same things they ran in the first and second quarter and maybe have learned what the defense is doing and so forth, or maybe their defense has learned what the offense is doing and they get turnovers or they saw how you were covering the kickoff so they adjust well because I think they know what they're doing. I think their players have a clear understanding of what their system is, as do ours, and I think they do a nice job of having confidence. They do a good job of playing a lot of guys, which you can get a little bit stronger the fresher you are, but they're a very explosive team and that exact number I didn't know, I knew it was dramatic, but that doesn't mean we're going to do nothing other than work on third-quarter stuff, you know, because we struggled in the second quarter last year. But they're good across the board. It's a great challenge. It's great to have Youngstown -- I'm getting old, Columbus, Ohio highlighted and the whole world coming to watch us. They're a great football team. We're trying to become one.
 
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COACH TRESSEL: I don't know if this note was put up here for me but http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1151212Tyson Gentry was among the honorees for the Ohio State alumni. I don't know if that release went out or whatever but he is winning the Gordon Gee spirit of Ohio State award September 25th. And there's a special guy. Two other quick things before we move on to the USC game. I don't know, I'm not sure if you know, but the football guide for the diehard fan has hit the newsstands. This is a must read, just so you know. It's good though, seriously.

And the other housekeeping thing here, we were able because of the hard work of a lot of our older players, a few of which have graduated already and many of which are graduating in autumn quarter to be able to award some scholarships to some kids as we begin school next week. And http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1152507Marcus Williams, in particular, is a neat story. He's in our physical therapy school and has been given a fellowship and it's a three-year program and he was given a one-year fellowship to handle the expense of one year and our physical therapy school is allowing him to postpone that for a year to take an athletic scholarship to handle it for his first year and his second year will be handled with the fellowship, And that's' a neat thing for http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1152507Marcus Williams.

Jonathan Thoma and http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1152319Andrew Moses will begin being on scholarship this fall and then in the winter, because some guys are, again, graduating this fall, we're allowed to replace and they don't count in your numbers formula and all that stuff, http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3726436Ryan Schuck, http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1375409Joe Gantz and http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1175674Tom Ingham are going to be able to be added to scholarship and it's a pretty neat thing and you can see how appreciative the team was of them when yesterday we made that announcement and it was a pretty neat deal to see the respect that they have for those kids that have been here for a long time getting banged around and getting the team prepared and not many people knowing their names and so forth, but they've been willing to do anything. So that was a neat thing.

Moving backwards now to the weekend, the first thing that pops into my mind is the spectacular effort by so many. Whether it was those 106,000 people who were -- I mean, they were going, I don't know if anyone could say they've seen an environment quite like that one. It was extraordinary. And to be able to put all that together, whoever puts on those games, I mean, incredible work done there.

I thought the effort by our football team was tremendous. They prepared extremely hard for many, many months and the effort throughout the course of the game all the way to the final whistle was a tremendous effort. Our coaches worked extremely hard and prepared hard and coached hard and Southern Cal played hard. They played a physical football game, 60 minutes of it, and obviously they're to be congratulated as well.

It was a tremendous effort. And many times when you have an effort like that and it ends up in disappointment, it's interesting to watch the response to it and so forth and as we were around the guys on Sunday a little bit as they came in the training room, you could kind of gauge just what was going through guys' minds. And one thing I thought was interesting, regardless of which unit you were talking to, special teams guy, a defensive guy, an offensive guy, a coach, whoever you were around, it was interesting to just see how they were feeling and feel how they were feeling and if you think about our special teams, they did a good job.

Our punt unit did a great job. Six punts ended up at the 20 or back. Four of them well inside the 20. And to give that kind of field position in a knockdown dragout game like that, Jonathan Thoma's hang times were fabulous. They were in the four sevens and four eights. I mean, they were outstanding. But you heard the special teams guys talking a little bit about, you know what, 'if we'd have just blocked that punt, we could have made the difference.' And it wasn't about, well, 'if this group should have done that or that group should have done that.' You could hear them talking a little bit, if we could have just done one more thing for the good of the cause.

And then defensively, shoot, we played relentless. Our guys played and played and played. As I heard them talking a little bit around the course of things, I heard them talking about things like, you know what, yeah, we got five three and outs and I don't know how many teams are going to have Southern Cal go three and out five times in a game, which is outstanding, that's our goal to get a team to be out. Our guys were talking about, you know what, if we had one more stop, if we just had one more stop, we could have contributed to a big win.

And then when you see the offense and you hear them talking a little bit about the fact that they were able to make a play here or make a play there and they knew very well that they were playing against a very good defense, but you heard them talking about the fact that, you know what, we had good field position and we didn't take opportunities to get sevens, we got a couple threes, and if we'd have just held the football a little bit longer, if we would have been able to cash in and so forth and really had nothing to do with "he" it had to do with "we."

And as I listened to the coaches and so forth and you guys know how hard those coaches work and you could just hear them talking about the fact that, 'oh, man, if we'd just have made this call or made that call or, I don't know, we were thinking about this one or that one and maybe we should have gone with that one,' you could see that they were taking things very, very personally as to what they could have done to help their guys and make them have a chance to be at the long end of the score rather than the short end. But what really kind of brought it full circle to me was on Monday, we were having a full coaches' meeting with the whole athletic department, all the coaches, and at the end of it, http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1051911Gene Smith said, 'hey, would you mind if I stop by and said hello to team today in the team meeting?' I said, 'sure, that'd be great.'.

So he stopped in and he said, I just wanted to share with you guys my perspective and the perspective as I talked with people. And he used the phrase, he said, you know, you guys really brought it. He said, you guys really brought it. And then to me what he added to that really is the key to down the road, he said, and if you'll bring it like that the rest of the season, you're going to have a good football team. And that's the truth. If we'll bring it like that, we're going to have a good football team.

Now, the thing that we need to understand is we need to bring it like that every day in our film preparation and our practice and everything that we do in the weight room and getting the proper rest and everything that's a part of becoming good. But that really made a lot of sense to me, you know, that if you'll bring it like you brought it, you're going to end up with a good football team. And you learn sometimes from good times. You learn sometimes from tough times. What's critical for us right now is that we learn and, again, I use the "we." We as coaches, we as offensive players, we as defensive players, we as special teams players, we have to learn how we can just get a little bit better each and every day and go out and attack the University of Toledo.

Toledo blasted Colorado, what, 30-3 at one point. All you have to do, there's one little graphic in their media guide which if it doesn't catch your attention and you play for Ohio State, then you're not paying attention, but if you just look at their games against BCS folks in the 2000s, they start the 2000s out with a 24-6 win over Penn State at Penn State, of course. And just a year ago a victory up in the Big House against Michigan, and if that doesn't give you a little bit of reality.

Tim Beckman's going to do a good job there. Toledo is a great place. I think it's a great football job. You get tough kids. He's got his kids flying around. He's got a senior quarterback, which is, I think, critical in the transition. They've got a veteran guy who's been there, done that and they've done a good job of moving the ball. He threw it like 69 times against Purdue and they were playing Purdue pretty back and forth there and made a couple mistakes, and then bounced right back six days later, had to play on a Friday night, and thrashed Colorado pretty well.
So our guys know, meaning our coaches and our players know, that what's most important is that we analyze where we need to get better and then go to work on getting better and know that we're going to have a heck of an opportunity as we go to Cleveland Stadium, which in my mind will be a thrill for our guys. They sit there their whole lives watching those NFL stadiums and now you have a chance to go play in one of them. It will be a heck of an opportunity for them to go up and compete up there on the lake and against a very good team who's going to be flying around. Coach Beck starts blitzing as soon as they step off the bus, here comes a safety. I mean, they bring them.

So it's going to be a tremendous opportunity. They'll have our defense spread out all over the field and Coach Beck himself coordinates the special units and he was always a creative guy. He was our punt block guy, punt return guy and we did pretty good, a guy named Ginn and we had a few guys that blocked some punts. So it's going to be a heck of an opportunity for us and a heck of a challenge. Every day we need to grow.

REPORTER: Jim, amongst all the --

COACH TRESSEL: How did you know I was done? You could just tell?

REPORTER: Oh, I'm sorry. It was a good pause, I didn't mean to jump in there.

COACH TRESSEL: The point was you heard enough of my baloney. Okay, go ahead. I'm okay with that.

REPORTER: No, sir. Amongst second-guessing that's natural that goes on after a tough loss like that, is there any personal decision now or play call that you regret after thinking about it for a couple days?

COACH TRESSEL: There's a lot of them. There was 150 some plays in that game and if you ask anyone on the offensive side, anytime it was third down and it didn't go or it was fourth and -- third and one and it didn't go, you'd say, well, man, what if we'd have done this? And someone brought up over at the Quarterback Club, well, we probably should have run a quarterback sneak down in there and, shoot, that's very valid. It was the same guy that said that last year against Penn State we shouldn't have run a quarterback sneak, but, yeah, you know, you always question things.

You look at them and you say, was that the best thing based on what they were doing and was that the best thing based upon what we thought we could do well and when it works, you were right. When it doesn't, you weren't. But that's the most difficult thing about playing or coaching is that if you're really competitive, you think about the things you didn't do and you forget all about the things that you did do, but absolutely.

Someone brought to my attention that we had the discussion about should we have kicked a field goal or shouldn't we have and that's a very valid discussion. We were furiously discussing that for 22 seconds or however long we had, and we did what we did and the result was what it was. Someone reminded me that when we played Texas in '05, we did just the opposite. Now, they didn't remind me in those 22 seconds, but on Sunday, they were saying, you know, that was just the opposite of what we did against Texas.

We decided against Texas, we were up by whatever we were and it would have put us up by eight and we went for it and we had a pretty good guy, Josh Huston, I mean, shoot, he was a pretty good kicker and we didn't make it. And Vince Young had 68 yards to work with and worked with it and we came up short there. But you have to make decisions based upon what you think is the best thing for the team. I was very confident that for about the last 50 minutes of the game, defensively we'd done a pretty darn good job and if we kicked them down inside the 10, I was kind of hoping it would get inside the 10, but to the 14 was fine with me, that was good work, you know, that we'd be able to take care of business and you've got to give them credit.

I was talking with Coach Bruce yesterday, that Number 4 for USC is a player. He had a couple runs in there where we were in position and we didn't make the play and he executed on a little route on third and nine that he made the play and 22-yard gain or whatever it was. But, yeah, you go through that again -- because we've got a kicker that can make a 54, but we've also got a kicker that can miss a 54, but, yeah, of course you go through that a million times.

REPORTER: Last week the guys didn't seem to have a shortage of motivation that you probably didn't need to say too much to get them ready to play, but this week, how much of the game preparation is psychological and maybe some of the guys, as much as they practice hard and everything still are thinking about last week and what could have been or what should have been?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, that's human and that's real. How good we're going to be is really going to be determined of how well we can stay in whatever needs to be focused on right now. If we're thinking about last week, we're going to be in trouble. If we're thinking about the Big Ten opening a week from now, we're going to be in trouble. If we're thinking about Toledo and we execute, we've got a chance, And that's' what we have to try to do, but that's not to say that we're not human.

REPORTER: Jim, you talk about molding your offense around the strengths of your quarterback primarily. After two games, how do you feel about how Terrelle's doing and also what would you say you could hang your hat on right now in terms of offensive identity?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, the thing I mentioned to Terrelle when we were talking on Sunday, and obviously Terrelle's highly competitive, and he wanted to be a big reason that we won that game, you know, that's the way he is, that's the way he'll always be, and I'd mentioned to him on Sunday, I said, you know, not that it has any relevance, but keep in mind that at this stage Troy Smith was a kickoff returner and at this stage, Vince Young was getting spot duty going in when things were pretty good with a couple little things to do. At this stage you were lined up against a very good defense with a very young offense and it was tough sledding out there, but we have to grow from it.

And is he human? Absolutely, because no one wants to be a part of great things more than he does, but he's got to keep his focus on now and working on all the little things you have to do. He did some very good things. There was a couple of those throws he put in there that people weren't doing that against USC on the films I watched and he conceptually knew why we were doing it and so forth. There were some other times where maybe things broke down a little bit and it didn't look as good or it wasn't as good and that's part of playing that position especially in those highly competitive games. But if you can grow from that, you know, you have a chance to become good.

REPORTER: Jim, you guys did not select an offensive player of the week or an offensive lineman of the week, is that a reflection of no one grading a winning performance or what goes into that?

COACH TRESSEL: We didn't have enough consistency, we felt, really anywhere to say that that was -- there were -- I thought we hit some plays as opposed to having any things as Ken asked the question which you didn't let me answer of what we have to hang our hat on, I don't know that we got anything to hang our hat on. We hit some plays. We did some things, but we didn't -- now, neither did they. I mean, you can't say that they had a whole bunch of -- so it was one of those kinds of games.
It was a battle, and it was hard to be consistent. So when you have that type of result, it's hard to say that someone was the offensive player of the game because that's typically based on consistency of what we do, and that's not to say everyone played terrible, I don't mean that, but we just, as we kept thinking, what about this guy, what about this guy, well, what about this guy, we just didn't have the consistency that we felt that you have to have.

REPORTER: How significant is this game Saturday for your high school and your connection?

COACH TRESSEL: My high school? Well, it's historic. I think it's the first time Berea High School has ever had two Division I coaches squaring off against one another, to my knowledge, and I don't know that for sure, but I would assume everyone from Berea, Ohio, will show up, but I can't make that promise. They've all called and I don't have enough tickets. It's kind of exciting.

And our families go way back. Tim Beckman's dad was with my dad in 1958 at Baldwin-Wallace and they were in the coaching profession together forever and as fate would have it, 45 years later his son is working with me and did a great job for us, did what he had to do. He went and took a coordinator job and he loved being in Ohio and he loved being in Ohio State and he had goals are being a midwestern head coach but felt like he needed to go and do that and do it well, and so he went to Oklahoma State and did it well and got his opportunity at Toledo and he will do a great job at Toledo.

He's a good football coach. He's an energetic guy, great family. He'll have those guys -- he'll have those guys skidding on their heals. He's a good football coach. And I'm not sure that everything is buzzing around Berea because of this match-up, but maybe.

REPORTER: Is there a comparison, Coach, comparing him to http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1549127Terrelle Pryor, compared to maybe some of the other freshmen quarterbacks, do we forget it was http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1549127Terrelle Pryor -- is it a fair comparison to compare http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1549127Terrelle Pryor with the whole season behind him with the freshmen quarterbacks?

COACH TRESSEL: Situations are so different. For people that don't have anything to do but do that, that's fine. Facts, figures, what about this, what about that. Well, things are so independent of one another and situations are so different, you have to evaluate someone within their situation. I thought Matt Barkley did a good job. I thought he did a good job. They did a good job of not asking too much out of him and he did a good job of not making errors that cost the game. He gave us one add mid-field which we didn't capitalize on.

Now, had we capitalized on that one and gone up significantly and so forth, we might be talking a little different. But I think you have to evaluate it within what's going on around it. And statistics and whatnot are so independent. I guess if you're evaluating homerun hitters, what would be fun is, you know, how many homeruns did they hit against Bob Gibson compared to Tim May, that type of thing, throwing 80 miles an hour. But it's fun to do. We've never complained about people having interest in football. Part of the interest in football is the scrutinization. That's okay. Shoot, look, that's why we write books. Another plug. This is a good book. But we like being a part of something that's scrutinized. So when you say is it fair? I don't know what's unfair about it, it's just someone's opinion.

REPORTER: You said in the teleconference when you look back on the game film you always start with how the coaches' game man plan and how you designed the game, when you look back, do you feel you put your guys in enough positions to win the game?

COACH TRESSEL: No, it was 18-15, obviously we didn't. That's what you start with. I've never left a game saying, you know what, I did my part and they didn't. In fact, I've probably left more games saying, whew, thank goodness they covered me on that one.
I thought Southern Cal did a good job of saying, okay, here's what we can't let happen. They said, we're not going to let Terrelle outside and we've got to see if we can handle him inside with what we'll have there, but we're not going to let him outside. They left themselves a little vulnerable to some things and a couple times we nailed it, a couple times we had it and we didn't nail it. But did we put them in enough situations to be successful? No. If we did, they would have tried to be successful and perhaps we would have.

REPORTER: Did you guys not take advantage of the formation with http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059239Ray Small out with the bubble screen? It looked like USC had to make a determination whether or not they were going to take away the bubble screen or take away Dane.

COACH TRESSEL: Right, the one time we hit the one to Dane in that particular situation, they didn't play it the same way all the time. They did -- again, they're allowed to watch the film and stuff too. The thing that hurt them a year ago was the bubble, so they weren't going to let you throw the bubble and they left themselves a little vulnerable in some of their coverages against the seam, not in all of them, but in some of them, and we hit it once. If you hit it twice, maybe you have a -- there's a difference in the game and so forth, but we only hit it once, that vulnerability.

REPORTER: Jim, basically, if you hang your hat on anything, it looks like that Power O or the Dane play where you pull the guard, have you gotten out of that what you thought you would to this point? Do you feel like teams are sort of loading up and catching up to that a certain extent? Obviously the fourth and two play against Navy. You had a touchdown Saturday from it.

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah, if you don't block them, they catch up to all the plays and if you do block them you've got a chance because we've got guys that can break a tackle and there's one thing they can't defend and that's if they've got an extra guy. Boom's a hard hitter, just ask 2. But if you asked about hang-your-hat runs, we just have two basic ones like most people, we have a zone blocking run and we have an off-tackle blocking one, and your isolation/draw things are blocked similar and then you have your short -- your counter-type thing, which again is the Power O, if you will, but I thought we hit a couple zones in there pretty good and we hit one or two of the off-tackles pretty good, but we weren't going to just blast through them.

REPORTER: That said, a little bit the same thing, is http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1383594Mike Adams now in your good graces or will he figure in?

COACH TRESSEL: He's getting there. We'll see how today goes and the next, but he worked pretty good yesterday.

REPORTER: Just your offensive line in general, as you looked at it, obviously nobody got the Jim Parker award. How did you like the way they played?

COACH TRESSEL: Inconsistently, so I guess I'm not saying I didn't like the way they played and make any inference that someone could snip it out and say, well, here's the problem, but we weren't consistent all the time. There were a couple moments where there was one where they were bringing the blitz and we did a great job of adjusting and, bang, hit it up in there for five or six. But are we rolling on all cylinders? No. Is it hard to roll on all cylinders? Yes. But that's where we've got to gain.

REPORTER: Just in retrospect, there before the half you went for it a little bit, ended up punting, they ended up going down and tying the score, is that one of the things you're second-guessing right now?

COACH TRESSEL: Now I am.

REPORTER: But you understand, what was your thinking there, hey, try to get something here? Obviously what were you thinking?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, we were thinking that whatever the score was, 10-7, 10-7 is not going to be enough and we weren't in horrible field position, I can't remember where we were, 30 or thereabouts, and that there were some things that we did want to go after. So we went after one of them and completed and then we came back and ran it for about five or six and then went to a base thing that we had done before and really had a chance with it, didn't have a great route, so, therefore, we didn't execute it, and then punted them down to wherever with -- I think there was 48 seconds left or something in the half and would I rather have had the half have ended? Sure.

Did I think that it was being dare-devil to punt it back to them with 48 seconds? No, but they hit a run and we got outleveraged and all of a sudden now, someone brought up the fact that when you give a good team a little bit of momentum, a little confidence, a little field position, that's why the special teams were so extraordinary. We laid them back in there all game long, when they got out a little bit is when they became more dangerous. So do I second-guess it now? Of course. I should have taken three knees and enjoyed the reception on the way to the locker room.

REPORTER: What do you say to your defense now --

COACH TRESSEL: Does anyone know Tim May? Just one more?

REPORTER: Second and 19 from the five-yard line and then they go for the winning touchdown.

COACH TRESSEL: Oh, I know.

REPORTER: What do you say to your defense now? Obviously you would liked to have scored more points.

COACH TRESSEL: Sure.

REPORTER: But that seemed like almost an ideal situation to drop the
hammer.

COACH TRESSEL: Well, and they got, I think, 10 yards on that play so it's still third and nine and then they hit a play and they executed and made 22 and then got to rolling a little bit and what do you say to your defense? Gosh, if you watch the defensive film, you say you guys played like a son of a gun and, yeah, we do need more points. Now, that's outside of your world, but no one's embarrassed about the way our defense played. And like I heard some of the defensive kids I said at the outset, their mindset was, we needed one more stop and that's the way they evaluate themselves.

REPORTER: How are your emails running? I'm just curious because it's very difficult to quantify fan unrest, and these people, they squawk for a couple days and then they go away and they'll be cheering you if you go 11-1, but I've never heard people kind of take you on like I've heard the last couple of days. Have you heard any of that and does it matter?

COACH TRESSEL: I probably haven't gotten as many as you have, but we get lots of emails every week, even when we win, so those don't affect you any more than the effect you put on yourself when you're watching the film. Those people had nothing to do with you deciding to do this or that.

So, you know, honestly, the thing when I read some of them is I feel terrible for them because there's no way they're happy. They've got to be some of the most unhappy people in the world, and I feel bad because we just made them less happy, and I hate to be a part of making someone less happy. I mean, they're already miserable and some make them less happy I'd feel bad.

REPORTER: It seems like you've been on a nine-year honeymoon, though, it's the only time I've seen people really, "he's got to go."

COACH TRESSEL: You felt like it's been a nine-year honeymoon? You must not have liked your honeymoon.

REPORTER: No, for you.

REPORTER: You like being a part of the offense and having your role in the offense, could you ever foresee a time when you are not an integral part of making play calls and being a part of the offense?

COACH TRESSEL: I've always told you guys never say never, but I've also always told you that I'm probably not going to sit in my office or read the USA Today or watch talk radio and get a headache, so I try to be helpful in every phase, whether it's the punt team or the defense or the offense. I spend more time with the offense. I enjoy working with quarterbacks, but I don't work with them on a daily basis in their meeting rooms and all that type of thing, but, no, I think I would have a hard time being at this press conference and you saying, you know, something about the offense or whatever and I had no clue. That, to me, I might as well send somebody else.

REPORTER: We ask you about defense.

COACH TRESSEL: But I tell you I have no clue. I have no part. And you guys remind me, you know what, defense has been pretty good on this nine-year honeymoon, but I think you've got to try to be a part of things.

REPORTER: Jim, the end of the 2006 season you guys put 42 on Michigan in a one versus two game with a senior quarterback and a bunch of senior guys, but the results against top teams, three against USC last year, six against Penn State, 21 against Texas and now 15 against USC, I know the game plan wasn't exactly the same in all those games, but your overall offensive philosophy, do you question that at all? Is that still enough to get it done against the top teams?

COACH TRESSEL: Do we go in thinking that 15 is? No.

REPORTER: No, I know you know that's not enough. You said after the game that's not enough points to score.

COACH TRESSEL: Right.

REPORTER: But how do you go about with your offensive game plan, what you hope to accomplish as an offense, what you run?

COACH TRESSEL: Oh, constantly questioning it. There's no question.

REPORTER: Do you think you're ever close to changing that, I mean, wholesale change to sort of how you go about things?

COACH TRESSEL: I'm not sure exactly what a wholesale change would entail. I mean, are we going to go to the Navy triple option? Probably not. Don't know anything about it. Will we go conceptually to this or that, we think can add to the -- if you look at our teams from 2001 on, they haven't been exactly the same because, you know, you don't have the same people. But I don't know that we would make a wholesale, you know what, this isn't a good idea, this wouldn't work even if we did execute it, because that's the only reason you do it.

REPORTER: Just the general idea maybe of we know you feel it's important to win the field position battle and that kind of thing.

COACH TRESSEL: That won't change.

REPORTER: Just open if up more and maybe not play to that theory as much.

COACH TRESSEL: No, I'll always believe that you win tough ball games by making sure that you're the group that makes less mistakes, wins that field position battle, wins the battle in the trenches statistically, and you guys love statistics, that is true. So, no, I philosophically wouldn't go against that, and I think the people that maybe line up differently than we do or might be perceived differently than we do, the games that that happens for them are the ones they win, just because it might look a little bit different.

REPORTER: Jim, I want to go back to something Ken brought up earlier. I think a lot of people assumed that Terrelle would be the identity of this offense. Is that realistic and what do you perceive to be the identity of this offense?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, your quarterback really always is. Even when you have Beanie Wells and they're loading up the box, http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059330Todd Boeckman had to be a good deep thrower and you had to do this or that because if you only have one phase, you're in trouble. Will Terrelle end up being a tremendous part of this offense? Absolutely. At the end of the day, he's, I believe, going to be an outstanding quarterback, but was he the identity of the offense Saturday night? Well, the things that we hit, he was, but things that we didn't, we weren't, so -- yes, sir?

REPORTER: You mentioned earlier about keeping the eye on Toledo and if you're thinking back to last week or thinking ahead, it's bad. After a game like last Saturday where there's so much emotion, is that a message you hit harder this week than maybe other weeks with the team or are these guys flipping on the film and they can figure out, we've got to move on?

COACH TRESSEL: Probably only if you sense that that's not going on, if all of a sudden you sense your guys walking around in outerspace and not glued into what the defensive staff is preparing or the offensive staff or the special teams meeting. If you sense that there's not a focus there, I'm sure you would. Haven't gotten to that point yet. Yesterday, there didn't seem like any need for that.

Now, it's a long week and today's another workday, but, no, it's not anything you stand on your head -- because my experience has been every time I stand on my head and try to convince them of something, it doesn't work. We have to hopefully have grown to understand that and if we have, we'll compete. If we haven't, we'll learn another tough lesson, but there's a growth process. What we say to them on a given -- they're a great bunch of guys and they listen closely, but if someone's thinking something, even our coaching staff can't say to them, whatever, and they change their thinking at that moment, that's just not the way -- Coach Bruce always had a saying that I listened to closely, he said, "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."

So whatever they've grown to have as their opinion, how they think about things, you're probably not going to change that by just saying, oh, by the way -- Lori, we better get one more here. I've got those troops out there. Oh, my gosh, we've gone forever. Thank you for bringing up Toledo, by the way.

REPORTER: How much freedom at this point does http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1549127Terrelle Pryor have to pull out of plays and is he making good adjustments more often than not when he needs to?

COACH TRESSEL: In our run game, we have a significant amount of checks, simply for looks and he has to do it well, and does, hasn't erred this year, that I can think of. In the pass game, a lot of the decisions are made up front and he has to know what they're doing so he knows who's free. Just wait till this week, as you watch Toledo, they're bringing more than you can block. That's just the way it is. Your line better figure out where they're bringing them from, and he better figure out who's free, and that's part of the fun of coaching that position and it's a lot of the fun of playing that position if you know where the free guy is, because if you don't, you get hit in the back of the head. Ask the guy from Colorado. I mean, he got hit in the back of the head a number of times. So is he all the way there? No. Are we all the way there? No. Are we working like crazy to try to get there? Yeah. And so is he.
 
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My favorite quote from this presser:

Right, the one time we hit the one to Dane in that particular situation, they didn't play it the same way all the time. They did -- again, they're allowed to watch the film and stuff too. The thing that hurt them a year ago was the bubble, so they weren't going to let you throw the bubble and they left themselves a little vulnerable in some of their coverages against the seam, not in all of them, but in some of them, and we hit it once. If you hit it twice, maybe you have a -- there's a difference in the game and so forth, but we only hit it once, that vulnerability.
 
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you know, I'm sure Tressel could have come out and convinced everyone that he made the right calls, here, here and here, and that it was his true sophomore quarterback who didn't see the wide open players and cost the offense precious points, but instead he's protecting his players and taking a lot of bullets. That's why he's one of the best in the business and I wouldn't have anyone else over him as our head coach.
 
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From Tuesday's presser.

Official.site

COACH TRESSEL: I heard that one of the lead stories on the radio this morning was that Earle Bruce will be on honorary captain and that's a true story. We're excited that the 1979 team is back for a big reunion and decided that Coach Bruce will be our honorary captain so I will confirm that before we begin talking about the rest.
It's an exciting time on the campus. I'm sure you could tell by the traffic and the parking and everything else. 60,000 students are going to work tomorrow. There's Coach Bruce right there, our honorary captain, he'll entertain comments later, one on ones later. There's a bit of energy. I had a chance last night to go over and watch the Block O folks rehearse and get ready and get fired up for their first Block O assignment on Saturday afternoon and there's a bunch of energy when you have the largest freshmen class ever and along with the beginning of school and beginning the Big Ten season, we have our Hall of Fame this weekend and big alumni weekend. In fact, one of our own is getting the Gordon Gee Spirit Award, http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1151212Tyson Gentry is being honored by the OSU alums for the man with the spirit of the year. So there's a whole bunch going on.

Fortunately we took a good step last weekend, got a chance to experience being on the road, experienced putting on the white jerseys and staying somewhere else and traveling and doing all the different things in a different locker room. Came out of the gate well. I thought our kids played with a purpose and defense set the tone with the three and out and the offense responded and the defense just continued the pressure. We were only on the field 23 minutes and we had seven three and outs. A lot of guys got to play a little bit, nobody really played a lot on defense. I think guys, if they played a lot, it was 25 plays, which, they had earned their keep probably playing 70 plays the two games before and so it was a good defensive performance. I think we had eight or nine guys grade winning performance over on the defense and they certainly set the tone. Offensively, I thought we did some good things. We had five or six, maybe five guys grade a winning performance. Got a lot of plays. Got a lot of experience. Had some guys get a chance to rotate, seven or eight guys on that offensive line, had a number of receivers get in the game, a number of running backs get in the game. http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1175673Joe Bauserman got in and got to throw the ball around a little bit.

So, again, I think we played Saturday afternoon with a good purpose. I
thought it was good for the City of Cleveland, it was good for our Northern Ohio kids to have a chance to go back home and they'd always admired that stadium and the thought of playing in there, you could see them as we did our Friday walk-through kind of walking on to the orange helmet in the center of the field looking around and it was a pretty neat thing. So I thought it was a good day.

As far as the award winners, http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1383761Ben Buchanan came off the injured list. There was a moment there where I thought http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1175673Joe Bauserman was punting on Friday when http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059429Jon Thoma was told to stay away from the rest of the group with the flu and Ben had not punted for the last 10 days or so. A little soreness in his leg. And he was given a battlefield commission to step in there and did a good job, 42-yard net and handled a couple average snaps and really did a good job there.

Defensively http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059313Ross Homan did an excellent job there. He had five or six tackles and caused fumble and was really a productive guy and does a good job of being part of that leadership group on that defense even though Ross doesn't say a whole bunch, in fact, he's here today and I told him I was going to go real short and real fast because I know how much he likes to talk and he wants extra time with you and you'll really earn your money today trying to get a story, but he really did a good job and was the defensive player.
http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059254
Dane Sanzenbacher was the offensive player and came right out of the gate and really was a clear guy that first play that went for the long touchdown but they tried to disguise a coverage and gave their safety a little bit too far to run and Terrelle happened to see it and Dane was striding down the field and threw the ball on the money and we got off to a great start so Dane had five catches for 126 yards, thereabouts, a couple touchdowns and really played an excellent football game.
The Jim Parker offensive lineman was http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059476Bryant Browning. He graded in the high 80's and played both guard and tackle as we had a chance to move some guys around and he was also the honorary captain going back home to Cleveland and did a heck of a job there. The attack force player of the game was http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1151220Cameron Heyward and we rotate our front guys in there, I think Cam only had 20 or 21 plays, but the plays he was in there, he was disruptive, he made plays, he hurried the quarterback. I've probably not seen more throwaways in a game than I saw in that game and obviously the young man was well coached. If there's nothing there, don't just throw it up for grabs, and he didn't. He threw it out of bounds a number of times because he was hurried by guys like Cam Heyward so Cam was the attack force player. We didn't have a Jack Tatum hit candidate this particular week and we had some guys do a good job on the scout team.
http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...3&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=204774051Tony Harlamert, a young man from Coldwater, the home of the Homans, who walked on here, had a chance, could have gone to the Ivy League on full scholarships, but he's a Buckeye through and through and he's going to be a great contributor to this football team, he was our scout special units. http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660825Jordan Whiting was the scout D. Jordan, I thin the last two weeks has come along pretty well as a linebacker and starting to figure out what it takes to play that position at this level and really his last two weeks on the scout team, I think have been very, very good.

And then http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660728Chris Fields, wide receiver from Painesville Harvey, I think Chris is going to be a good player. Identify told http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059432Darrell Hazell and those guys more than once that Chris reminds me of the way that Santonio looked as a freshman. Over there on the scout team, making plays, just has that certain something about him and I tell Chris that too. I mean, that's who he reminds me of. Someone said, what's he look like. I think http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660728Chris Fields is going to be a good football player and we'll see if he gets to the Santonio Holmes level. Santonio obviously climbed, but at this moment, I've got a lot of good feel about what he's going to become.

So we get a chance to fast forward and get into the Big Ten. We've been saying all along that this is going to be a tremendously challenging September and it certainly has been at that and it begins with the Big Ten and I felt going into the Big Ten year that Illinois probably had as good a personnel as anyone in the league. The explosive ability they have over on the offensive side, the uniqueness they have over on the defense. They've got big, strong front on defense. They have a coverage scheme that's something we don't face other than once a year against Illinois and we have to go a good job of emulating that as a scout team and understanding it as an offensive team and just the ability that a guy like Benn brings and -- Arrelious Benn and Juice Williams and their tight end who's a heck of a player and Cumberland out wide and Fayson out wide and all those running backs. I think our defense is going to have a tremendous challenge. And offensively, with the way that they play their defense, it's going to be a heck of a challenge. So we knew that this was going to be a tough ball game as we enter Big Ten play. They were pretty banged up as they went into their Missouri game and as fate would have it, sometimes you like open dates, sometimes you don't. They happened to have an open date and gives them a chance to get some guys back healthy. I think Juice was even banged up a little bit in the Illinois state game and gave him a chance to come back. It's as it should be.
We go into the Big Ten. We're fairly healthy. I think Jimmy Cordle right now is the only guy right now that you would say is totally out. http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1383727Zach Domicone is probably a week from getting back in, but he's moving. It will be probably next week before he would be ready. And Jamaal Berry, maybe another week, but outside of that, we're in pretty good shape, go into Big Ten play with the energy that's created on the campus and in the conference and all the rest and get excited about Hall of Fame weekend here at Ohio State.

REPORTER: Was http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059429Jon Thoma being kicked out of the game more about his illness or maybe to prevent a spread of flu?

COACH TRESSEL: Both. I think the flu thing is real. We had our team doctor speak to the entire athletic department about the realities of what's out there and we've had a lot of our colleagues who were in semesters who have started school three or four weeks ago that can show us -- you know, I talked to Houston Nutt the other night and if they'd have played two weekends ago, they'd have been without 19 starters. It's real. So I think our doctors were -- although Jon kept calling on Friday night, I'm feeling better, my fever's down all that, it was both hey, protect Jon, but also protect the rest of the team.

REPORTER: Was he diagnosed with the flu?

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah.

REPORTER: Did they find it to be the H1N1 or the swine flu?

COACH TRESSEL: I don't believe so. I'm sure I couldn't tell you if I knew.

REPORTER: Is he better now?

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah, he was here yesterday and feels better. What do you do to prevent? Wash your hands a lot, you know, and try to stay away from -- they did a little seminar in our athletic department meeting the other day, instead of shaking hands, here, stand up, young man, you look like a lineman, you go like this, that's the way -- you're supposed to elbow bump, that's the newest thing, so you go back to the office, give a little -- "s'happening," you know. So wash your hands a lot and elbow bump, stay rested, stay hydrated, but there's 60,000 students coming, it's real.

REPORTER: Andy Williams is bracketed as a starter, assuming both those guys stay healthy, are you comfortable with the platoon situation there?

COACH TRESSEL: If we can, we like to play multiple guys because guys do get banged up or whatever and then you have some experience. It was good for Andrew to have a chance to play tackle and guard. It was good for B. B. to play guard and tackle. http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1383594Mike Adams and http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1383745J.B. Shugarts kind of stayed where they were, left and right tackle when they were in the game. http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1152319Andrew Moses can play a little bit of both guards and he can play center if you need it. So right now that's probably the group that's most involved and we'd be comfortable with all of them coming along.

REPORTER: What did you like about J.B. Saturday? Where did you see
room for improvement? Obviously he got whistled three times, he thought only one was really legit.

COACH TRESSEL: I told him, I've been coaching 35 years and I've never heard an offensive lineman question an official's call like that. That wasn't good, he was anxious, and he tried to be quick. People talk about come off the ball and all that stuff. So obviously we have to eliminate that, we can't -- and Justin had one as well. We can't have those.

REPORTER: You talked about him and Justin being the quickest guys off the ball.

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah. Did you guys write that?

REPORTER: Yeah.

COACH TRESSEL: Thanks. Because they must have -- they must have, you know -- so you think I was quick then, you watch now, you know. Well, we've got to go off on the count, but I thought J.B. did some good things. He's a young guy playing a tough position. These ends, as we head into Big Ten play, are going to be good ones, but he's got to progress, as does Mike, as does Andrew. We've probably still, in our minds, are thinking that http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660822Corey Linsley and http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660858Marcus Hall may redshirt, but we'll just have to keep playing along, because we think that we can be contributors as we go, but they've got to keep getting better. It sure helps to be good at tackle.

REPORTER: Jim, do you bring up the game two years ago over here?

COACH TRESSEL: I think for the people that were a part of it, it's relevant, and for the people that weren't a part of it, if you bring it up, they might not have even known it happened. So I'm sure some of the guys that were a part of that game, like the coaches that were here and which is, I guess, all of us, and some of those kids, that will be a reminder, but I don't know what it will do for us. I mean, we've got to go out and do the things we have to do and get focused in on what we have to do against their current personnel. But it's real, and so if it's real, then you better consider it.

REPORTER: Along those same lines, they've won seven of the last 10 here at the stadium, do you make that an issue? Do you bring it up to your players or figure they're going to know it anyway.

COACH TRESSEL: Well, these guys were in third grade in 1999 or whatever. It's brought up in all the releases and all the stuff that they are privy to as well, but, no, I haven't mentioned to them, hey, did you guys know, we have talked about the fact that it's a long rivalry, it's for the Illibuck, the last 18 meetings, each team's won nine, I mean, it's a long standing rivalry, but I haven't really brought that one up about the stadium.

REPORTER: Did http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660857Jordan Hall impress you in his late game running there and how much will that earn him more playing time?

COACH TRESSEL: You know, Jordan's been impressive since he's been here. He's a hard-nosed kid, studies the game, has done well running the football every chance he's gotten, so now that we've seen him in a game, obviously it makes it easier to put him into a game, but, no, he's going to be a good player. He's a tough oh he's a tough kid.

REPORTER: You mentioned Berry, along the same lines, is he missing practice?

COACH TRESSEL: I'm not sure he'll be ready to go full speed this week.

REPORTER: Now you're four games into it, do you contemplate not playing him at all?

COACH TRESSEL: I guess you cross that bridge when he's healthy, according to how your health is, if you've got three or four guys that you think -- you've got obviously Boom and http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059439Brandon Saine and http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1152507Marcus Williams and http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660857Jordan Hall, so if you feel like you're solid with that and you can redshirt him, or if all of a sudden we need a little help there, but Jamaal is going to be a good player too. I like both those guys.

REPORTER: Other parts of your run game, I guess Boom in particular, his yards per carry averages aren't great so far, are the holes not there? Is he not finding the hole, the rest of your running game outside those freshman what do you think so far.

COACH TRESSEL: I think Boom had a couple chances last week where he just got shoestringed and you could see where he might pop it and all you need is to pop it and all your yards per carry is totally skewed. I haven't seen his grade and so forth as being anything less than excellent. He's where he's supposed to be. He has been called upon at times when it was loaded up in there, but he's not unlike someone asked, well, was that good for Terrelle to pop that long one to start the game Saturday, that's what a running back needs is, go hit one for about 27 and all of a sudden, you get a little bit of that momentum going. No, Boom will be fine.

REPORTER: Would you kind of compare and contrast the two quarterbacks, the development track that Juice has followed somewhat similar, very athletic quarterback and where Terrelle is?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, you know, I think the reality for any quarterback, those two in particular you bring up, is that that's a tough position and especially when you get put in there and it's a little bit of on-the-job training, but that's the blessing of it later is that you've had a chance to be in there, you've had a chance to experience it, you should grow from where you've been and I think the reality that both have faced already is that your cast changes over the years. And Terrelle's cast is different totally than it was a year ago and Juice has probably had two different casts and people like to evaluate things exclusive of others and everything is so intertwined in this game and I think for the quarterback, who you're working with and whether it's the recognizable guys like you don't have Mendenhall anymore or it's the unrecognizable things like that left guard was killing people, that's all part of -- you're affected by that.

REPORTER: As honorary captain, will Coach Bruce give the pregame speech?

COACH TRESSEL: Yes. Our honorary captain always addressed the squad at the pregame meal because it's too late once we get to the locker room. If we're not ready to go by the time you walk through that skull session and into Ohio Stadium, if you're not ready to go, it's too late, so Coach Bruce will visit with our guys Saturday at pregame meal.

REPORTER: As you watched film from Terrelle on Saturday, did you see him kind of play in the way you envisioned all along, a little more free, running, throwing?

COACH TRESSEL: I thought he played a little more relaxed and I think getting that momentum helps that. You hit a homerun right off the bat and the next few at-bats you have a little confidence about you. I don't think it was perfect and that's the thing that when the game ends and it was 38-0 and statistically 500 some yards and all this and that, when you go back to watch the film, there are still a number of things we have to get a lot better at and we understand we're entering the league and the difficulty ratchets up when you're playing against people that you play every year that know what you do and how you do it and so forth, but I thought it was a good step, I really did.

REPORTER: Jim, do you see any similarities between the progression of this offense and the '05 offense, the evolution of Troy in '05 and the evolution of Terrelle this year?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, the '05 situation was, you know, after about five games we had lost a couple tough ones, hadn't really gotten going on all cylinders consistently. When we lost to Texas and we came back against Iowa, I think it was, maybe, and played really, really well and we go to Penn State and didn't play as well, it wasn't until significantly into that season that we really started doing what we needed to do, so I'm not sure we're far enough along. Hopefully we'll get consistent more quickly this time.

REPORTER: Back to http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660857Jordan Hall for a minute, he looks very good as Anthony pointed out, what does he need to do better to play even more? Is it learning the offense? Is it blitz pickup?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, there's only one tailback and Boom's going to play and B. Saine is going to play, so he's going to get his opportunities but to say all of a sudden you get 30 carries or whatever, I don't know that he's warranted that at this point. He's done well. And the beautiful thing about football is every opportunity you get, if you can -- if you can take advantage of it, who knows where that ends, but -- where that leads, but right now, he's doing as well as you could ask him. He has no learning issues as far as pass protection or how we're blocking things or, shoot, he's anxious to get on special teams. He's out there working on trying to break into the lineup on the kickoff cover team. So, no, he's a football player.

REPORTER: Are you looking at him sooner in a game though now? Does he have that kind of trust?

COACH TRESSEL: I think the fact that he's been in there and demonstrated that he can go, I'm not sure our guys would be concerned at all at any point in time.

REPORTER: Kind of the legend of Andy Katzenmoyer as you saw it from afar, a guy that game in here with Spielman-esque.

COACH TRESSEL: I just talked to Andy last night, did you know that?

REPORTER: Wasn't aware of that.

COACH TRESSEL: I thought you were bugging my phone or something.

REPORTER: He started -- he was unbelievable as a freshman.

COACH TRESSEL: What do I know about it? He was a big guy. I saw him on TV highlights. I said, that's a big guy that can run awfully fast. He was on some very, very good teams, as I recall. Went on and was projected to do the same at the next level and then what I know of is, his injury stopped all that and that's the reality that all of our guys need to know is that you're one play away from the thing maybe you enjoy the most not being a part of what you do.

REPORTER: But so many of these guys do come here as kind of folk heros, maybe his status was exaggerated, but what he did so early in making a mark on that Rose Bowl team.

COACH TRESSEL: Well, you know, http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059421James Laurinaitis used to wear Andy
Katzenmoyer's jerseys around and I'm sure we hadn't have gotten http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059421James Laurinaitis if there hadn't been that connection, that draw to the way that Andy played and so forth. I've always enjoyed every time I've been around Andy and he loves Ohio State and loves central Ohio and all the rest. But I was engrossed in what I was doing. I didn't read a whole bunch or whatever while he was playing here, but he was certainly well thought of nationally.

REPORTER: Is http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660860John Simon, he seems to be playing more and more, what's your take on him?

COACH TRESSEL: http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660860John Simon is a great player, active guy, first guy into the meeting room, first guy into the weight room, he's going to be a good football player. He really enjoys it. You can tell the guys, you see the Homan brothers in the weight room and you see Simon in the weight room and you've got to throw them out -- Spitler, you've got to throw those guys out. http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660860John Simon -- http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=3660860John Simon loves it.

REPORTER: Did you see this coming with him?

COACH TRESSEL: We thought he was a good player. You never know how a guy's going to do and that's the beauty of getting them in here and getting them comfortable in the summertime and let them train with the rest of the guys, you could tell by his training he was serious and of course, let's see how he plays football, you could tell right away he loves the game. John's going to be a good football player.

REPORTER: You have won or shared four Big Ten titles now, there's nobody in the locker room outside of players -- outside of guys who transferred in who all they know is Big Ten titles, does that ever get taken for granted in this era, so much is on national title, the BCS, does winning a Big Ten title not mean what it meant 20 years ago?

COACH TRESSEL: I'm sure there's some people that take that for granted. Anyone who's played in the Big Ten doesn't because they know how hard it is, or play in any conference, they know how hard it is to win a conference title that's a difficult task, but I'm sure some people take it for granted. Hopefully it's not any of those guys in that locker room you were talking about because if they do they'll catch it with a left hook under the chin if they don't think that this is a task that's going to take everything they've got and we've got.

REPORTER: You've talked about in the past you've almost been more concerned with how your team handles success than adversity. It's only been a week now, but do you have to caution against that? Do you have to remind the guys? What's your message? Last week everything was doom and gloom and this week everything seems great.

COACH TRESSEL: Well, I guess you could give them a little, I've shared with you before, the C.S. Lewis, "The greatest danger is the illusion that all is well," when indeed all is not well, and that's the truth. Whether you want to believe it or not, we did some good things Saturday against Toledo, but Toledo, everyone knows, is not in Big Ten so it has nothing to do with the Big Ten championship and yeah, the disappointment was two weeks away, the people that fought like crazy in that football game, I'm not sure that that is a distant memory for any one of us, but the task at hand is Illinois and task at hand is the Big Ten, so I would like to think -- I'm not saying we're the most experienced, mature football team yet, but I'd like to think we're aware enough to know that we've got to get much better and it begins in the Big Ten.

REPORTER: The attractors to the Big Ten, if you're watching, when you turn on the TV and someone says something about the Big Ten, does it anger you or do you find yourself having to defend the Big Ten?

COACH TRESSEL: It disappoints you, you know, that perhaps someone from a vantage point feels that way, but on the other hand, you throw out a statistic about this or this is the bowl record, you know, you have to -- you have to understand that there are facts. Does it add one more thing that -- of your list of 50 things of why you want to get better? Yeah, maybe. I'm not sure you give it more than it's due.

REPORTER: Can you come after Juice the way you went after Toledo defensively?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, the bonus defensively, and these guys keep peeking in here. I'll get one more. The bonus defensively is if you can put pressure without sending the masses, if you can put pressure and still cover with adequate people, if you have to send extra people, obviously there are spots open to throw the football. We hit a few of those spots last week. Toledo was bringing a few extras and we saw some seams and where there's risk and reward and all that stuff. So can we put pressure on with three- and four-men rushes? We'll see. I'm sure that's part of what we'll do. I know our defense likes to bring extras as well.
So the mixture of all that. Still, don't forget this, in light of all those -- people love quarterback discussions. Whoever can run the ball has got a great advantage. Toledo had, what, 13 carries, and that's a huge disadvantage when you can't run it. And I think Illinois does a good job running the ball, so first and foremost, we better make sure that they can't have their way running it and first and foremost we better make sure that we can do some things running it and I don't mean we're going to go out and run every play, but we better be able to do some things running the football. All right, Lori.

REPORTER: Speaking of running the football, are http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vi...743&SPID=10408&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059439Brandon Saine and Daniel Herron more alike than different at this point? It was always described that Dan's the straight ahead guy and Brandon's your space guy, but are they maybe more similar than we originally thought?

COACH TRESSEL: You know, I think that Boom and Brandon, Jordan, Jamaal, Marcus, are all fairly similar. In fact, they're a little dissimilar to Beanie. So as you go back and you're always looking at, here's what we did against these guys last year, here's what -- I think they're a little bit different than Beanie. So I would agree, and that's a little bit helpful because at times a year ago we were saying, okay, well when Beanie's in there, this is kind of the package, and when the other guys are -- now, you have an opportunity, I think, for them all to grow and if we can grow as a run team, continue to have our quarterback to contribute yards and throw the football effectively, we have a chance to grow offensively, but we have to get better at all those things and fortunately they are similar and we don't waste a whole bunch of repetitions conceptually going back and forth with some things.
 
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