Q: (Presumably something about Big Ten expansion and a championship game, and scheduling games after Thanksgiving).
JT: " ... The whole picture's bigger than just football. Whether it's the discussion of a 12th team or a conference championship, or the calendars and all that; and we're on board with whatever's best for the conference, whatever's 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: "Coach, 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 - how he's developed?"
JT: "Well, it's difficult to replace a Beanie Wells - Beanie was an outstanding player; 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 the cumulative effect, you know, when he carried the ball, through the course of a game or 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, tough kid; a good ballcarrier, 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 anticpated. Brandon had a very good spring as well, as did Danny; he's the kind of guy, not only is he an excellent running back, he's a real fine receiver, and tremendous spee speed. He owns the state 100-yard dash - I guess it's not yards, 100 meters - there in the state of Ohio at 220 pounds. So, Brandon. we would like to believe, will be a heckuva runner there, and 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, those types of things. But Danny Herron and Brandon Saine, it's their time to step up."
Q: "Coach, often successful teams are copied, or you start seeing some of the schemes your team is using on other teams; and I guess I'm wondering, in the case of Ohio State, 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?"
JT: "I think one thing about us coaches is we all copy off each other. There's no doubt abuot it, as we study all that film, we watch what someone does, and say 'that's a heckof 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 are doing them all. Just about any thing that you can possibly do.
"Offensively, you have to have 5 of them there, numbers 50 through 79, and therre's only so many ways you can line up the other 6. 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 just by their design and experimenting, and so forth. Sometimes, it's by 'Ooh, look what this group's doing - I coud see Terrelle Pryor doing that; or I could see Boom Herron doing that', or whomever. So, there's a little bit of it all, and the one thing that college football is great about, in the offseason you see teams getting together all the time, and sharing ideas and sharing thoughts. It's a little bit unusual, that that's the way it is, with the sharing of information, but that's how we all get better."
Question from Tim May: "Jim, a couple of coaches have indicated that you guys have actually talked about a little bit of a perception situation about the Big Ten right now, from maybe a little bit of an inferiority complex/situation, somthing like that. What is your feeling about that, and do you feel the worm is turning?"
JT: "Well, you know, we spend time in meetings, whether it was the 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 bertter. That's, even after the years where we might be 5-2 in bowls, you're sitting there talking about 'Hey, how can we get better?' This year, we're 1-6, and maybe that discussion gets even more impactful, or whatever. That's an ongoing thing that we talk about. I don't know that anyone in the 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 with the regularity of most every conference. But it is something that, as I mentioned earlier, we take it very serious; that every time we line up outside our conference, that obviously we're representing ourselves and this institution, but we're representing this league. That's important to us, and when those bowl games are going on we're rooting like crazy. That's something that's very important'"
