Now, about Jim Tressel....
Much more needs to be said in defense of Ohio State’s coach; it’s hard to know where to start.
First of all, the same Ohio State fans who thought Troy Smith would be the bomb this year are now the fans who think Tressel gave Smith insufficient playing time. Yet, Smith threw for only 78 yards, hardly a clear sign of unmistakable superiority to Justin Zwick. Bucks fans seem to want to elevate Smith while looking past the fact that Smith, while hardly bad, was certainly not a devastating force as well. Bucks fans paint themselves into a corner and try to have it both ways when, on one hand, they say that Smith accounted for the vast majority of the team’s points from Saturday night against Texas, while on the other hand saying that the offense produced far too many field goals.
OK, so which is it? Did Smith account for a lot of points, or did he preside over way too many field goal drives that should have been touchdowns? Can’t have it both ways.
Ohio State fans get into an even bigger pickle when they rip Tressel’s play calling. This is true for two reasons. The first reason is that late in the third quarter, with Ohio State in control of the game and gaining momentum, Tressel certainly called the proper play and put Zwick in a position to score a touchdown with a perfect read and throw to Ryan Hamby, who simply dropped a pass (twice) in the end zone. You can’t blame Zwick, you can’t blame Tressel for having Zwick in the game, and you can’t blame Tressel for the play he called. Sometimes in life—and I know this all too well—you can do everything right and yet have no outward results, because other people you depended on didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. It seems harsh to keep harping on this—it’s obviously nothing personal—but if you want to be coldly analytical about this game, it’s simply a reality that Ryan Hamby made the single most debilitating play of the game for Ohio State, who largely outplayed Texas but didn’t have the “W” to show for it at the end. Life can be like that sometimes—it’s not fair, and it certainly can’t be easy to take for a proud Buckeye fan base. But you just have to live with that.
The second and much more important reason why you just can’t blame Jim Tressel for his play-calling is that this man went 14-0, winning a national title with this same basic football philosophy. When a coach coaches against his normal instincts and loses, that’s a problem. It’s supremely frustrating when a coach allows his own unique football vision to be steamrollered by a cowardly concession to other voices or circumstances; that’s what good leaders never, ever allow to happen. But when a coach makes controversial decisions that nevertheless flow from his innate understanding of the game and his own football philosophies, you have to give the man credit for being true to himself. You have to admire coaches who are philosophically consistent; you don’t have to agree with them, but you have to respect them, and this is exponentially more true when coaches who are philosophically consistent produce big-time results. Tressel has done that in his career in Columbus, and therefore he’s earned that level of respect.
If Ryan Hamby does his job, we’re not talking about how bad a job Jim Tressel “supposedly” did. After his defense contained Vince Young as a runner, and after his team largely dictated tempo, field position and other essentials of a football game for most of the night, Tressel should be receiving applause. But again, you can sometimes do your level best and have nothing to show for it. That’s the inconvenient truth about Jim Tressel, and Buckeye fans need to come to grips with it, realizing what this man has done for their football program.
You want to go back to John Cooper, all y’all?
