Cooper was the coach throughout my 4 years at OSU, and Tressel was hired just before I graduated. I had the opportunity to meet them both, and I felt that Tressel oozed with confidence and leadership, while Cooper seemed more like a good 'ol boy you'd want to drink a beer with.
I find it absurd that people would focus on one incident of a player getting in a coach's face and conveniently forget, or even worse suggest that Cooper's teams didn't do this type of thing because he was such a strong disciplinarian. That's a complete joke. For instance, David Boston, while one of my favorite players, was an asshole on the field, and performed taunts and celebrations that Tressel would have absolutely disciplined him for, whereas the actions continued under Cooper. You see much more respect on and off the field with the players since Tressel has taken over.
The players used to come to our parties, and one of our tenant's was a drug dealer to the team. In both situations, the players referred to Cooper as "Coach Fucko", a lot, and generally felt no sense of "team" towards the end of Cooper's tenure. How can a player respect a coach who doesn't even know his name?
It would be wise to sit back and see what really becomes of the current situation with Troy Smith. It's funny that people now seem to be taking the bullshit ESPN stories as more true than they did before. Let's face it--the ESPN stories and Maurice Clarett, are bullshit. Does anyone here really think that what ESPN and Clarett have done wouldn't have been done under Cooper? I hope not.
The biggest difference, to me, is that Cooper's players got into trouble of their own volition all of the time, whereas some of the current problems seem to have been set-up, or induced by outsiders either looking to make a story or looking to take some people down.