With two Ohio natives and former Buckeye assistants now head coaches at Illinois and Michigan State, Tressel and his staff are getting attacked from all angles.
So far, they're still winning.
Pulling recruits from Ohio
Mark Dantonio played high school football in Zanesville and served as Tressel's defensive coordinator for three years before leaving in 2004 to become the head coach at Cincinnati. His ties to southern Ohio are obvious and can come in handy when recruiting the Cincinnati and Dayton areas.
Michigan State, though, historically has done well at pulling kids out of Ohio. Tressel noticed all three players Michigan State took to Chicago last week for the Big Ten Kickoff Luncheon - quarterback Brian Hoyer, tailback Javon Ringer and defensive tackle Justin Kershaw - were all Ohio natives, and they committed to the Spartans long before Dantonio arrived.
If anyone has really changed the landscape of recruiting in Ohio, it is Illinois coach Ron Zook. He was born in Loudonville and graduated from Miami (Ohio) in 1976. He was defensive backs coach under John Cooper for three seasons, leaving in 1991 for the Florida Gators.
Upon returning to the Big Ten in 2005, Zook immediately targeted Ohio as a primary recruiting ground.
Before his arrival, Illinois could never pull more than one or two recruits from here in a given year. Since 2006, Zook's first full class, he has signed 13 Ohio recruits. He has two more already verbally committed for 2009. Fellows would have made three.
"There are certain guys who, when you go into Ohio, there's no messing with them," Zook said. "They're going to go to Ohio State if Ohio State offers them. That's just the way it is, and I think the way it should be ...
"Ohio State can't take them all, so we want to get some of them. If you get a guy or two that has success and is happy, then that helps the recruiting process."
Illinois is gambling by targeting Ohio players earlier than ever before. By being the first school into a recruit's house, Zook is hoping that initial contact can help sway a teenager before Tressel gets in the front door.
"Their big thing is identifying players early and offering them," said Steve Helwagen, managing editor of Bucknuts.com, a Web site that feverishly follows recruiting. "A lot of coaches want to see the kids play as seniors, but they're offering off of sophomore (highlight) tapes and junior tapes and trying to get the jump. That's what they did with Fellows."
