Jim Tressel (National Champion, ex-President, Youngstown State University, CFB HOF)

[localyokel]

The only problem with that is that most of those that are talking don't know what the hell they are talking about. So hopefully Coach won't listen.

:osu:

Looks like you get your wish.

"Wednesday, September 16, 2009
By Ken Gordon
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

"I'll always believe that you win tough ballgames by making sure that you're the group that makes less mistakes, wins that field position battle, wins the battle in the trenches." ? Jim Tressel

As fan frustration over a stagnant Ohio State offense has mounted in recent years, a growing number of people have been calling for change....some fans are becoming more vocal about what they view as major negatives: a conservative offensive philosophy that emphasizes field position and minimal mistakes, and Tressel's insistence on calling plays himself.
Yesterday, in the wake of an 18-15 loss Saturday to Southern California, Tressel again made it very clear that he is a package deal -- you get the good with the bad, take it or leave it.
He was asked whether he would ever consider making a wholesale change in his offensive philosophy.
"No, I'll always believe that you win tough ballgames by making sure that you're the group that makes less mistakes, wins that field position battle, wins the battle in the trenches," Tressel said.
That led to the oft-asked question: Could he see himself giving up calling the plays?
"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 and read USA Today or (listen to) talk radio and get a headache," he said. "I think I would have a hard time being at this press conference and you saying something about the offense or whatever and I had no clue. That, to me, I might as well send somebody else."
Translated: You will have to pry the play-calling duties from my cold, dead fingers.
The problem comes after another big-game defeat. OSU lost its sixth straight game against a top-five opponent. In those six games, the Buckeyes have averaged 13.8 points.
This season, Ohio State is ranked 92nd nationally (out of 120 teams) in total offense...."


You know what they say: be careful what you wish for.

 

[BayBuck]

I was comparing the way a hardcore set of fans refused to admit any issues with Cooper but when the losing didn't stop he eventually caught 9 kinds of hell. My coments were about the reactions of the fan base being similar not the state of the program under the two coaches.

If you read more than the first line of my post its actually quite clear.

Oh, I'm quite clear on what you were saying, and I hope it's quite clear that I still think your comment was ridiculous. The "issues" that our current crop of nit-pickers are focusing on are nowhere near those of the Cooper era, and OSU's program today doesn't have the kind of internal issues that will tear it apart like they did Cooper's, which did eventually give the naysayers their way.

As much as some fan's "misery" may have been compounded by another close loss to a top-ranked team (as opposed to say an MSU-caliber upset that hastened Cooper's demise), I suspect it was the kind of performance that a young team will rally around, and that gameday atmosphere certainly helped the recruiting effort. This is a program that is continuing to rise, and anyone who thinks Tressel won't continue to develop his offense is forgetting the Troy Smith era all too quickly.

Seriously, last season was the first in 4 years we didn't average over 30 points/game: this is a coaching staff that has experience, and recently, putting together some pretty prolific offenses, in addition to doing everything else right that you could hope for your favorite football team.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

This is starting to remind me of the last few years of Cooper.

There was a die hard contingent that was convinced no one could do better than his 75%, or whatever it was, win percentage. They could go down the list and rationalize almost every loss to scUM or in a Bowl game. They thought anyone calling for Coops head was spoiled and saw no reason why we should even hint at firing such a good guy simply because he had some bad luck vs scUM. They predicted all kinds of dire results that would come from firing Coop, most converted back to the old standby that there was no way the next coach would win as much. I bring it up because as the scUM losses continued to mount most of these people gave up and admitted he needed to go.

If this offense continues to be the millstone around the neck of an otherwise very good team as it has been the better part of 9 years now, the calls for Tressel's head will get louder and louder. Just a year or two ago you didn't hear it at all, now people are publicly criticizing Tressel directly not Bollman. This last game was a watershed imo as far as the fanbase being willing to call out JT. Once that jeanie gets out of the bottle its hard to ever get it back in.

I said in my first post after the game I think Tress has reached a fork in the road. I want him to stay for as long as he wants to stay but if he digs his heels in and is perceived to be willing to hurt the program to satisfy his ego (ie refuses to make offensive coaching changes) then there is no doubt in my mind it will be his undoing at OSU. It will just be a matter of time.

In Ann Arbor Michigan they replaced a man who had a National Title to his credit (Well, half of one) and had his program consistently at the top of the standings.. that is to say, he was still contending for greatness... while we all joked about this man's team's failures to D-IAA schools and unsightly clad teams like Oregon... fact is, as recently as 2006 they went in to the last regular season game with a chance to go the the Championship...

But... this same coach had now become a "can't win the big one" guy.

And they started the rumblings of running him out of town...

And then they hired Rich Rodriguez.

Careful what you wish for. Losing 18-15 to USC hurts and we'd all better expect that Ohio State win these games. But, Ohio State isn't losing to Toledo, I guarantee that.

 

[lvbuckeye]

let's see, the fans are "miserable," and an "OSU Insider" goes online and throws Pryor under the bus...

i'm thinking those two statements from the staff in conjunction with the FatFuckesque 3-point-loss-that-we're-counting-as-a-victory against USC make for quite possibly the worst week in Tressel's tenure at Ohio State...

time and CHANGE...

(to clarify for the dumbass kneejerkers: i DO NOT want anyone other than Jim Tressel as the head coach at Ohio State. what i want is a competent offense to go along with our D and ST.)

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

let's see, the fans are "miserable," and an "OSU Insider" goes online and throws Pryor under the bus...

i'm thinking those two statements from the staff in conjunction with the FatFuckesque 3-point-loss-that-we're-counting-as-a-victory against USC make for quite possibly the worst week in Tressel's tenure at Ohio State...

time and CHANGE...

Yeah.... wait til we replace a proven winner with Rich Rod.

Change indeed.

For my part, I'm not about "Moral victories" at Ohio State... but I'm also not about jumping on to the next big thing because the current proven thing has had a tough run in games against teams rated int he top fucking 5...

Lets go get Pete Carrol.. and lose to Oregon State from time to time.. that's a shit ton better, right?
Or Urban Meyer... so we can drop one to Ole Miss...

 

[matcar]

You don't think it's ridiculous to compare today to the end of the Cooper era? Allow me to refresh your memory about a time when OSU couldn't beat Michigan, never won the Big Ten outright, had serious academic and chemistry issues and had 10 losses in Cooper's last two years... You cannot legitimately compare Tressel's stubborn offensive philosophies to the endemic problems that wracked the program in the "last few years of Cooper".

Finally catching up with national sentiment is no reason to turn on the man who will possibly finish as our best coach ever with another decade of "Tresselball", whatever form it may take.

I'm not turning on the man, nor do I think Jax is. But his comment seems to suggest that refusing to consider changes may be his undoing.

I live in Arky. It's all too fresh in my mind what occured with Arky and Houston Nutt. The fan base was irrational...as they all are and there were several personal miscues that accompanied Nutt's demise, but ultimately the problems boiled down to 1) winning the games the fans expected them to win and 2) Nutt refusing to re-evaluate his offense. People can bring up whatever else they want to, but those two factors were what brought the house down. Ultimately Nutt was "forced" to bring in a new O.C. because of fan pressure and while the offense improved, other things went downhill from there. Point being that if you are stubborn on this, it can end badly for everyone.

So, I think the point that Jax is making is not ridiculous at all.


That said, I like and respect Jim Tressel as much as any man I've never met and do not want him to leave Ohio State until he wants to leave but I also understand the notion that each time the offense comes onto the field, their job is to score a touchdown. And each time the defense comes on the field, their job is to leave the field with no points on the board. I feel certain that JT and the staff would like it if the offense was more consistent in that regard.

 

[BayBuck]

I'm not turning on the man, nor do I think Jax is. But his comment seems to suggest that refusing to consider changes may be his undoing.

I seriously doubt Tressel would refuse to consider changes, and I expect he spends more time developing/adapting his gameplan than he gets credit for, but what is obviously bothering the critics is that he won't consider the specific changes that they demand: fire Bollman, hire a young-gun OC. And I don't believe that refusing to give up on his long-time colleague (who was the OC for a Heisman-winning QB very recently) and give up his own involvement in the offense will be his "undoing". Tressel is not Cooper, and he's definitely not Nutt: he's a conservative coach with a young QB (and a pretty young team overall), and I believe he's got us heading in the right direction for the rest of this season and the next two at least.

 

[Gatorubet]

Lets go get Pete Carrol.. and lose to Oregon State from time to time.. that's a shit ton better, right?
Or Urban Meyer... so we can drop one to Ole Miss...

So with Urban, you'll lose to the SEC?

 

[morbitzerker]

So with Urban, you'll lose to the SEC?

Not if we could only keep JT's special teams.

 

[Buckeyefrankmp]

The last time OSU had NFL talent up front, they won a title. There was a drought in 06, 07 & 08 (given Brew's age). OSU finally has some NFL talent up front again, some starting, some pushing the starters, and look what happened against a great bunch of athletes.

Do we have a problem landing the talent out of High School or do we have a problem developing the talent once they get here?

 

[matcar]

I seriously doubt Tressel would refuse to consider changes, and I expect he spends more time developing/adapting his gameplan than he gets credit for, but what is obviously bothering the critics is that he won't consider the specific changes that they demand: fire Bollman, hire a young-gun OC. And I don't believe that refusing to give up on his long-time colleague (who was the OC for a Heisman-winning QB very recently) and give up his own involvement in the offense will be his "undoing". Tressel is not Cooper, and he's definitely not Nutt: he's a conservative coach with a young QB (and a pretty young team overall), and I believe he's got us heading in the right direction for the rest of this season and the next two at least.

Nope, JT isn't Coop, isn't Nutt, isn't Woody, he's JT. But the others had their undoing and JT isn't beyond that anymore than any other coach is. I pointed to Nutt because of some of the similarities and I ended my comments with a "bottom line" type statement that the offense is designed to score touchdowns. I'm sure JT is willing to acknowledge that the offense does not do that with the consistency he would like.

I'm sure you're correct that critics are demanding specific changes that may not be to JTs liking. As a fan, I don't "demand" any specific changes, but the one change I'd "really, really, really, like" is for the offense to more consistently score touchdowns on their drives.

 

[zincfinger]

Would you rather have a coach that can bring in good talent, great record but just cant beat Michigan? or
would you rather have a coach that has a good record, can beat michigan but just can't win the big game?

This doesn't seem like a terribly accurate description of Cooper vs. Tressel. First, Tressel has won approximately 10% more of his games than Cooper did (~80% vs. ~72%). Second, you imply that aside from Michigan, Cooper won nearly all his "big games". In fact, Cooper was 3-8 in bowl games (several of which weren't really "big games", because the team had a relatively poor season). I'm not trying to disparage Cooper, he put together some great teams. But your implied suggestion that, aside from his lack of success against UM, his teams outperformed Tressel's is completely inaccurate.

 

[BayBuck]

As a fan, I don't "demand" any specific changes, but the one change I'd "really, really, really, like" is for the offense to more consistently score touchdowns on their drives.

Hey, I agree--I might even grumble a bit about some of the playcalling on my way home from a loss--and I've heard enough from JT to believe he too would like nothing more than to score TDs on every single drive. But of course with a young team and a strong aversion to turnovers, there's a balance he tries to strike between being aggressive and taking unnecessary chances at this point in the team's developmental process.

 

[martinss01]

http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/news/616199-2009-usc-trojans-game-preview.html

qb:
Edge: Even

rb:
Edge: USC

wr:
Edge: USC

te:
Edge: Even

oline:
Edge: USC

dline:
Edge: Ohio State

lb:
Edge: Even

db:
Edge: USC


im not sure what game some of you were watching. but the game i saw pretty clearly showed a usc defense that was selling out completely to stop the run. specifically pryor from running. i counted 8, sometimes 9, in the box on just about every play. whats more, i saw tOSU receivers open all over the place the entire game. at no point during that game did i get the impression that usc was capable of, or possibly even interested in, shutting down our passing game. they weren't able to get consistent adequate pressure. nor were they able to cover our wr's on any play that i can remember.

its funny, usc did exactly what we have done more times than i care to count. force an athletic young qb to win the game with his arm rather than his legs. but for some reason we as a fan base are absolutely mystified when someone else uses the same tactic against us.

 

[matcar]

Hey, I agree--I might even grumble a bit about some of the playcalling on my way home from a loss--and I've heard enough from JT to believe he too would like nothing more than to score TDs on every single drive. But of course with a young team and a strong aversion to turnovers, there's a balance he tries to strike between being aggressive and taking unnecessary chances at this point in the team's developmental process.

I agree that he has a young team and next year...watch out. On the same token, what we're seeing on offense isn't exactly new. JT has been here long enough to see some uncomfortable trends on offense that personally, I wish were better.

Like I said, I do not want JT to leave on anything other than his own terms, but I also wish that something would change that would enable more offensive production on an annual basis.