IF college football was a street fight, Jim Tressel would be the one standing in the alley, his sweater vest off, his sleeves rolled up and his fingers waving for the next opponent to approach.
He's absolutely fearless.
Walking with a silent strut, Tressel will play anyone at any time. In today's world of college football, that's rarer than a loss at Southern Cal.
Texas coach Mack Brown said yesterday games like the one we'll witness Saturday night will soon become extinct because of the BCS. Elite programs such as Ohio State and Texas can't afford to risk a potential loss in September, he said, thereby sacrificing hopes of a national championship before the conference season begins.
Saturday's game between Ohio State and Texas was scheduled 10 years ago, when Texas was struggling to sell out home games in the Southwest Conference and the BCS was a twinkle in the eyes of conference commissioners. Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds, now in his 24th year, went as far as to say he won't reschedule a series like this after Ohio State comes to Austin next fall because they're simply too risky.
Tressel just doesn't understand why. He's been a proponent of playing elite programs dating back to his days at Youngstown State and continuing now. He wasn't at Ohio State long before a series with the Miami Hurricanes was signed for 2010 and 2011, giving the Buckeyes games against teams from other top conferences every year for the next decade.
After the Texas game in Austin next year, Ohio State plays Washington in '07, Southern Cal in '08 and '09, the Hurricanes in '10 and '11, Cal in '12 and '13 and Virginia Tech in '14 and '15. While other schools want to fill September schedules with Rice, Temple and Louisiana Lafayette, the Buckeyes have an open sign-up sheet for anyone interested.
''I've always believed the biggest positive is that if you make it through the Big Ten,'' Tressel said, you're prepared to see if you're the best team in the country. I feel the same way about non-conference games.''
He's about the only one.
''It's really exciting, but probably something that's not going to happen much anymore in college football,'' Brown said yesterday. ''With everyone talking about the BCS, at places like Texas and Ohio State, they want you to win the last one. Obviously, one of us will take a step back after Saturday night.''
While that's true, it doesn't scare Tressel. It's why he's considered one of the best coaches in college football, while Brown carries the stigma at Texas of not being capable of winning the big one.
John Cooper carried a similar tag during his days in Columbus, and like Brown, Cooper had games he never wanted to play.
Cooper never liked playing Ohio schools because he had nothing to win and everything to lose. A win over a Mid-American Conference team gets you no extra votes in the polls, but a loss makes you the first coach to lose to an in-state school since 1921. Because of that, Bowling Green and Toledo scared Cooper almost as much as Michigan.
It's not a stretch to correlate Tressel's fearless approach to opponents with his teams' fearless approach in games. Ohio State teams rarely get rattled and only once seemed overmatched -- last year at Iowa. And even then, the Buckeyes responded by going 5-1 the rest of the season.
Tressel said playing Washington State in 2002, when the Buckeyes were sixth and the Cougars were 10th, prepared them for the grind of the Big Ten and, eventually, the national championship game against Miami.
With growing athletic programs, shrinking budgets and so many millions available in bowl games and especially BCS berths, it's safer and financially wiser for powerhouses to pay lesser teams to fly in and get wacked on Saturdays than it does to gamble against a Southern Cal, Texas or Miami. Like Brown said yesterday, the fans at Texas and Ohio State will show up to watch regardless of the opponent.
Even Northwestern, which has won just as many Big Ten titles as Ohio State over the last 10 years (three), will soon begin adding I-AA teams to increase the chances of a bowl berth and the big payout.
Few schools need the money more than Ohio State, which funds 36 varsity sports primarily by the revenue generated from football. But still, Tressel will continue to play the best opponents he can find, provided he can still shake a few out of the trees.
''I don't know why (big non-conference games) would fade,'' Tressel said. ''That prepares you, if you can play those kind of guys, and it's great for our fans. Win, lose or draw, it's a good thing.''
And that attitude is still good for college football.
[email protected]
