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12/16/05
12/16/05
OSU FOOTBALL
Smith has cleaned up his act
Quarterback forms bond with Tressel, improves on, off field
Friday, December 16, 2005
Ken Gordon
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
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In the past year — a tumultuous, triumphant, disgraceful, successful year for Troy Smith — the Ohio State quarterback has kept one number in mind:
1-800-TRESSEL.
Quarterback and coach have grown close in recent months, largely because one has steered the other through adversity. Smith has credited Jim Tressel for helping him realize the effects his actions have on others and the urgency of avoiding any more offfield problems.
"We talk all the time," Smith said. "He’s on my speed dial, and I’m sure I’m on his. We talk a lot because I pretty much have an understanding that football is not forever and when you have a chance to become better as a man, you capitalize on it. And who better to groom me than coach Tressel?"
Last year at this time, Smith and the Buckeyes were basking in the glow of a win over Michigan and preparing for a bowl trip. But clouds were gathering, darkening Smith’s sunny sky.
Two days before OSU left for San Antonio and the Alamo Bowl, Smith was suspended for taking money from a booster. He didn’t make the trip.
This year, he fully plans to be on a plane to Phoenix on Dec. 26. Asked about the significance of playing Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl, Smith recently said, "Just being bowl eligible is great."
Maybe he was talking about himself. What stung him most about the suspension, he said, was that he was not there for the team — his team.
"Last year, those seniors that left, I wasn’t able to play with them (in their) last game," Smith said.
Much has been said about Smith’s maturation over the past year, both on the field and off.
The results on the field have been obvious: better decisionmaking, fewer turnovers, hanging in the pocket longer and waiting for plays to develop.
Smith led the Big Ten in passing efficiency and now is 12-2 as a starter.
But there is a three-game hole on that starter’s record: the Alamo Bowl and the 2005 season opener when he was suspended, and the Texas game Sept. 10, in which Justin Zwick started and Smith came on in relief.
That hole, Smith says, has closed for good.
If so, it would end a string of incidents dating to his junior year in high school when he was kicked out of school for punching an opposing player during a basketball game.
He also was charged with disorderly conduct in 2003 in Columbus.
Smith has mentioned the importance of a heart-to-heart talk with Tressel in September, when Tressel told him he couldn’t afford to mess up again.
Now that the payoff to that talk is apparently at hand, Smith is appreciative.
"Everybody who played a part in the betterment of my life I have thanked multiple times, and they deserve it," he said.
Lately, Tressel has practically raved about Smith, saying he was "real proud of the way he’s developed," and adding that he has "attacked becoming a quarterback. . . . he’s a dynamic young man."
Dynamic, or dynamite waiting to explode? Smith has been mercurial, to say the least.
But he says he has learned an important lesson. Just like he doesn’t have to do it all himself on the field, Smith now knows he can help his team in another, very simple way:
Just be there.
"I sat back and I had to think about, ‘What do I owe to my guys, my whole team?’ " Smith said of his epiphany. "I owe it to them to become everything they need me to be so they . . . don’t have to think twice if Troy Smith is going to be there for them and have their back."
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