• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

QB Troy Smith (2006 Heisman Trophy Winner)

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
Link

8/27/06

All "Buckeyes" focused on Smith

Ohio State QB prepared for a big senior season

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 08/27/06

BY MARK SNYDER
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
Four years ago, Troy Smith drew little attention.
In fact, he was rated the second-best quarterback recruit at Ohio State.
Justin Zwick had all the attention as the nation's No. 3 overall quarterback — No. 1 according to some publications — yet Smith still decided to play for the Buckeyes.
After some rough patches on and off the field, Smith enters this season as a Heisman Trophy candidate on the nation's top-ranked team.
His ability to run and throw makes him dangerous on every snap and forces defenses to plan for him two different ways. Indeed, the threat alone makes defenses create a different game plan.
His quickness was enough to make him a kick returner and running back as a freshman, but his heart was always under center.
That meant biding his time as the backup in 2004 until a midseason injury to Zwick gave him a shot at quarterback. Smith won four of the Buckeyes' final five games — which included beating Michigan — and the job was an open competition entering 2005.
But a suspension for accepting money from a booster kept him out of the season opener and forced him to split time with Zwick in the second-game loss to Texas.
After that, Smith took over and led Ohio State to a 10-2 record and fueled thoughts of even bigger dreams entering this season.
Initially, Smith and head coach Jim Tressel weren't comfortable with each other, mostly because Smith felt he deserved more of a chance at quarterback.
Now, there's a better comfort level, even if the past is not forgotten.
"As a quarterback, you have to develop a relationship with your head coach," said Smith, a senior who threw 16 touchdowns and just four interceptions last season and led the Big Ten in passing efficiency. "He believes in you and you have to believe in him. My relationship with Coach Tressel has grown by leaps and bounds because of the added emphasis I have on the quarterback position. He and other coaches on the team have what I need to become the best college quarterback I can be. His beliefs and his understanding of my wanting to become a better quarterback have made our relationship a lot better."
While many joke about Tressel's conservative nature — his national championship came with mistake-free Craig Krenzel under center — his willingness to embrace Smith's diverse skills has won over his team.
That's why Ohio State losing nine of 11 defensive starters doesn't worry the experts. They have Smith and, after fresh memories of watching Texas' multitalented Vince Young carry his team to a national title, the comparisons are inevitable.
Smith, who is the Big Ten preseason offensive player of the year, refuses to accept them. He says he's a passing quarterback first, unlike Young, and doesn't need to do nearly as much by himself.
Tressel isn't going there, either, and is simply glad that his quarterback is making progress.
"He showed us a lot in '04 that he can make plays and do some things, but would he do it consistently?" Tressel said. "But in '05 he showed that, the back half of that season there was a consistent quarterback, and I thought he followed it up with a consistent spring. Now we'll find out when we begin the real games whether he can take it on. But I think it's consistency."
If that consistency lasts 13 games, no Buckeyes fan will ever forget Smith's name.
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0
Dispatch

8/27/06

OHIO STATE FOOTBALL
POISED for GREATNESS

Quarterback Troy Smith has honed his ability to anticipate through hours of study

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Tim May
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

20060827-Pc-E1-0500.jpg

JEFF HINCKLEY DISPATCH Quarterback Troy Smith has developed to the point where he feels or senses what’s going on, and then his preparation kicks in and takes over.


Anyone who has had a video-game controller in his hands with NCAA Football ’07 on the screen has seen some of the same things Troy Smith will see at quarterback for Ohio State this season.
But Smith, who plays that video game as well as anyone, will tell you two major aspects that separate it from the real thing.
"In that game, you don’t get hit, or at least you don’t feel it," he said. "And in that game, if you throw an interception you can just hit reset and start all over."
He learned in the early stages of his career at OSU that the hits are real and do-overs are far from instantaneous.
"The first time I got my clock cleaned I understood this was big-time football," Smith said. "In that respect, that part of the game changed, my sense of urgency. I realized that if I have a chance to get out of the way, then I better get out of the way, or get killed."
As for his reputation of being a running-passing quarterback, he worked most of last season to make it a passing fancy.
"It’s no longer a lot of rushes for me, I hope," said Smith, a fifth-year senior who already has a degree in communications. "It’s a lot of getting rid of the ball and preserving my body a little bit."
To do that, he has learned to play the game as much with his mind as with his arm and feet. During the offseason, he spent uncounted hours watching video, from his team’s offense to upcoming defenses and his team’s defenses.
"The thing I like about Troy’s approach right now is he wants to know ‘Why?’ " said coach Jim Tressel, who has instilled in Smith the idea of "learning to think like the opposing defensive coordinator."
But in 2004, when Smith first flashed onto the scene taking the place of an injured Justin Zwick midway through the season, it was primarily his feet doing the work.
"Like he’ll tell you, at times he was just ‘balling,’ " Tressel said. "He wasn’t playing quarterback. I think he realized we weren’t interested in having a guy just going out and balling, that we were interested in developing a quarterback."
On the way to beating Michigan in 2004, Smith showed he could do what it took. But then he took a back seat again when he had to sit out the Alamo Bowl win over Oklahoma State and the 2005 opening win over Miami University for taking $500 from a booster. It also made him the backup for what turned out to be a loss to Texas.
"You have to make decisions as coaches, sometimes at the expense of progress," Tressel said. "But you have to have lessons learned."
That was a major lesson in humility for Smith, said Gary Danielson, who watched Ohio State closely the past few years as an analyst with ABC and is now with CBS. Danielson said it might have been a turning point for the team, as well.
"I think what Troy needed to learn, and I think Tressel did a great job of teaching this, is you never really have it, that you can never really stop working, that things are always changing," Danielson said. "This game is an ongoing process. I guess what I’m saying is, Troy figured out, ‘Hey, this ain’t easy.’ "
Football is no video game. It’s about studying video of opposing defenses for tens of hours. Then in the game, it’s about being alert not only to the way the defense reacts to certain formations, but also to the gambits the defense likes to play.
"From your pregame preparation, and then paying attention throughout the game, it helps you understand what a defense might be about to bring and what’s going on," Smith said. "That’s how you have to treat every game. The more you know, the better you’ll be."
Smith exudes knowledge and curiosity, receiver Anthony Gonzalez said, which is why he believes Smith is primed for this season.
"I have been saying it: I believe after this season ends he will go down as the best quarterback in Ohio State history," Gonzalez said. "That’s pretty high praise, but that’s what I believe."
Other teammates are also impressed.
"It’s the respect that he commands when he steps into that huddle," right guard T.J. Downing said. "Nobody is messing around, nobody is talking. All eyes are on him, and ears are open.
"And field-wise, you can tell he sees things so much better (compared to two years ago). I can understand for a quarterback stepping in there for the first time that everything must seem like a blur. But now, you can tell everything is so clear to him."
Smith calls it "anticipation."
"There’s all kinds of plays where you feel or sense through your peripherals what’s going on and your preparation kicks in, and that pretty much guides you through a play," he said.
That’s how Smith and Ohio State sliced and diced Notre Dame for 617 yards in a Fiesta Bowl victory in January. He did his homework. That’s one reason why Tressel has no reservations promoting him as a Heisman Trophy candidate.
"I think it starts with his competitiveness, and he loves to lead," Tressel said. "He’s got a flair about him. … Great players have that something about them that maybe others don’t. He’s got an aura about him that I think is special.
"Then you take a lot of those natural traits and add it to the work ethic he has to become a good quarterback, and I think that’s the progress you’re seeing in his evolution."
[email protected]
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0
Link

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Smith goes from cellar to stellar[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]BY JIM NAVEAU - Aug. 27, 2006[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]COLUMBUS — It was a low point in Troy Smith’s football career and he was in the basement.
Actually in the basement.
While Ohio State was playing in the 2004 Alamo Bowl, Smith was back home in Cleveland watching the game on television in the basement of his high school coach Ted Ginn Sr.
Accepting $500 from an Ohio State booster cost OSU’s starting quarterback a two-game suspension. The first game of that penalty was the Alamo Bowl game against Oklahoma State and the second was last season’s opener.
It seems years ago, considering what Smith has done since to make himself a Heisman Trophy contender. It seems years ago when Smith looks back at that night.
“We’d had such a great end to the season and a silly decision left me in the dust, left me in Cleveland while my team was in Texas celebrating a bowl victory. I had to sit there and swallow it and I knew I should be a part of it,” he said.
The Ginns weren’t home, but Smith let himself in with a key he keeps and watched Ohio State beat Oklahoma State. Watching someone else lead OSU’s offense across the goal line made him determined to walk the line.
“I really got it into my head that I wouldn’t be in a situation like this again,” Smith said.
Heading into Ohio State’s opener on Saturday against Northern Illinois, Smith is on top of his game. His team is on top of the polls, ranked No. 1 in the preseason.
And he’s at the top of the list of OSU fans’ favorite players.
Obviously, his rise in popularity is a direct result of raising the level of his play.
Smith had an outstanding second half of the season last fall, throwing 13 touchdown passes and only two interceptions when Ohio State won its last seven games. He had back-to-back 300-yard passing games against Michigan and Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.
So, what happened?
After the usual nod to Smith spending as much as 20 hours a week watching film to make himself a better quarterback, coach Jim Tressel admitted Smith simply has come to see what Ohio State’s coaches want from a quarterback.
“He’ll tell you at times (early in his career) that he was just ballin’, he wasn’t playing quarterback,” Tressel said. “I think he realized we weren’t interested in having a guy just going out and ballin’, we were interested in developing a quarterback.
“I don’t know at what point his awareness level of that became keen, but I thought in the back half of 2004, you could see progress,” Tressel said.
Smith was the “other” quarterback in the 2002 recruiting class. Justin Zwick was rated as one of the top QB prospects in the country and Smith was thought to be a nice pickup, but not a program changer.
Smith didn’t take a snap at quarterback until the spring of his freshman year at Ohio State and was briefly tried at wide receiver. He pleaded no contest to a disorderly conduct charge after a fight in a campus parking lot in 2002.
He won the starting job when Zwick was injured at Iowa in 2004 and kept it the final five games of the season.
Then came the handout from the booster. Two years later, he’s gone from handout to Heisman Trophy candidate.
It wasn’t always easy, but Tressel wore the look of someone who was glad he stuck with Smith when he talked about him earlier this month at the Big Ten football meetings in Chicago.
“We had to handle the bent rim on the tire, I guess,” he said, with a smile, when he talked about Smith’s makeover.
If the rim stays unbent, if the potholes are avoided, Ohio State and Smith could have a season to remember.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]
 
Upvote 0
Link

Smith has control of Buckeyes'goals

By BERNARD FERNANDEZ

[email protected]

THEY STARTED OUT as trash-talking children in peewee leagues, each the best athlete on his respective team, even then alpha males jockeying for dominance on the field.
Troy Smith was 8 and Ted Ginn Jr. was 7, and their rivalry on the playgrounds of Cleveland grew to become legendary. They always knew they had the stuff to succeed on a much larger stage, but who could have guessed that they would make it together as big-play, pitch-and-catch partners for an Ohio State team that heads into Saturday's season opener against visiting Northern Illinois ranked No. 1 nationally?
The main difference between then and now is that Smith, the senior quarterback, and Ginn, the junior wide receiver and kick returner, have become best buds and silent partners. Instead of incessantly yapping about who's best, they now are able to communicate with a nod or a glance.
"When we first started playing football against each other, he was on my rival team and I was on his rival team," Smith recalled. "There wasn't bad blood off the field, but on the field we were always jawing at one another.
"It would go back and forth. One year, his team would kill my team. The next year, my team would kill his team. One guy never really consistently got the better of it."
As fate would have it, Smith transferred from St. Edward High to Glenville High, which was coached by Ted Ginn Sr., after his sophomore year. Smith and the coach's son finally were teammates, and their relationship took a turn for the better.
"It means the world to us to have come from there to here," Smith said of the shared path he and the younger Ginn have traveled to stardom with the Buckeyes. "There is a bond that only he and I have because of the chemistry built up over so many years.
"We're at a point where I can look at him and he can look at me and we know what's going on. That's something that everybody doesn't have."
Must be true. In the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2, Smith earned offensive MVP honors by completing 19 of 28 passes for a career-high 342 yards and rushing for another 66 yards on 13 carries as Ohio State ripped Notre Dame, 34-20.
Ginn caught eight of those passes for 167 yards, one of which went for a 56-yard touchdown, and he also scored on a 68-yard end-around.
That Ohio State, 10-2 last season and co-Big Ten champion along with Penn State, should be atop the preseason polls speaks to the magic Smith and Ginn bring to a team that lost nine of 11 defensive starters, including three NFL first-round draft choices - linebackers A.J. Hawk and Bobby Carpenter and cornerback Donte Whitner.
Asked if he, Ginn and the Buckeyes' explosive offense might have to carry the retooled defense until it coalesces - a timetable that can't be delayed too long, considering that Ohio State plays at defending national champion Texas on Sept. 9 and hosts Penn State on Sept. 23 - Smith responds like a reformed smack-talker who finally understands that no individual player is bigger than the collective whole.
"I would never want to say that we're a one-dimensional team," Smith said. "In the past, a lot of analysts and sports writers said that we were a defense-first team and too conservative on offense. I didn't think that was the case then, and I don't think the reverse is true now. You need a delicate balance to win games, and we're going to have it."
Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, as buttoned-down as they come with his professorial wire-rimmed glasses, neatly knotted tie and sweater vests, listens to Smith speak and marvels at the changes in a player who arrived in Columbus as an undisciplined freelancer who had much growing up to do.
"It's not just Troy," Tressel said of his quarterback's maturation process. "We've had lots of guys who had to learn as they went. That's the most fun for a coach, to watch players develop on and off the field.
"A lot of times when you have conversations with people, I kind of wait to see if we live out what we've talked about. People are pretty good at telling you want they think you want to hear. That's as true for Troy as anyone else. It's easy for someone to say, 'Coach, I get it. I understand. Here's what I ought to do, here's what's expected of me, here's what I want to become.' But I want to see if we live it. The thing I appreciate about Troy is when he talks to me now about something, I see him follow it up with his actions."
Although as a run-pass threat he has been compared to versatile former Texas quarterback Vince Young, at 6-1 and 215 pounds Smith more physically and stylistically resembles form-er Penn State quarterback Mi-chael Robinson, last season's Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year.
"I take that as a compliment," Smith said. "Michael Robinson was a great quarterback for Penn State last year. He was pretty much what the doctor ordered for that team. He led Penn State in every way. And he had to wait out a lot of the same stuff that I've had to wait out."
Robinson, like Smith, was viewed by some as more of an athlete than a quarterback. Robinson played some at running back and wide receiver while stuck behind Zack Mills on the depth chart, much as Smith - yes, more than a few Ohio State fans suggested to the coaching staff that he be switched to running back - backed up Justin Zwick, who had been Ohio's consensus prep player of the year.
Smith replaced the injured Zwick during the sixth game of the 2004 season, a loss at Iowa, and he led the Bucks to a 4-1 record the rest of the way. But he didn't even make the trip to the Alamo Bowl against Oklahoma State after being suspended by the NCAA for having accepted $500 from a booster. Smith still was suspended for the 2005 opener against Miami of Ohio.
"It was just me growing up - me understanding that every decision that I make shapes not only myself, but all of my teammates," he said of his suspension and the lessons he took away from it. "The bowl game that I missed, that was huge. A silly decision left me in Cleveland while my team was in Texas, celebrating. I had to watch it on TV and swallow my pride. I knew I should have been there and a part of it."
He's such a part of it that he's 13-2 as a starter and has accounted for 37 touchdowns, 24 of which have come on passes.
"I don't know if I can compare anyone to Michael Robinson, but I do know that Troy Smith is an unbelievable talent," Penn State linebacker Paul Posluszny said. "I've watched tape of that Notre Dame game over and over. The things he did were amazing. He can beat you running or throwing. That's what Michael did for us."
 
Upvote 0
Link

The relunctant candidate


Monday, August 28, 2006Doug Lesmerises
Plain Dealer Reporter
It was a moment, nearly a month ago, in a busy hallway at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.
At the Big Ten Conference media days, Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith had just finished a radio interview that had followed 90 minutes of speaking for TV cameras, with another two-hour round of talks to follow the next day.
But now, Smith's answers were clipped, his eyes wandering. No more practiced but thoughtful answers delivered in that rich, confident voice -- about film study and OSU's No. 1 ranking and his old two-game suspension and what he learned. And the Heisman.
He was still in his suit. But he was off. Trying to recharge, he was looking for a way to his hotel room, and looking forward to the start of his senior season that's now just five days away. It was a rare moment in a steadily building Heisman Trophy campaign that's been on for weeks. Smith, with Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn and Oklahoma running back Adrian Peterson, is one of the three preseason favorites for the Heisman. With that, Smith has accepted a responsibility to talk about himself, with current Heisman strategies focused not on props, but personality.
"In a sense, the road to the Heisman starts at your bowl game," Smith said. "It's a yearlong thing. I don't think it just starts at one point in time. And I think how you handle yourself in interviews and all that helps you tremendously."
So 11 years after OSU sent out weekly postcards highlighting running back Eddie George during his Heisman-winning year, and 10 years after preseason pancake magnets promoted offensive tackle Orlando Pace (he finished fourth), the Buckeyes' Heisman strategy is relatively aggressive but simple.
Get Smith and receiver Ted Ginn Jr. out there and let them be Troy and Ted - often. Ohio State has started individual Web sites for both players, the newest trend in Heisman hype. OSU also will conduct weekly telephone conference calls during the season. Smith and Ginn were briefed about not being pitted against each other and about putting the team first.
"They've got to make sure it doesn't overtake their thinking," Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said. "When people say you have the potential to produce, that should fuel your fire to work more, not make you relax and start daydreaming about what you might say at the Downtown Athletic Club. So I think that's something you want to watch out for."
And then Smith and Ginn were off, the players in control of their candidacies, on and off the field.
"Gimmicky things, thankfully, are over," said Steve Snapp, Ohio State's associate athletics director for communications. "You don't have to send out a lot of stuff, but if you have candidates, you want them in the forefront."

Rutgers is making the first Heisman push in school history, running 15-second video clips of fullback Brian Leonard (rushing yards last season - 880) on the giant television screen in Times Square. But that's as much, if not more, about a program on the rise trying to elbow for attention. Neither Notre Dame nor Oklahoma has undertaken an extravagant campaign to keep its player out there. John Heisler, Notre Dame's senior associate athletic director, said the Irish invited national reporters to campus in May to speak with Quinn and coach Charlie Weis, but won't focus on an in-season message.
"We're fortunate and probably somewhat spoiled," Heisler said of the Irish's national profile. "I don't know that we feel like we have to do a lot. Brady did it by himself a year ago. That's good, because that's probably the way it should be."
Kenny Mossman, Oklahoma's associate athletics director for communications, said the school has mailed out a promotional notepad for Peterson, and likely will send out two or three postcards during the season. Peterson did one preseason call with reporters, and may do another later after a big game. The Sooners are having Peterson do a blog at the school's Web site once the season starts as part of a personality strategy that worked for quarterback Jason White, the Sooners' 2003 Heisman winner who became known to all voters as the son of a concrete pourer.
"On the field, performance dictates the Heisman," Mossman said, "but to sustain pertinence for an entire season, I feel that you have to go beyond the statistics."
USC sports information director Tim Tessalone helped forge the path away from cutesy trinkets and giant billboards when Carson Palmer, who wasn't even on the cover of the Trojans' media guide, came from nowhere to win the 2002 Heisman.
"Prior to that, I believed you had to lay the foundation in the preseason," Tessalone said. "We found out the voters are sophisticated enough, through all the highlights and Web sites, to make the proper decision."
So the Trojans had Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush host a behind-the-scenes video blog on the USC Web site. But the rest was done on the field. In fact, five of the previous six Heisman winners have played in the national championship game.
"To me, that's a good message: 'Hey, forget about the Heisman unless we're good,' " Tressel said. "I don't know if historically that was the case, and I see that as a good evolution."
When the Buckeyes win, Smith and Ginn will be ready to talk about the victory with any reporter who wants to listen.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
[email protected], 216-999-4479

Link

Smith has diploma, wants title
By Jon Spencer
T-F staff

COLUMBUS -- He's engineered two straight victories over Michigan and a 617-yard tempest in Tempe that flattened Notre Dame and, in some eyes, cleared a path to the 2006 Heisman Trophy.
So what's his career highlight? That's easy for Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith. It occurred with his fingers wrapped around a sheepskin, not a pigskin.
"It's probably the most exciting experience I've had in school," said Smith about receiving his diploma in mass communications last spring. "It's so time-consuming, getting up early in the morning, going to class all day and then to practice. I have an understanding that I already have what everyone is trying to achieve. So that is a breath of fresh air."
It's his post-graduate work, beginning with Saturday's season opener against Northern Illinois, that concerns everyone else.Realizing his responsibilities as triggerman of the nation's No. 1-ranked team, Smith is working even harder in the classroom these days.
Coach Jim Tressel's classroom.
"It's been a complete 180 degree turn in my development in the sense I'm not just watching guys and plays," Smith said. "Now I want to know why something is happening. Now I watch film of one player in six games instead of one to see his tendencies. We have so much down time we can do that. That's one of the ways already having my degree has helped me.
"The more you watch ... the more you catch something you miss. I want to get to the point where I know a film like the back of my hand."
Credit that mindset to hard-line nurturing and nudging from Tressel. There's no goofing off in his classroom. He's not the substitute science teacher oblivious to the spitwads zinging by his ear. You either pay attention or pay the consequences.
"You don't want to be in those meetings, trust me," Smith said. "He looks nice, he always keeps his hair cut nice, he's a freshly-shaven guy, and he's always got
some cologne on. But those meetings can be brutal.
"There were a lot of one-on- one meetings with coach Tress, telling me you can't do this and you've got to do that. At first I listened, but didn't listen. More one-on-one meetings came and I decided I didn't want more one-on-one meetings, so I started putting it all together."
Despite a 4-1 record as a starter in 2004, capped by a breakout performance against Michigan, Smith didn't graduate from mercurial weapon to polished field general until the second half of last season.
He learned more than a few of what Tressel calls "life lessons" along the way. There was the two-game suspension for taking $500 from a booster, the disastrous time-share with starting quarterback Justin Zwick against Texas in Smith's first game back from exile and the punchless performance in his third start of the season at Penn State.
Smith scored the Buckeyes' only TD on a 10-yard run as they mustered just 230 yards in the 17-10 loss to the Nittany Lions.
"We're all disappointed we didn't do what was needed to win a big game like that," Tressel said. "It was one more experience -- a big game away from home against a very, very good team. I think he learned some lessons, and so did we."
Fate also intervened on Smith's behalf. If tight end Ryan Hamby doesn't muff a touchdown pass from Zwick against Texas, OSU probably wins that game and Zwick tightens his grip on the job he regained while Smith was on suspension. Instead, Tressel gave the job back to Smith the following week and the process of rebuilding his image and salvaging the season was underway.
"I can't point to any empirical evidence. Sometimes you just decide to go to the 'lefty,' " Tressel said, using a baseball analogy for switching pitchers, never mind that Smith is right-handed. "You might be right or you might be wrong."
After the benign effort at Penn State, Tressel's decision was open to serious debate. But it was at that point that Smith began to see things in a different light, with the lights off. He became a full-blown film junkie.
Led by Tressel's pet student, the Buckeyes reeled off seven wins in a row, capped by a 25-21 comeback at Michigan and a 34-20 Fiesta Bowl thrashing of Notre Dame. Smith accounted for 745 yards in those two games, throwing for two touchdowns and running for another.
On Friday, to no one's surprise, Smith was named a team captain.
"He's always had that drive, but now he's in the public eye," center and fellow captain Doug Datish said. "He's got that confidence and swagger which propels him to do the things he does."
Tressel echoed Datish's view.
"He's got a flair about him," Tressel said. "We always talk about leaders having something others don't. He's got this aura about him that's special. You take some of these traits and add it to his work ethic, that's the evolution you're seeing."
Comparisons between Smith and Vince Young are inevitable. They're both gifted with strong right arms and dazzling feet. Young wore No. 10 for Texas. Smith wears No. 10. Young led the Longhorns to the national championship. If the preseason polls prove correct, Smith will lead the Buckeyes to their second crown in four years.
No offense to Young, but Smith prefers to see himself in three veteran NFL quarterbacks.
"If I could, I'd take a lot of things from Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Donovan McNabb," Smith said. "Brady because he's a winner, Manning because of the way he dissects defenses with his mind and Donovan McNabb because of his arm strength.
"I'll try to emulate Vince because he led his team to a national championship. Otherwise, I want to write my own story."
[email protected]
419-521-7239
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top