Transcript From The November 16th Ohio State Football Press Luncheon – Ohio State Buckeyes
11/16/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 16, 2004
TRESSEL: I missed Steve’s points there, I was talking with Coach Bruce. Just like you, I’m sure you would, just as soon as we come to the Ohio State/Michigan week being focused on the greatest rivalry there is in college football and figuring out all the nuances between who’s going to win and who’s going to lose and what’s it going to take and those types of things, we’d obviously like to do the same thing, but I know you have a job to do and I have responsibilities and so forth.
So I wanted to, at the outset, because I’ve gotten that question so much about have we had distractions and that type of thing, I guess I wanted to go back and talk for just a minute about the things that are outside of the Ohio State/Michigan moment, then get quickly into the Ohio State/Michigan moment and get ready to have a whale of a football game. Just as I mentioned to many of you mid to late last week, I feel good about how we do things here at Ohio State. I feel good about how we lead this program and the intentions and the ways that we do things. I understand the rules of the game and the rules of the NCAA very, very well and have great confidence that we follow them to the tee.
I feel the same way about our coaching staff. I know the first time I became a head coach, the advice given to me was, don’t get caught up in finding experts, find good people who happen to know a little bit about the game of football. And I think that’s what we have had here at Ohio State, that’s what we do have here at Ohio State and I have great confidence in all of my coaches as to how they apply the rules of the NCAA and the institutional rules and everything involved with our responsibilities.
I feel the same way about our academic support areas. I’ve been asked questions, things have been brought up about the support systems and how we go about helping young people with what we think is their ultimate goal which is to have them graduate with a meaningful degree from Ohio State. We know at times their favorite class is football, but we also know that the thing that will serve them in the long run will be their degree. And I have tremendous confidence in our academic support services, our, what we call SASSO, our student-athlete support systems, and they do a tremendous job, and I think they give kids every opportunity and make them earn everything that they happen to get as a collegiate student.
Obviously, and I think I need to make as emphatic as possible, I have great confidence in our players. We have great kids here. We have kids that want to do things right. We talk about doing things right very, very often. They reflect that very, very often and they’re kids that listen closely to instruction. Sometimes we have turnovers or miss a block or whatever it happens to be, but I think the intentions of our kids and the honor of our kids is extraordinary here at Ohio State. People ask that question, has it been a distraction, we’re in the midst of a football season and so forth and so on. You would have to answer if you’re a coach or a player, perhaps it’s a distraction, but the last thing it is is an excuse.
We’re playing the Ohio State/Michigan game this weekend, which is the greatest honor you can possibly have as a collegiate football player or a collegiate coach. And there’s no way a distraction is an excuse for not playing the greatest football game we’ve played in 2004. We played last week, didn’t play as well as we were capable. We went on the road and lost the turnover margin decisively. You’re not going to win games on the road. You’re not going to win big games if you don’t win the turnover margin or at least be even in the turnover margin and we were unable to do that.
We had opportunities to get things done and we didn’t take advantage of those opportunities, but to me, the greatest thing as I viewed the game from the sideline and then viewed it again in the staff room is that our kids played hard and they kept going and they kept believing in each other. As our defensive guys were coming off the field after Purdue, to their credit, went down and scored, our offensive kids were just telling the defensive kids, hey, get ready for overtime because they had confidence and they had belief in themselves and in the kids that play on the other side of the ball.
As we approach Michigan, who I think is a fantastic football team, I think all you have to do is look at a lot of the statistics now that you’ve played so many games, seven of which are in our league we’ve played, you can see that they do the things that you need to do to win. I think in four or five of the special teams categories, they’re in the top three in the conference, whether it be top three in net punt, top three in kickoff coverage, top two, I think in both punt return and kickoff return, they’re in the top two in the conference. They do the things you need to do on offense. They do the things you need to do on defense. They obviously have an excellent coaching staff. They have great players. They get after it. They play their best game of the year in the Ohio State/Michigan game. We need to play our best game of the year in the Ohio State/Michigan game.
A week ago we did have some excellent players. Sirjo Welch was awarded with the special teams player of the week. He was on four special teams, was flawless in all of the things asked of him, had two tackles on punts, had an assisted tackle on a kickoff, just did a tremendous job and he was awarded the special teams player of the week. Over on defense, Quinn Pitcock had an outstanding game, was the defensive player of the game, just did a great job there in the trenches, had some tackles, some quarterback hits, some pressures, an interception. He had one of those games that every defensive lineman dreams about.
Santonio Holmes was awarded with our offensive player of the game. Santonio had double coverage a lot of the time, but gave our guys the confidence when they needed a burst, when it was 17-3 to come up with a play that would give the rest of the group notice that we were going to be coming back and make a hard run at winning that football game, so Santonio Holmes was the offensive player of the game.
Offensive lineman of the game was Nick Mangold. Nick graded very consistent as he’s done all year. Nick’s got one of the great challenges that most everyone who’s going to be a part of the Ohio State effort on Saturday is going to have a great challenge, but Nick Mangold’s challenge there in the middle against those big guys there, Gabe and Harrison and that group, he’s going to have a tremendous challenge, and if he’ll continue to play the way that he’s playing, that’s going to serve Ohio State very, very well.
The attack force player of the week was Anthony Schlegel. Anthony was in on a lot of plays, plays with a lot of fire, plays with a lot of heart, very active football player, and he’s the kind of guy you like having in the huddle with you, and he was given the attack force player of the week.
The Jack Tatum hit of the week has not been voted on yet. Sometimes it’s a no-doubt thing. We happen to have two that will be voted on today by the players, so I can’t announce that. We did, again, have good scout teamwork. Our scout special units player of the week was Shaun Lane. Many of you remember Garcia Lane, played for Coach Bruce here in the early ’80s, and Shaun is a special guy just like his dad, loves to play the game and did a great job for our scout special teams.
Our scout defensive player of the game was a local Dublin product, Alex Barrow, who’s going to be a great defensive end, as time goes on as he gets bigger and stronger.
And the scout offensive player had an outstanding week. From St. Henry, Todd Boeckman. We needed a great look at what Purdue does. They did some things that are maybe a little different from some other people and Todd Boeckman did them with the timing and the precision that, we think, got our defense ready to go. So he was given the scout offensive player of the game.
All of you know a lot about Michigan. You know a lot about Ohio State. You know a lot of the people that are going to be called upon to make a difference in this game, and what’s great in my mind about the Ohio State/Michigan game is you never know going into the game who on which team is going to rise up and make the difference and that’s what — preparing for it is exciting and playing in it and coaching in it is beyond, and we can’t wait to get to work this afternoon and get ready for the greatest game that there is. Questions?
REPORTER: How is this week different for you? You said it’s exciting to be in it as a coach. I mean, are you always thinking about it? Is it any different? Just what is it like?
TRESSEL: You know, it’s funny, my son called after I was asleep last night, woke me up, but when your son calls, you like that. Sons don’t call as much as daughters. So then I fell back asleep and all of a sudden I found myself thinking, what if they’re in this defense and what if they’re in this coverage and you think, man, you do think about it constantly. I think the thing that makes the Ohio State/Michigan game — and I’m sure the guys over at the rival games in some other place will tell you the same, you’ve seen so much of that team that year and you know how they’ve evolved, they know how you’ve evolved and you’re sitting there thinking all the what ifs. So, yeah, it is a little more exciting. It’s just the electricity. I remember when I was an assistant working for Coach Bruce, the guys always told me, you won’t understand the Ohio State/Michigan game until you’ve coached in one and they’re absolutely right. And it is more fun.
REPORTER: Jim, last Saturday against Purdue we saw some new looks from the offense. Can you talk about what went into the game planning there and how much more of that might you be anticipating?
TRESSEL: I can go into the first part, but probably not the second part. Purdue was really very solid up front on defense. The guys that they had returning happened to be there. As you watched them against other teams, there was no one pushing them all over the field the entire year, and we thought that our best deployment was going to be one that stretched things out and maybe see if some of those young guys who now have some experiences could make some things happen, and I think we saw some evidence that we did and some times that we didn’t. But I think it was an evolution, a little bit of who we are and what we’re trying to be, but it also has a lot to do with who they are and how they deploy and that’s the fun of getting ready for Michigan.
As you look back and say, okay, this past week they played Northwestern and here’s what they did and had an open date before that and played Michigan State and Purdue, and the guys you’ve seen firsthand and you know what those guys can do versus maybe what you can do, and I won’t give you the answer to the second question, but that’s what went into the looks you saw.
REPORTER: Jim, what would you like to be on offense? What would you all like to be on offense? You said this was kind of a look into who you are and what you’d like to be.
TRESSEL: You’d like to be a big-play offense. I think if you look at — well, we’re studying Michigan right now. If you look at the impact plays they made, the big plays they made, that’s been the difference, that’s why they’re leading the Big Ten from their offensive consideration standpoint. If you looked at the Michigan State/Michigan game, the big plays that Michigan State made were the ones that made the difference in all of a sudden having a good sized lead and that being an overtime game. So I think you always want to be able to strike, but you always want to be able to possess the ball. You always want to be able to have some balance, have a little bit of doubt in your opponent whether they think it’s a run or a pass moment or a run or a pass down. And then I think you look at the people you have and you say, okay, what does this person do best, and you try to highlight that. So if you look at our lineup from nine weeks ago, it looks a little different than our lineup from today, and we’re probably not as consistently the same deployment as Michigan is. They’ve had virtually the same cast of characters throughout the course of their ten games that they’ve chosen to go with, and we’ve had some changes.
REPORTER: Would quarterback be the hardest position to play as a true freshman, or if not, can you still talk about Chad Henne and what he’s done and do you see a progression on what Michigan’s done as he’s gaining experience?
TRESSEL: Chad Henne is one of those special guys. I think everyone knew that during recruiting, everyone in America was knocking on the door there. He’s a very competitive kid, went in there with every intention of competing for the starting position and sometimes, as things turn out, good fortune, bad fortune, whatever it happens to be, are part of it. And he seized the moment when the guy he was battling got banged up and I don’t know if that other fellow is healthy or not now, but Chad Henne is the guy in command. You can see he knows what they’re doing. He knows what to check in and out of. He knows where his big play guys are and he knows to go to them in the crunch time, really evidenced by the fact that there he was in his own stadium down 27-10 and brought them back to go into overtime and then win it. I have nothing but kudos for Chad Henne.
REPORTER: What about playing a true freshmen at quarterback?
TRESSEL: Playing a true freshmen, in fact on the Big Ten media call, someone asked the question, why do you think we’re seeing more freshmen these days. I think a lot of it is you see so much TV football, and you see the replay and how people do things, plus in their high schools, they have the video ability now where in the old days, sometimes your film came out and sometimes it didn’t and there was one copy of it and kids take film home. The highly motivated kid, the Chad Henne or the Teddy Ginn or whoever it happens to be that’s making an impact, the highly motivated kid takes advantage of those opportunities and learns the game. So I don’t know that anyone, if they came and watched any Michigan film here in the Big Ten season, would say, boy, that looks like a freshmen quarterback. And he’s been under scrutiny and pressure and the big crowds and the noise and he’s been behind and he’s been ahead and all those things. So I don’t think Chad Henne is a freshmen anymore. Now, is it his first Ohio State/Michigan game? Yes. Will he be excited? Yes, the first time he gets hit, he’ll forget about that and get back to doing what he does.
REPORTER: Does Ashton Youboty get preference over Braylon Edwards?
TRESSEL: I love Ashton Youboty, you know how I feel about him. He’s dependable. He’s a good player. I have not spent enough time in the defensive room, and this is Tuesday, to say that. One thing I’ll say about Michigan is, they’re not going to just line up the same way and allow you to just put one guy on Braylon or whatever it happens to be. So I don’t know that — there will be some times, I’m sure, that Ashton’s on Braylon, but Dustin Fox will be too, E.J. Underwood, the safeties, but I don’t know at this moment and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.
REPORTER: Nate Salley, Coach, is he expected to play and how is the back field helped by that?
TRESSEL: I mentioned to the Quarterback Club downstairs, the Michigan week has unbelievable healing power. There’s guys running around faster than they’ve run for a while. We sure expect Nate to be available and I mentioned to that group, and I would say the same to you, we may even have Donte Whitner back, which we did not expect, but the last thing I’ve been told on the questionable, doubtful, out, in, whatever barometer, he’s, I think, somewhere between questionable and probable. So obviously you don’t have Mike D’Andrea and you don’t have Marcel Frost and Rob Harley and some guys that have had major things, but I expect, you name them, Rory Nicol, Rob Sims, anyone that’s missed any time, they’ll be ready this week.
REPORTER: Jim, you talked about Nick Mangold earlier and what a challenge it’s going to be for him. Is this one of those games where the trenches might be even more important than it is during the regular season?
TRESSEL: Well, everything’s a little more important in this game. That’s just what this game’s about. And the trenches will be huge because both teams will be playing with a lot of — you always tell your guys you want a hundred percent and then all of a sudden you see them in a whole different light in the Ohio State/Michigan game and they’re up a notch. I think the trenches will be up a notch.
REPORTER: With regards to your opening statement, yourself and the program and the school has taken a lot of grief in the last week. Did you feel that was necessary for the school to get its side of the story out a little more publicly in terms of even just a public relations standpoint?
TRESSEL: I think you have to stand up for yourself as long as you’re not talking about someone else. So I think for us to be able to say that we understand our responsibilities, we take them serious and we feel good about who we are is not unfair to anyone and it certainly is fair to us.
REPORTER: Have you met — did you meet at all with any NCAA guy or anything yesterday?
TRESSEL: Uh-huh.
REPORTER: Can you enlighten us on what —
TRESSEL: Huh-uh.
REPORTER: A year ago at this session you were being asked about three players who were in trouble with the law. This week you have the NCAA here. The issue last year was squarely 100% your court, you had a decision to make. This year there’s not really much you can do. Which was a bigger distraction?
TRESSEL: Well, the biggest distraction is always the one of the moment. To be honest with you, I don’t vividly remember the last one. I’m sure if I went back and reviewed it, it might bring back some vivid recall. But what’s going on this moment is always the biggest thing, so I guess I would answer it that way, if that’s fair.
REPORTER: Coach, are you very confident that once the NCAA does complete its investigation, it won’t find anything unsavory here?
TRESSEL: Very confident.
REPORTER: The linchpin of all the national media on this story is really in the Youngstown State file where they’ve basically said, well, maybe this is true because in that case Tressel didn’t do an investigation and he didn’t tell the president that he’d had it investigated. In retrospect, did you handle that investigation wrong?
TRESSEL: No, we felt that we handled it appropriately and I think the records show that.
REPORTER: Coach, I mean, third down defense has been off and on a problem all year and players say they still don’t quite know what’s going on with that. From your perspective, I know you’re not involved with the defense as much, but what do you see them trying to do or what’s not happening at times there?
TRESSEL: Well, interestingly enough, everything that you call on defense, with very few exceptions, is engineered to handle every gap and every passing zone or every man or whatever. There are better times to do things than others against certain looks and so forth. So I think, like anything, when it’s not going as well as you would like it to, you have to share the credit and share the blame. There have been times where, I think, people have had some great calls against what we had called. There have been times where we had a great call and didn’t execute the call. That’s consistency or lack of. And in my mind, that’s probably the answer. I guess I wish it was one way or the other because it would be easy to fix. If you’d say, we have to just do a better job of calling, then maybe we could figure that out. Or if we simply have to execute better, then we can maybe limit what we do or who’s doing it or whatever. But I think, like anything, that especially is over a course of time and numbers of reps available to study, it’s usually a combination of things.
REPORTER: Could you speak to Michael Hart and the dimension he’s added?
TRESSEL: Michael Hart is a tough football player. He is a lot like Chad in that when he went to school, he said, hey, I’m going to go and I’m going to become the guy and I’m going to prove that I should be and then I’m going to consistently do that. He’s good in the pass game. He’s good at all the different styles of run that they have, whether it’s draw or it’s iso or it’s stretch zone or whatever. He’s really grown. He’s a tough kid. He’s, gosh, I don’t know how many carries, I don’t have my things in front of me, but he’s had a ton of carries and I think there’s no question about it, if you took the two people that have consistently over a 10-game season and come up with the plays that Michigan has needed offensively, I think you’d have to mention Braylon and Hart with your first two and obviously the guy with the ball in his hand from center has a lot to do with it, but those two guys have been difference makers.
REPORTER: As far as Troy goes, he had a few turnovers. What do you say now that you’ve had some time and you look at film with him and he’s heading into the biggest game of his life and then you have Justin there too, what’s kind of their situation and what do you say to Troy?
TRESSEL: You say the same thing that you said when they came off the sideline. That’s one of the hard things on defense. When you miss a tackle, you stay out there and there’s not — you don’t get confronted as quickly. On offense, if you turn it over, you have to come over or maybe you get to come over and discuss it. The same thing, you remind them of the fact that where we were at the worst case scenario, we had a field goal and we’re fortunate we have a guy like Mike Nugent. Best case scenario was, maybe we would score, as each of those two plays, and I’m thinking specifically of the two down in the red zone, as they unfolded, neither unfolded to the point where you say, there’s no question we’re going to score here. So you talk about the impact of those decisions and you watch it on film and talk about it the same way and you talk about it with Todd Boeckman, you talk about it with Justin and you talk about it with Troy and hopefully everyone learns from whoever’s in the game.
REPORTER: What about Troy’s health?
TRESSEL: Troy’s fine.
REPORTER: Justin’s health?
TRESSEL: Justin’s good. Justin could have gone in the ball game Saturday. We still don’t know if he gets banged, but he’ll be even stronger this week. He threw well all week long in practice and someone asked me today, how’s Justin’s attitude, and I said, all I know is he doesn’t have class until noon and he was in watching film at 8:00 this morning, so I think his attitude is excellent and he’s ready to go.
REPORTER: Would you hesitate putting him in if you felt you needed to make a change, is he healthy enough?
TRESSEL: Oh, yeah, he’s healthy enough.
REPORTER: You had a match-up last year of Gamble on Edwards, I wonder in retrospect, did Edwards show you guys something in that game that he could do and do you learn anything from a year ago about how to defend him?
TRESSEL: Obviously, you study that game hard. Obviously they go to Braylon, as they should, and he gets open, so he ought to be gone to. So you study his technique and you study when they’re deployed certain ways, here’s the things that they have him do and you also keep in the back of your mind, they’re going to have something this particular game that’s going to show you maybe something they’ve been doing and maybe they’re going to do something a little bit different, so you can’t put all your eggs in one basket from that standpoint, but you do study it hard and hopefully we have learned from it.
REPORTER: Coach, talk about the seniors, Simon, Dustin, Lydell, some of the guys that came in in your first recruiting class, the fact this is going to be their last game, obviously a special thing for you, a lot of these guys came in during the coaching transition and obviously a big moment for them on Saturday as a group for those guys.
TRESSEL: It’s amazing how quickly it goes. You talk to Dustin or Simon or Nooge or Mo Hall and Lydell and none of them had the luxury of redshirting. We tell every recruit when they come in, what’s most important is the team and if the team can benefit by you playing. We don’t want to violate your needs, but the team is very, very important. And when a guy plays right off the bat, his time period goes fast. And Shane Olivea, in fact, mentioned to our team, he flew from San Diego to West Lafayette to be with us last weekend and he never thought he’d say this, but he kind of wished he’d redshirted. He finds football is a little different, he’s doing well and the Chargers are winning, but there’s nothing like playing college football. I think that’s the emotions that Simon Fraser and Dustin Fox and Lydell and Mo and Nooge and all those guys are going to have. And we appreciate how they’ve done things. And things haven’t been perfect in every instance, but certainly their intention has been to be a winning, proud, good Buckeye. And I think every one of those guys will walk out of here with their degree and a lot of great memories.
REPORTER: I’ve read in the past where you have kind of a countdown in your office to the Michigan game and your office staff is always aware of the countdown, is that still the case?
TRESSEL: Oh, yeah. Not many days left. Better get ready.
REPORTER: Is it tough to sometimes balance the next Saturday’s game with the long-term goal of Michigan, how do you handle that?
TRESSEL: We don’t quite honestly talk about — once the season starts, we only talk about the task at hand. We don’t bring it up every day. The stories about people practice for each other three weeks before, those were back in the days of 95 scholarships or 105 scholarships and I would be shocked if that happens now.
REPORTER: Yesterday Lloyd Carr talked about how intimidating both stadiums can be and the fans and how the players always have a lot of respect for each other, but he said through the years the fans have grown a lot more hostile in this rivalry; do you see that? Do you sense that?
TRESSEL: You know, I think that might be just a microcosm of fans are that way period. They’ve grown maybe a little bit more. Again, we talked about why are so many freshmen playing because they see so much football and they know so much about it. Sometimes fans, a little bit of knowledge can be a little bit scary there, but I have not noticed — I mean, every stadium we go into, there’s cat calls. And I heard Nooge, I think, say right here or somewhere, when he’s warming up in the kicking net, he said his first goal is to never make eye contact with any of the people making fun of him and saying less than wonderful things. He’s got to stay focused on kicking in the net. That happens in every stadium.
It’s hard to get much more exciting than playing in Ohio Stadium when it’s Ohio State/Michigan or playing in The Big House when it’s Ohio State/Michigan. So I don’t know if I — I guess I haven’t done it as long as Lloyd, but I’ve said to people quite often, go coach in one of those stadiums where there’s about 1000 people, you’ll hear every one of them vividly. So sometimes when there’s 100,000, you don’t hear anything.
REPORTER: Historically coaches at Ohio State have been defined by media and fans during their tenure about how they fare against Ohio State and Michigan, what are your thoughts about that when people look at how a coach fares against a team?
TRESSEL: Because it’s people, there are going to be a variety of ways that they evaluate your tenure. There are going to be some people who evaluate based upon Michigan. There are going to be some people that do it based upon your graduation rate, some based upon your overall record, some based upon how many times you throw the football or whatever it happens to be. And that’s — I guess you just accept that and that’s everyone’s freedom as to how they evaluate it. But are there more that would evaluate it based upon how the Ohio State/Michigan game comes out, probably, than some of those other categories.
REPORTER: In this game, you used a play, some kind of a play to Maurice, they put Breatson under center last year, I believe you were on staff that ran Lachey down on the goal line.
TRESSEL: Thanks for reminding me.
REPORTER: In this game, how do you balance the benefit of a trick play with the risk of a trick play when the stakes are so big?
TRESSEL: I think we all have them. I think we’d be kidding ourselves if we didn’t say, hey, we’ve got some things that we haven’t shown yet, we have them, Michigan has them. I would say probably more of these games go with you not using those, just like we’ve had 10 games this year and we’ve had some things ready that we haven’t shown that we didn’t use. We just didn’t see the time and play. That comes down to a judgment, you know, and sometimes you’re right when you — Michigan was right when they got down to the three or whatever it was and huddled up under center and Breaston ran the option and it was a good call. Sometimes you’re wrong realistically, usually, if you’re right, you’ll have a better chance of winning.
REPORTER: Any of your freshmen that live off campus, do you think maybe there might have been too much latitude for a true freshmen to have had?
TRESSEL: Our institutional rule is during the first academic year that they’re here that they be a part — if they’re on scholarship, which that’s who we’re talking about, that they be in the university housing. Institutional policy after that is that that’s not mandatory. Now, they’re allowed to be, for instance, Chris Gamble made him be as a sophomore, he was the only sophomore living there. She just thought that was the best thing and obviously we made that available to him. So do we have any freshmen living outside? I think the answer’s yes because we had some guys here in the last academic year, it would be Marcus Freeman. I think he’s out of the dorm. Steve Rehring.
REPORTER: Pittman?
TRESSEL: Antonio Pittman. So there were some guys that came in early and within the guidelines of the departmental policy, they would be living out. Do I think it’s a great idea? If it was my druthers you know, I’d probably have them in, but I guess you choose your battles. And I’d like to have them in at least a couple years, but that’s not the way it is right now.
REPORTER: So that was why Maurice came in early, so that’s why he was allowed to do that?
TRESSEL: Right.
REPORTER: What’s your pecking order at tailback now?
TRESSEL: Pecking order at tailback? I would say this, that if the game were today, and again, we’ve got three good practices to come, if the game were today and everyone is the health that I see them today, it would probably be Mo Hall and Antonio getting the most reps at tailback and Lydell and Branden Joe, obviously, chomping at the bit to get whatever opportunities they can.
REPORTER: Is Lydell — is it fair to say he has slid down the pole or — you know what I’m saying? He basically didn’t get in the game on Saturday, sliding down the pole or slid.
TRESSEL: I would say this, Mo Hall has demonstrated that he deserves an opportunity to play. Antonio Pittman has, unfortunately, not been as healthy over time as you’d like him to be. I didn’t think Lydell had as good a week of practice last week and that’s why I wasn’t making any suggestion that maybe, hey, you guys, you ought to think about Lydell, that was me, and apparently they felt the same way. Just like I told you before the season, what would I root for? I would root for him to have a storybook year and have a career best year. You know what, the story isn’t over yet and I would root for him to have an extraordinary Michigan game and that could happen.
REPORTER: Is this one of those games that the healing power can be strong enough for the season? Is it make or break in the sense that 7-4 is a good year but 6-5 would be a bad year?
TRESSEL: 7-4 would be a great year when you’re sitting 6-4. Would you have rooted for it at the start of the year? No. But we’re not at the start of the year and it’d be extraordinary for us. Would 6-5 be a good year? The way you feel right this moment, it’d be a horrible year, but we’ve got that big one to play.
REPORTER: Do you instruct your players, Coach, to channel their emotion this week? Do they take your lead in the composure department or do you prefer they let it all hang out?
TRESSEL: I guess what you try to do is let it all hang out to the point where you can do your job and that’s all we ever — we don’t ever ask anyone how to act from a standpoint of, let’s be a little quieter or a little less illustrative or anything, but do what you have to do to get your job done and that takes extreme focus when you’re playing against a good team when there’s a lot of things involved in what you do and whatever your role happens to be, but poise, patience, and class, in my experience, have been the dividing line between great accomplishment and sometimes not so great.
REPORTER: Have there been any observations you’ve made of Ted Ginn since Saturday’s ball game? He was, a week before that, probably as high as you can get with three touchdowns and Saturday probably very down after the deflection. Just talk about if you’ve made observations of Teddy and how he handles the highs and lows.
TRESSEL: Teddy’s really competitive. We were just getting ready to extend him out on field for a punt return and he came up to me and he said, Coach, could you tell them just to hold them up for just another fraction of a second because I’ll make a play, and then he ran out into the field and I’m thinking, well, I don’t have a radio, you know, so I’m screaming, “Hold them up for just another half second.” but he loves to compete, and he can’t wait to get out there on Saturday and he wants the ball in his hands. He doesn’t care if he’s a freshmen or a senior. Just watch him in track. How do you run the 300 hurdles and jog across and run the 200? You’ve got to love to compete.
REPORTER: I just wonder if you — because he’s young and inexperienced, if you take any interest — if you have to take an interest in watching how a kid handles his first situation where he made a play or didn’t make a play that could lead to defeat for your team and I’m curious about the bounceback factor.
TRESSEL: I think you observe. In fact, Coach Bruce used to say it all the time, you assistant coaches walk down the halls with your heads down, you’re not even paying attention, anticipation is 90% of discipline. So I think you have to pay attention. If you see a guy’s head down a little bit. We have a saying in our staff room that, you’re doing a great job as a teacher and as a coach and a mentor if you treat everyone like they’re hurting, because there might be something going on in their lives you don’t even know about. So you do try to — especially when something, like Troy having an interception that he feels horrible about. I think you need to pay close attention. What I’ve found is those guys that are competitors, you don’t see any change in who they are and you see them seeking excellence at an even higher degree.
REPORTER: A couple of your players drew parallels between your first game against Michigan where you had four losses, they were nationally ranked, you were going up there as opposed to playing here, but do you ever think about things like this, that this has happened before?
TRESSEL: Not really. You know, I don’t know who else played in that game, Dustin played, Simon played, I don’t know how many of their guys played, Braylon played.
REPORTER: They draw little strength from the fact that you’re able to pull up —
TRESSEL: Oh, yeah, probably there are some guys that were a part of that game, I would assume. We ask your guys to build on vivid recall of their successes and build on vivid recall of the things they could have done better. So I can understand that feeling. Do I sit here thinking that that’s the way it is because that’s the way it was? No, we’ve got to go be the 2004 group. All set? Thank you so much.
