Tressel Quotes from Media Day Friday – Ohio State Buckeyes
12/30/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Dec. 30, 2005
TEMPE, Ariz. – Ohio State and Notre Dame attended media day Friday at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Ariz., the site of the 2006 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl Monday (5:12 EST). The fourth-ranked Buckeyes spent 45 minutes speaking to the media in the stadium before practicing Friday afternoon at Pinnacle High School in Scottsdale. Ohio State will practice for the final time Saturday before returning to Sun Devil Stadium Sunday for a walk-through.
Jim Tressel, Ohio State head coach
On if he thinks a team can play in the same bowl too many times
“Not if it’s the Fiesta Bowl. If you continue to play in the Fiesta Bowl that means you’ve had good fortune.”
On his thoughts of a playoff system for Division I college football
“Since the end of the 2002 season and the 2003 bowl games, I have changed my thinking (away from wanting a playoff system). I don’t know how you could take away this bowl experience and it gives a lot of teams the chance to play. If you watched the Insight Bowl here in Phoenix earlier this week, that was incredible. If there was a 16 team playoff system Rutgers might have been staying home.”
On the BCS
“There have been seven BCS years now and how many times did it end up foggy? Twice? Maybe three times? So the system can work and look at our year we won the national championship. The one thing is that you better win all your games if you want to guarantee yourself a spot in the national championship game.”
On Sun Devil Stadium Monday for the game
“I’m sure there won’t be as much scarlet and gray as what we see in the `Horseshoe’ for us and it won’t be like Notre Dame Stadium for them. I bet it’ll be fairly even and I bet it’ll be an unusual atmosphere. There will be a lot of noise made in both directions.”
On if he followed Notre Dame growing up
“I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, which isn’t too far from South Bend, and I grew up delivering the Plain Dealer, which covered the Browns, the Buckeyes and Notre Dame like I guess a lot of northern industrial cities did. And that was before Cincinnati had a team. Every once in awhile my dad’s Baldwin-Wallace team would get a couple inches. But I was familiar with Notre Dame and what they were about. I was an Ohio State fan and I was a Notre Dame fan. I would deliver that paper then read it immediately. That’s who I grew up watching.”
On what the Buckeyes mean to the state of Ohio
“We’re the land grant university in Ohio and with over 50,000 students, so most people are Ohio State fans.”
On recruiting in Ohio
“Absolutely we look at Ohio first. When you look at the bowls, maybe not all the bowls but the bowls that people covet, there are a lot of Ohio kids on those rosters. That’s a good thing. We do have some Florida kids and some Texas kids so I think we have a good blend and it’s good to have that kind of diversity.”
### Go Bucks! ###
