At Ohio State's second spring practice — Kyle's full report can be found here — Luke Fickell was asked if he feared for his job last year. His response was not Tresselesque:
"You know what, like I do everything else. Statistics, at the end of the year, you really look back at them, do you want to dive into statistics? Well, where were you in scoring defense? What is the most important? You can always find something that you can get better at, you gotta find something that you can hang your hat on.
But the reality is as you go on battling, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. But what are you going to do, live your life worried about everything? How would that be? How much excitement, what would that do for you? You know what, you're confident in what you do and you believe in what you do. If that's what the plan is, that's what the plan is. I want what's best for this place. Coach Meyer knows that and we talked about that from day one.
If something is better for this place, then so be it because I want what is best for my alma mater, my university. Obviously we have enough confidence in what it is that we do. We don't just look at one single stat. I know you keep dwelling upon it and everybody dwells upon it, but the reality is this is a team game. People ask all kinds of questions. Why is this the best sport known to man? Because it's a team sport. It's more like life. If something happens to one of your buddies and he doesn't pick you up, do you defriend him for the rest of his life? Things like that. That's what you learn from this.
The examples we set for our guys are the same examples we all live our life by. You can't worry. Because there was a bombing in the World Trade Center a few years ago, do you never want to fly again? What are you going to do? I know it's comparing it to different things, but the reality is you have confidence in what you do and believe in what you do and whatever happens, happens."
I think a simple "yes" would have sufficed.
