Jim Tressel got reflective about his Ohio State career on Chris Holtmann’s More Than Coach Speak podcast on Wednesday.
The legendary Buckeye head coach was asked to describe some of the best memories from his tenure, but with so many to choose from across his 10-year run in Columbus – which included a national championship, six Big Ten titles and nine wins over Michigan – Tressel opened up about a couple of lowlights that still stick in his craw.
The Vest mentioned the end of the 2006 season when the top-ranked, 12-0 Buckeyes suffered a 41-14 defeat at the hands of Urban Meyer and the Florida Gators in the BCS National Championship Game. In particular, Tressel regrets not managing to get his team as dialed in as it needed to be in order to win the biggest game of the year.
“Probably the one that I think about that I knew where we were heading and I couldn’t get us turned around was 2006,” Tressel said. “We were undefeated and we had beaten Michigan, who was No. 2, and it was a big game, we were ranked one and two. And all of a sudden going into the championship game, you could just see our guys were on their phones with their agents, it was an older team, couldn’t get their attention. You could see they weren’t training like we normally trained, and we talked to them about it. That was one of the lowlights of – gosh, how could we have gotten through to them?”
Tressel said he and his staff had plenty of discussions about how to get the Buckeyes properly locked in for the final game of the year but didn’t want to drive too hard a bargain given all the team had already accomplished. Tressel said the Buckeyes even went to Glendale, Arizona, several days earlier than they typically would for a bowl game specifically due to the lack of focus he saw from the group in the leadup to the contest.
Ultimately, that effort wasn’t enough to save the Buckeyes from a blowout loss.
“As a staff, we were talking about, we were kind of vacillating back and forth that, well we don’t want to be brow-beating too bad and hit them over the head, ‘Practice 10 times harder.’ Because this team had just done a great job,” Tressel said. “They had done everything we asked them to do. They won every game. They trained like we wanted them to train. And so we probably erred on the side of thinking you know what, they’re mature enough. As it gets closer, we’ll get more tuned in.
“In fact, we went out three or four days earlier than we normally went, because we were sensing we need to get this thing turned around. So I think maybe somehow getting them to address it to each other – I’ve always found that if the players tell each other how they should be thinking, it can be even more effective than the staff doing it.”
Tressel said Ohio State’s 42-39 win in The Game of the Century against Michigan on Nov. 18, 2006 – a matchup between the two tops teams in the nation – was draining for the Buckeyes. He also cited Troy Smith winning the Heisman Trophy and the NFL draft hype surrounding several of his star players as possible distractions.
“I think our emotional tank got emptied (after the Michigan game) and then Troy won the Heisman and just everyone, the agents telling them where they’re gonna be drafted,” Tressel said. “And they’re humans, too, they’re allowed to be thinking about that.”
But despite those acknowledgments, Tressel said he faults himself and his coaching staff more than he does the mentality of his players.
“I’m not mad at them. I’m mad at us for not being able to get our folks thinking,” Tressel said.
