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Transcript From Coach Tressel Weekly Press Conference
Courtesy: OhioStateBuckeyes.com
          Release: 10/23/2007
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Coach Tressel's Weekly Press Conference
COACH TRESSEL: Still in my locker, ready for next year. The Tribe will be back. You heard it here first.

It was good to get a victory in the Homecoming game. Every Big Ten win we talk about as being special, and I thought Michigan State came in and got after it just like we knew they would. Coach Dantonio and his staff have done a great job and will continue to do that. You're going to hear a lot from the Spartans as time goes on.

I thought we started out and executed pretty darned well in a lot of phases, then we hit that stretch where we didn't execute well at all and allowed points to be put on the board without their offense even stepping on the field, which is about as critical an error as you can commit. But I thought our guys held their patience and their poise and didn't get rattled and the world wasn't going to end and all those things. They just went battling in there, and we came away with a win. Anytime we can get a Big Ten win, we're certainly happy.

Obviously, whether you play well or do some things that you need to improve, you can learn. From the film, you can learn from the experiences, and hopefully that game will help us grow and become a better football team as we progress.

There were some outstanding performances. Shaun Lane was the special units player of the game. He participated on four units, did an excellent job in every one of his roles. It was kind of a special day for him in that his dad, Garcia Lane, was the silver anniversary captain at the breakfast 25 years ago. Garcia was the captain and Shaun had a heck of a ball game and won the special units player of the game.

Defensively, Malcolm Jenkins continues to do a good job wearing a lot of hats. He plays corner in our base defense and plays nickel in our lead defense. He does a great job with the rest of the guys back there from a preparation standpoint and he was our defensive player of the game.

Chris Wells was the offensive player of the game. Chris had one of those days that he's always wanted to have, and that's getting the ball 31 times. I think he played 42 plays, and he carried the ball 31 times and caught it one. So he likes his hands on the ball, and I think he felt stronger as the time went.

He didn't play much the week before, and I think that helped him physically to be a little bit more ready and a little bit less banged than he had been. And I think carrying 31 times, sometimes that is great medicine, too, because he said he felt better this Sunday than any other Sunday of the year. And so Chris was the offensive player of the game.

The Jim Parker Offensive Lineman was Kirk Barton. Kirk graded 95 percent. May have played as good as I've seen him play in all phases, which is exactly what you want from your leaders, exactly what you want from your seniors, to be playing the best they possibly can as you progress through the season. And he won the Jim Parker Offensive Lineman.

The Attack Force Player was Vernon Gholston. Vernon continues to be very, very steady from his position. He's a tough guy to block. He plays every snap. He had excellent production in the course of the game and was awarded by the defensive staff with the Attack Force Player of the Game.

There were two nominations for the Jack Tatem Hit. One was by Vern and one was by Cameron Hayward. So we'll have to see how the applausemeter goes today and see which one comes up with the Jack Tatem Hit.

We had excellent scout team preparation. Hopefully that trend will continue. There was a time three or four weeks ago that it wasn't quite as good as we wanted and something that we talk about and talk about, and guys grow to take a lot of pride in their contribution from that standpoint.

An unusual situation, in that two of the special -- or of the scout team awards were given to one guy. Dan Herron was the Scout Special Teams Player of the Week, as well as the scout offensive player. And Dan Herron is going to be a tremendous football player and he gives great effort. He's tough. He's willing to do anything that the team needs, just like he's within willing to red-shirt, certainly could be willing to contribute both on special teams and offense. What the team needs right now is what he's doing and he's more than willing to do that.

The Scout Defensive Player was Chris Richland. A young man out of Crestline, Ohio, that just came to our team this year. Playing in the trenches as a D lineman, doing a good job for us, giving us the looks that Michigan State had a lot of different movement in their front and a lot of different angling and blitzing and carrying on, and he did an excellent job of timing that up for us, and he won our Scout Defensive Player.

We all know what lies ahead. We're heading to Happy Valley. Tremendous atmosphere. It's one of the many reasons guys choose to play in this conference. In our case, our guys get to play a number of times at Ohio Stadium, which is an extraordinary atmosphere, and they also get to play a couple times over at Beaver Stadium, and the environment there is as fun and electric and challenging as you could possibly have in the game of football.

And I know our guys are looking forward to seeing how we can do as we go there and match up against a great team and, you know, tough conditions.

The thing I like about Penn State is their strong and they're tough and they're sure tacklers. They don't make a bunch of errors. When you have a senior quarterback, you know, it certainly helps you get the ball in the right place. They've got playmakers and they get the ball in the hands of those playmakers. They like to run the ball physically. Even though they're missing the one tailback, the other two guys bring it, and they really bring it at you.

Defensively, they're just so sound. You are going to earn every inch you get. They're tough up front. They bring the blitz at you plenty. Their coverage guys are excellent, with King and Sergeant and A. J. Wallace back there.

Their safety is a typical Penn State safety. He's back there in center field and he makes sure there aren't any problems, and then he comes flying and making plays and so, you know, they have their typical Penn State team, and maybe a little bit better on special units. They're typically very good, maybe a little bit better than they've been. Their punter is a first-year guy and right now they lead the Big Ten in net punt. Their kick-off return guys in Williams and A. J. Wallace. Williams is your punt return guy. Dangerous as can be. I'd just assume punt the ball in the stands. They're that kind of dangerous.

You know, they have people that can run. They have a lot of linebackers. They have a lot of DBs. When you have linebackers and DB, your good. Their kickers got touchbacks. When you're kicking off from the 30 and you've got 17 touchbacks, that means they're outstanding.

Across the board, it's not a shock that Penn State is good. They're always good. They're even better when you go in there to Happy Valley when they get that energy from that tremendous crowd and that excitement around campus all week long. They'll be people camping out getting ready to come to the game. Those are the things that we love being at Ohio State.

REPORTER: Jim, you've talked about that environment a couple times in your opening statement there. How are you preparing the guys to deal with the wild, truly hostile environment? A lot of times that term is overused, but it really is hostile there.

COACH TRESSEL: Well, we want to take some of that energy and used it for our benefit; but yet on the other hand, you know, you've got to be calm and you've got to be poised and you've got to keep your focus on the task at hand because the only thing tougher than that environment are the guys you're trying to block. And so you've got to understand that that's the task at hand. But enjoy it.

You know, the thing that I think you have to do is have great focus but have fun. And playing in that type of environment is a fun thing and, again, that's why playing in this league is so much fun.

REPORTER: The guys have been in a couple of situations at Iowa and Purdue where they tried a goal bowl and whiteout. Is it the shear number of people? Is it the color? What is it about the whiteout that seems like it was so much more effective in what the other two teams have done?

COACH TRESSEL: It's probably the guys in the white pants. They've got good players and they've got a good staff. They know who they are. You know, they execute their systems, and I'm sure that they draw on the energy of 110,000 people and all the excitement around campus and on gameday.

But it's loud. There's no question. If you are expecting to hear, forget it. But again, our plays isn't the easiest place to play if you're wearing the other jersey.

I don't know that -- it depends upon how things go. You know, you don't know if it's louder or not as loud as the next place.

REPORTER: It's clear that night games are really special to the players and particularly the fans, it seems like. I mean, there's a lot of different reasons. Why is it that you think that they kind of capture the imagination of the fans in particular? They seem to really be wound up.

COACH TRESSEL: I think they make a day of it. And, you know, they begin their enthusiasm and it just grows. And by 8:00 o'clock, your enthusiasm is overflowing, and that's -- it's not like -- you know, we all played Friday nights in high school and so forth. Something about sitting in math class that doesn't get you -- all of a sudden, it's 4:00 o'clock and now you're starting to get excited.

And, you know, perhaps they sit in the tailgate lots and watch the games and get excited about the competition on TV and all that stuff. But this is Ohio State and Penn State playing. That in itself is exciting. That will rev up the stadium.

REPORTER: Jim, when you look back at Michigan State's two defensive touchdowns, when you broke down the film, was there anything that happened there that overly concerned you going forward? What was it on those two plays that broke down, maybe?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, in both cases, the quarterback got hit before he was ready to be able to distribute the ball, whether it distributed out of bounds or whatever. And, you know, so you can't let your quarterback get hit. And in both cases, you know, that happened and you're going to have negative things happen when -- after your quarterback has taken a couple steps -- you know, someone's right there.

REPORTER: In that blitz pickup, that blitz is right there, or is it something you guys need to work on going forward?

COACH TRESSEL: Sometimes, according to how you pick up a blitz, you can have a place where there's an unblocked guy. In fact, anytime we're in an empty backfield, we're probably -- unless they're going to drop everybody, we're usually going to have someone unblocked, and that's who you throw off of and those kinds of things.

But we have to make sure that the unblocked guy is the guy the furthest from us, and that wasn't the case.

REPORTER: Jim, could you talk a little bit -- I've never seen a team necessarily take a knee on the final kickoff like you did. Whose decision was that and had you ever done that before?

COACH TRESSEL: We told them to do that. We said if they don't onside kick, all we need is the ball. If you can catch it and run a few yards, do so. But we don't want you to get hit by like nine guys. If you watch the film, about five yards away from where he took the knee -- that hands team is not the greatest blockers.

They were like a sieve. So here came all those white shirts down there. I thought Brandon showed great poise in getting us five or six yards and not taking a possible fumble.

REPORTER: Have you ever had one of your teams do that before?

COACH TRESSEL: You know, I can't remember the last time that we were in a true hands team that someone kicked it deep. Now, maybe there has been. The historians here might remember, but I don't remember that occurring.

REPORTER: Jim, you guys blitzed about 90 percent of the time, according to Mark Dantonio.

COACH TRESSEL: We blitzed about 90?

REPORTER: I'm sorry. What I'm getting at is you guys -- you blitzed frequently.

COACH TRESSEL: We do.

REPORTER: Yeah. I think he estimated about 90 percent of the plays, you did. I know you don't have a lot of input into the defense.

COACH TRESSEL: That's being kind.

REPORTER: Do you like that style? Is that something you feel like in this day and age of football that's the way to play?

COACH TRESSEL: If it stops like, you know, I like it. We believe in pressure defense. I think the game of football is a game of pressure. And if we can put pressure on them by bringing some folks, I don't know -- you know, when you talk about blitz, blitz playing pure man coverage, I don't know how many snaps all year we've done that.

Now, we do zone blitz a lot, but, you know, as Dick LeBeau when he invented it talked about you've got the best of both worlds. You've got the guy in the mild so that there aren't any home runs. So we do a lot of all that, but I don't know that we -- you know, I don't want to give the readers and the listeners and all that the wrong impression. I don't know that we're blitzing and playing, quote, dangerous defense 90 percent of the time.

REPORTER: Todd Boeckman showed more emotion, I thought, in this past game. I don't think an offense is more effective when its leader is emotional like that?

COACH TRESSEL: I think when its leader is honest. Sometimes you can see people out there trying to create emotion. On the other hand, reacting. And I think any emotion you may have seen -- and I did notice one time, before we were going in for that last drive -- it was, I don't know, third and 2 or whatever. We were going to run a play, and it was during -- when they called a timeout or something. He barked at them a little bit when we were in the huddle there.

But it was really -- he sent them a message that he wanted sent, and I think if it's real, it's not fabricated. Nothing wrong with that.

REPORTER: How big of a step forward in Chris Wells' development was Saturday, to get the ball 31 times, 221 yards? And as you just said in your opening comments, he said he felt good on Sunday, despite taking all those hits. How big of a weekend was that for him and for the football team?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, it was about two games' worth, because he'd been getting it 15 -- I don't know what he was averaging carries per game, but let's say 15 or thereabouts, 18. So he got about two games' worth. Which is great. Experience -- when you're a great player -- you have to remember, he's a true sophomore. In game 8, he got two games' worth of experience against a physical team. I mean, Michigan State is physical. You talk about us bringing it a lot. You know, I don't know what percent they bring it. Mostly zone blitz.

So you're playing -- you're carrying the mail that many times against a group that's coming after you, I think that was a very good step.

REPORTER: Ohio State's not had much --

COACH TRESSEL: Bruce is struggling. He's starting to wipe his brow, he's so mad he can't get a question in.

REPORTER: When the first time you met Paterno when you went over there to interview?

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah. Would have been December of '74. Most of you weren't born.

REPORTER: You went with your dad, right?

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah.

REPORTER: And the job -- there was a job, and you could have taken it, but your dad wanted you to take the Akron job?

COACH TRESSEL: Right.

REPORTER: And have you said before that you guys drove home and you didn't speak? Is that right or not?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, I didn't speak much anyway, unless I was spoken to. But we had a short discussion. I told him this looks like the place for me. And he said, no, it's not. That was it.

REPORTER: Because why?

COACH TRESSEL: That was just the way I was raised.

REPORTER: His thoughts on why you shouldn't take it.

COACH TRESSEL: He thought I would just get more experience at Akron. We've been through this story but we'll do it again. Akron had four full-time assistants and one GA. Penn State at that time had unlimited assistants, back in those days, and eight GAs. And his rationale was what are you going to get to do? And now as I think about it, you know, it makes sense. Back then, though, I was like, who cares? I'll be at Penn State.

But he was right. You know, I got to be one of five coaches and coach a position and be the strength guy and, you know, go pick up the film in the mornings.

REPORTER: Swimming coach.

COACH TRESSEL: Swimming instructor.

REPORTER: Instructor.

COACH TRESSEL: Not the coach. So I did get a lot more experiences. He was right, again.

REPORTER: Ohio State's not had much success in State College. Is this something that you bring up as an incentive or that you stay completely away from?

COACH TRESSEL: It's part of the history. I don't know how many times we've been there. Probably seven, eight, nine. I don't know.

REPORTER: Seven.

COACH TRESSEL: And, you know, I know I've been there at least three times. '01, '03, '05 -- yeah, three times. And they were all battles. That's the thing I remember. And we had a chance in every one of them, but we didn't do what you have to do.

And so I guess it goes back to that old adage where if you want, you know, a chance to earn the win, you'd better do what you have to do, you know, to win the football game. But beyond being part of the whole history of -- to me, it's been a great -- you talk about, you know, bringing some impact into your conference, when you bring Penn State into your conference, you've just stoked it up.

REPORTER: You talk about history, Jim. Do you talk to the team about last week you guys set a school record -- Big Ten, 18 straight Big Ten wins? That was your last Big Ten loss. Do you bring that up as a point of pride?

COACH TRESSEL: I didn't know we set a record. Are you sure we set a record?

REPORTER: School record for Big Ten.

COACH TRESSEL: Oh, school record. I was going to say. You'd think the national folks would have brought it up if we set some record.

But, no, we didn't bring that up.

REPORTER: I mean, do you take any pride in that yourself?

COACH TRESSEL: It means I get to stay for a while, so --

REPORTER: Do you recall -- maybe you didn't even get to speak to Paterno after the first game you coached there when he set the record. Do you recall if you got to speak to him after the game, and if so what you said to him? I know they carried him off.

COACH TRESSEL: You know, I think I did. It was crazy. Or maybe I didn't. You know what? I've spoken to him so many times at the middle of the field --

I think I did get to speak to him, just congratulated him. You know, what he's meant to the game, you know, and it's extraordinary. I don't know, 300 and some odd victories. It was incredible.

REPORTER: When you interviewed with him, did you get that interview on your own or did your dad help you get it?

COACH TRESSEL: I sent about 100 letters and I got about two call backs. If I had to bet, my dad had something to do with it because, you know, he was well respected and Coach Bruce told me the only reason he hired me is because my dad was a good coach.

COACH BRUCE: I did tell him that, but I didn't mean it.

COACH TRESSEL: You told me a lot of things I hope you didn't mean.

REPORTER: Jim, seems like Maurice Evans, their defensive end, has been getting some good pressure for them. What kind of player are we talking about?

COACH TRESSEL: Physical. Great explosion. He's a 265-pound guy that can go. And I think he's just a true sophomore. And so you can watch him in the progression. He played some last year as a true freshman. Watching his progression, he's going to be one of those -- better block him.

REPORTER: When you say this game on the schedule late ninth week, did that make you feel good, we're going to have a lot of games under our belt before we have to go to this tough road game, or do you remember thinking about it when you saw on the schedule we get them later this year? Should be better for us, anything like that?

COACH TRESSEL: I don't know, not really. You look at your schedule and kind of look at the whole thing once. And then, you know, you go back and you start saying, okay, what's important is us and you try not to -- you know, you try not to say, okay, in three weeks we'd better be here. Well, today in practice, we'd better be here.

But, you know, whenever you play Penn State, it's going to be hard.

REPORTER: A lot of analysts expected your team to be 8-0. I wonder if you acknowledge or agree with the assessment that the games you have remaining in the regular season are a tougher test than the eight games you have behind you, or do you not agree with that?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, they are certainly tough. Part of which is because they're Big Ten games. You know, and they're very, very good football teams.

I don't know. Some of those teams that we played before are going to play these teams. We're going to find out who's better. But really what it's about is the day we play them. But it's -- I think we made it pretty clear, this is a tough road, from game one on, you know, for a variety of reasons. But going over to Happy Valley is tough.

REPORTER: No one likes to have their achievements questioned. You've been on national radio shows and probably done interviews. I wonder how you react when you hear people say, well, they're number, but they haven't played anybody or they make fun of your non-conference schedule.

COACH TRESSEL: Why did you call me for the interview? I mean, I don't take it. I just go on to the next task. I don't care about it. It doesn't bother me.

REPORTER: Doesn't bother you?

COACH TRESSEL: No.

REPORTER: Jim, is Beanie eventually going to need surgery on the ankle?

COACH TRESSEL: I don't think so. He had surgery, you know, back in ninth grade.

REPORTER: You guys had five false starts, I think it was, and that seemed like an awfully high number for a home game this late in the year.

COACH TRESSEL: Way too high.

REPORTER: I think you said Michigan State was the wild Indians coming at you. Is that just an aberration?

COACH TRESSEL: We'd better not be first and 15 very often. Because if you're first and 15 -- let's say you've gained four yards on first down and all of a sudden you gain on second, I guess Penn State if you're behind the count, you're in trouble. So we'd better not. And as you say, it's an even more daunting task to make sure that you're staying until the ball is snapped. You have to see it snapped.

REPORTER: Coach, you've talked about your relationship with Coach Matta before. Can you talk about what you've seen that's kind of enabled him to give that program kind of a shot in the arm?

COACH TRESSEL: You know, Thad's got great passion for what he does. He loves to coach. He loves to recruit. He loves to work with kids. He loves to find ways to get better. He's just got passion.

You know, and obviously he's very bright. I don't know anything about what they do on offense or defense, but obviously he nose what he's doing in his trade. He's got great passion and he's got an excellent staff. Those guys work, now. And he's had a good place.

REPORTER: Are those similar qualities to what you see in yourself?

COACH TRESSEL: Oh, I don't know. Those are qualities you'd like to have, but I'm not the judge of myself.

REPORTER: Jim, Penn State's defense seems to have had trouble against some spread-type stuff, plus they've been beat up front. Have you noticed anything watching on tape how they've kind of had to watch from being beat up on front and they lost another guy against Indiana Saturday?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, the amazing thing is when you see one guy was there and you see the next guy come in, you say, my gosh, they've got that many guys? You know, 93, for instance, had more production than 91, but yet now he's replacing him. But if you look back through the course of, you know, the play-by-plays, through the course of the year, he had more production than 91.

You know, they have the good fortune of having good depth, big, strong guys up there. And what that has to do exactly with the spread, I'm not sure, but you better go in and play what you do, which we do spread. You know, we also do unspread, whatever you'd call it. But you'd better go do what you do and not, you know, watch the game on TV and say, you know, I think we'll do that this week.

REPORTER: I know you're not going to brag about this, but do you feel like you all are so multi dimensional that you could go in and be a spread team, for example, Saturday night?

COACH TRESSEL: We have a spread package. That's the funny thing. You know, you work like crazy, almost equal time on your various concepts. And then when the game unfolds, you know -- I heard Dionte Johnson tell a young freshman who was wondering how much play time he was -- because in this package, he wasn't playing. Johnson says, you know, around here, you never know. I'll get 12 snaps in practice during the whole week and then I'll get 37 snaps in the game because that's where the game evolved. So because we would like to carry as much as we can for our defense's benefit so that they face it all the time, we also want to be able to do, you know, what we can do from a mash-up standpoint.

REPORTER: This series has been particularly close over the last 15 years. It seems like almost every game could have gone either way. There's one or two plays that change everything. Aside from the talent on the two campuses, are there philosophical differences that could be drawn? Is there anything that could be drawn from that?

COACH TRESSEL: I think if you stepped back and looked at Ohio State and Penn State and said what makes them most similar, I would say two things. One, they both pay very close attention to special teams. And they both play excellent defense. Talking about over the course of time. Not that they don't play good on offense and we don't play good on offense. But if you said what are the things that would be the hallmarks of those teams over the course of years and years and years, you know, they've both done a great job making sure that they were very good in those areas.

REPORTER: Jim, in the shot-Ginn -- we called it the shot-Ginn formation the last couple of years, but where you had Teddy, Brandon seemed to be in that slot a few times Saturday instead of Ray. Do you see that continuing a little bit?

COACH TRESSEL: According to which personnel group we put on the field, if we have three wide, two backs, Brandon usually is the -- what we call the colorback. And if four wides are in the game, Ray is at that position. And our formations have colors to them. According to where, you know, we want to put that person, but we can do it out of two formation groupings.

REPORTER: Talk about Laurinaitis again. Let's talk about him, what he brings on the field. What makes him so special?

COACH TRESSEL: The great things about post season accolades is they go to the guys who end up on good teams. So we still have a chance for some of our guys to be recognized in those areas. But we've got a lot of work to do down the stretch. James, I think, is playing extremely well. You know, he's a full second year starter. He got a little bit of spot time as a freshman and played a whole year, had a chance to study himself in the off season, work on things that he wanted to get better at and he's done that. He's a guy -- and I've said this about our defense many times. He's a guy that really believes in preparation. He's a guy in between classes, he's over there watching film. He's a guy that he's in early in the morning in the weight room. And he really prepares himself. And I think that's why he's progressed.

REPORTER: When you watch film, does Connor remind you of Laurinaitis?

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah. Connor switched positions. He moved from out to in. Really, what you're saying is last year you saw Paul Pousluzny do that. In their defense, philosophically, that's the guy that can go sideline to sideline. Connor's a great linebacker, like Laurinaitis. You'd better get Connor blocked if you want to move the chains.

REPORTER: You've talked about yoga in your training. Maybe that's not something Woody Hayes didn't employ back in the day?

COACH TRESSEL: He probably did ballet or something back at Baldwin Wallace.

REPORTER: Did you?

COACH TRESSEL: No. We have what we call recovery routine. Really it was Butch Reynolds that brought that to our thinking. He's a guy that trained at the highest end in the world, and because of what, you know, you go through in tearing down your body when you're in tremendous training, he felt that the stretching and the deep tissue work to get the whatever flowing, toxins flowing, whatever's in there, he thought that was very important in his ability to try to become the best he could be.

And with that in mind, you know, we went to it and our guys seemed to like it. Now, we also get lifts and runs in that same day. It's not all -- I don't want to send a message -- Coach Bruce will think I'm running a country club over there. But we also lift and run and watch film and all the other things. That just happens -- that's 15 minutes.

REPORTER: Right.

COACH TRESSEL: Out of the few hours they're there.

REPORTER: You've averaged 10 wins over the years. If Paterno would do that, you'd have to average eight wins in 18 years to pass him. Is his record safe?

COACH TRESSEL: It's very safe.

REPORTER: Why would you not contemplate coaching into your seventies or do you not think you could average eight wins a year for 17 years?

COACH TRESSEL: The former.

REPORTER: Why not? He'll be 81 in December.

COACH TRESSEL: You know, are you going to write to your -- no, you don't write anymore. You got fired from that. Are you going to broadcast until you're 80?

REPORTER: I hope not, Coach.

COACH TRESSEL: Okay. We're on the same page. Last question, Lori.

REPORTER: What are the -- did the 2005 experience against Penn State teach you that might cause you to make an adjustment this year, whether it's what time you show up at the stadium, how loud you crank up the speakers? Practice?

COACH TRESSEL: I think the 2005 experience is the most vivid one to our guys.

REPORTER: Well, it was a whiteout.

COACH TRESSEL: Because it was just two years ago, and the whiteout. But 2001 and 2003 were no walk in the park. I mean, it's loud at Beaver Stadium. And the fact that it wasn't a night game and it wasn't all white -- I don't even know if it was all white in '05. Wasn't it like half white this wasn't it just the students? But it's the most vivid one our guys have. We have probably, I suppose, 25 guys that were a part of that. And so because that's real to them, the 2003 or the 2001 isn't something we can draw on, but guys -- like the leaders, like a Kirk Barton, Dionte Johnson, guys like that, I think -- James Laurinaitis was probably there as a freshman. They can, you know, remember what a great atmosphere it was and how difficult it was.

Because it's so recent, I think we can grow from it and learn from it.

All right. Thank you.

 

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Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year
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Football Camp

Ohio State Football Camps
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Football Media Guide

2009 FALL Football Media Guide
Check out the Ohio State FALL football media guide
Football Media Guide

2009 SPRING Football Media Guide
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Recruiting Central

Ohio State Recruiting Central
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The Buckeye Club

The Buckeye Club
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E-Newsletter

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Buckeye Kids Club

Buckeye Kids Club
The club for the kids who love the Ohio State...
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Ohio State Athletics Teams
Men's Sports
Baseball   |   Basketball   |   Cross Country   |   Fencing   |   Football   |   Golf   |   Gymnastics
Ice Hockey   |   Lacrosse   |   Pistol   |   Rifle   |   Soccer   |   Swimming/Diving   |   Tennis   |   Track & Field
Volleyball   |   Wrestling
Women's Sports
Basketball   |   Cross Country   |   Fencing   |   Field Hockey   |   Golf   |   Gymnastics
Ice Hockey   |   Lacrosse   |   Pistol   |   Rifle   |   Rowing   |   Soccer   |   Softball   |   Swimming/Diving
Synchronized Swimming   |   Tennis   |   Track & Field   |   Volleyball
About Ohio State Athletics
The Ohio State University Department of Athletics sponsors 36 fully funded varsity teams – 17 for women, 16 for men and three co-educational. The department is committed to providing its more than 1,000 student-athletes with the finest in academic and athletics support in order to ensure a quality and life-enhancing experience. The Department of Athletics is completely self-supporting and receives no university monies, tax dollars or student fees. In Fiscal Year 2009-10, the Department of Athletics will transfer back to the University more than $29 million in assessments, including $14.5 million in grant-in-aid costs.