TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL: OHIO STATE v MIAMI

January 4, 2003

Jim Tressel

COACH JIM TRESSEL: Thanks. As we sit at these gatherings you ask have we ever reflected on this or that. Many times it's something that has nothing to do with things we reflect on, but we have had three or four hours to reflect, and I think it's always healthy to do that, especially when one task is completed and maybe you're not quite ready to begin the next one, but as we reflected and as I reflect I think my first thoughts turned to how fortunate we are to be a part of a culture that allows great competition like this and the emotions and energy put to use in an extraordinary atmosphere and the many, many blessings we have as people in this country and people that have the great fortune of being around the game of football. And I also think and reflect about the respect we have for our Ohio State if it were not having an Ohio State, there would be no game. Miami is an extraordinary group of coaches and young men on their football team. They played extremely hard and they played like champions and they played with class. Our hats go off to Coach Coker and his staff and players and obviously it was a tough hard-hitting football game. Our thoughts and reflections go out to Willis McGahee because I know he got backed up. You hope that people aren't injured. I think Willis got injured and on behalf of our team, our thoughts go out to Willis. And I guess we reflected pursuant to the fact of being involved in the pageantry of the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Not that I have been to a million Bowl games in my young life. This one was extraordinary. The organization, the facilities, the care, just the -- it was obvious to everyone in our party that the folks here at the Fiesta Bowl committee were excited that we were here and wanted to do anything to make our stay as good as it could be and give us a chance to prepare to play the best that we could play. We reflect on that and want the folks here to know they're champions without a doubt. Of course, I guess you always reflect on those people that gave you an opportunity to be where you are and I'm sure all of our players first and foremost got with their families because it's your family that allows you and molds you and helps grow you into these opportunities, and I think about our great coaching staff and their families and sacrifice and our players. We have been there just shy of two years and anything we've asked them to consider, they've considered. I think when they've understood what our intentions were in going in the direction we wanted to go, they did it 100 percent with great faith and belief in what we were trying to accomplish. We're very grateful for that. It's just amazing in times of reflection that you can just sit there and count your blessings and think about the things you're grateful for and our administration and president had the faith in us to bring us here in January of 2001. So, I guess it's a time of reflection for us. Hopefully that will answer all of your reflection-type questions. I know you'll have some X and O type ones too. I think as I sit back and reflect I appreciate this great media. We said that Ohio State football wouldn't be Ohio State football if it weren't for the media structure. Being in front of the microphone, being in front of the TV camera that's part of their learning experience. We appreciate you folks as well. I'm sure I forgot someone. I'll get letters and e-mails about that. It's just a tremendous blessing to be a part of this and we're excited to be the national champions.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: Have I thought about that? That was one of the things I didn't reflect on. But, to answer your question, it would be extremely difficult. There are so many good football teams, so many good coaching staffs. In college football from game one, you're going to have to fight for your life. To win 34 in a row, I don't know how you do it. To win 47, I really don't know how you do it.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: I don't know that they will fully get it until more time passes. They were starting to get it. I can picture some of them out there saying, "we're the national champions, we're the national champions, we did it, we did it." You know, it will be something that will be very, very special the rest of their lives. I hope what they get from it is, you know, what it takes to be a champion: All the people that are important, all of the things that have to be done and all the lessons learned. If they get that, I don't care if they ever get what it means to be a national champion. I hope they get the lessons.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: I think the experiences that you have help prepare you when you only have five days to prepare. You have to decide how you're going to use that time and use it the best you can. When you have 40 days or whatever we had, you know, you have to decide what are the priority things that need to be done. When you see the balance of things that you need to do, sometimes it's so easy to get caught up in "we have to do all these things" and then we're not emotionally prepares. I thought our coaching staff did a great job. I think our experiences whether it's guys who coached in Bowls before or former NFL people, I think their experience helped as well. Whenever we made a decision as to what we were going to do, we made sure we bounced it off one another. Many times we bounced it off the players. Our players had great impact on really everything we did from a preparation standpoint.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: I think lots of guys stepped up; young and old alike. I like what the young guys did collectively: They really truly care that their 13 seniors would go out with a championship. Individually there were a lot of young guys that stepped up. Dustin Fox was asked to play a little bit different scheme. We were doing some match-up things on number 5. We had some new learning and he did that extremely well. You know, a young guy like Robbie Sims ,I don't know how many plays he played, but, here's a true freshman offensive lineman that played the bulk of the game. Nick Mangold, a true offensive lineman, was there in the crucial situations. Chris Gamble plays like an old guy, but he's a pretty young guy. He only played 120 plays, incredible what he was able to accomplish and on and on. But, you know, we like to talk most about our older guys because we won't ever get to talk about them again. I hope we get to talk about a lot of the younger guys for a lot of years. I think it was a good mesh of youth and experience. They played together well.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: I think that probably, this is my 28th year of college coaching. From a cultural standpoint in society over those 28 years, there have been times maybe that we have become maybe more of a selfish society. That's how maybe some young people are growing up; you know, there hasn't been a world crisis where people left college to go defend our country so I don't know that they have had firsthand experiences, you know, from a cultural standpoint that are great teachers. That's one of the things that I think is great about the game of football. There is so many people involved. Our scout teams -- everyone talks about our extraordinary our defense is. It is. Our defense is a difference maker. If you look from preseason through this week's preparation, we've got guys who are very good football players who are making those guys better every day, and they took that role, even though they knew the role they would rather have is in front of 100 thousand in a stadium. They accepted that role on behalf of the older guys. I think this is a great medium to help teach those types of lessons, and I don't think it's hard, because I think innately we all want to be a part of a group, we all want to play a role within a group. I think as long as we help the guys understand that we appreciate every part of the group, it's not difficult. In fact, it's fun.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: Well, I think human nature is ever-changing, and when you have a passion for something and have the perhaps humility and selflessness to be open to admitting you don't know everything, that's one dynamic to use your word. Then maybe when you have had some accomplishments and all of a sudden you think you've got a handle on it, it is a little different, and that's why it's probably hard to win 47 games in a row and that type of thing. That's the fun of it. The fun of football as a coach is that every year is different. Every group of young men is different. I think we'll have 18 or 19 seniors next year who will take on a whole new leadership stance. We always tell our rising seniors that the signature of the team will be penned by the seniors. It will be dynamically totally different situation. That's what I enjoy about it because there is no two days the same.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: I have only been to five bowls at Ohio State; three as an assistant coach and two now as the head coach. This one was different than any of the other four in that it was clearly number 1 versus number 2 playing for the championship. It wasn't mythically number 1 or number 2 or someone's opinion. It was. I think that gave it a little bit different feeling. Every bowl I've been to the bowl committees work like crazy. I know we have 3,000 volunteers that they work night and day and all the bowls have lots of help that way. This particular bowl though I have to say, I've only been to five, it would be tough to beat, you know, this bowl experience that we have had this week. So, you know, that's what's fun, you try to beat the things that are tough to beat.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: I don't think you would go for two if you had a chance to go to overtime simply because of the percentages. So, yeah, I think that's taking that away. If we would have gone to the third overtime, we would have had that. Next year that will probably happen. I like this format. We were talking coming over, this game could be an impetus to have the NFL overthink what they do. We flipped ends of the field, and I love the way it is because the red zone is what it is.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: I didn't have that reflection. It's the rules. It's the way it is. That's what you prepare for. I think it's great. You know, you can still end up with a long arduous -- I think the NFL had a tie game this year. So, you can't have a tie game. There is a 7-overtime rule or something I think but slim chance of you having a tie game. I happen to like it.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: Craig Krenzel he got back in a police car, because the buses took off without him. So we had the back police car -- we've only got like 27 escorts when we're going over. If kids don't think they're important when we go to the stadium at the Fiesta Bowl, they're crazy, but one of the 27 escorts went back and he had his own ride back to the hotel. I hope it wasn't a violation. He's an extraordinary guy, competitive, team-oriented, prepares just beyond. The video people make his videos to take home before they make the ones for the coaches to look at. Video people know he'll probably spend more time than the coaches on them. Just an extraordinary kid who's competitive and wants the ball in his hands. I can't say enough about Craig Krenzel. He's a winner.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: I don't know if it was special what I said to him. That would be his opinion, but we did have a chance to talk. He was so excited about the results of the decision he made. I think he'll even be more and more and more excited as time goes. Ten years from now, he'll really be excited. It meant a lot to our team. I think it was a great message to young people in college football and young people that you want to stay and finish tasks and get some of the goals you have set for yourself and he was a great leader. I tell you what, Mike Doss was not going to allow this football team not to succeed. He was going to do all he could. We played a great team. It could have gone the other way but not because he didn't do everything he could do, and I just wish he was coming back to Columbus with us. He's heading out to the All Star Game Circuit. I know the people in Columbus would sure like to let him now how they felt.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: We'll find out. I think we've got some good guys. I think we've got some great coaches, and it's all about what you do. We don't make predictions. We didn't sit there at the Outback Bowl after the game talking about the bright future about 2002. We just went to work. That's what we'll do in 20003.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: No, not really. My stance on instant replay and human error and that type of thing is in my experience it evens out. I think there were some things that I would have liked to have seen maybe gone our way and some things that were going on that if noted maybe could have helped us. It didn't happen. Had the game ended with us being incomplete on a fourth and three in the first overtime, that's the way it would have ended. I wouldn't have been any less proud of the effort of our scout team and coaches and players and fans if it had ended that way.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: It didn't work. My local guys always have a way of bringing up the tough things. We thought through studying we had 12 games' worth of film on them, and we felt that a weak side away from their block side, you know, we could get a first down if it wasn't too far, and we didn't. They did a good job.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: Well, that tide was -- it turned and backturned. I think the cumulative effect of the way our kids came after it more than anything I thought our kids were very physical and the conditioning and strength development that they had put in and invested, paid out at the end, so I think it was more of a cumulative thing than one play or another. If I brought up one play, we could easily point to another and say that the play would have never happened if this one didn't happen. That's football and there were a lot of great plays, and we'll all be able to sit around and talk about which one we think might have turned the tide. Right now I don't have an opinion.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: By rule, they're allowed to get to the site and leave the site on their own. We have kind of a self-imposed regulation that if you're within four hours of Columbus you travel as a team. But because families are here and they want to ride back with them or fly back with them or whatever. So, you know, it's a good rule and so there won't be many players landing in Columbus. Our timeline as a coaching staff is we leave tomorrow for the American Football Coaches Convention in New Orleans. We won't be around. It's our national convention. It's our chance to be with our colleagues and talk about the game and where it can improve and also talk about the tactics of the game. We'll be there through Wednesday which we are currently in a recruiting quiet period. We can't really recruit more than one phone call per week. Once we get back we'll be spending our time recruiting.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: Well, by the time I got back there, it was late, and I just sat with my family and friends and enjoyed the moment and considered staying up long enough to get here for this press conference and then I got smarter than that and got a little bit of rest.

COACH JIM TRESSEL: Yeah, every time we go to a stadium, we have at lot of Buckeye fans. This one, it felt like a home game. It really did. They have a way of getting tickets to other people's venues. You can't even plug into the formula what percent of impact they had. They had a hand in it. With that more important than the one play, them being there, maybe that was the play, you know, that turned the game on before the game even started. Our fans are extraordinary and they care about their school. They care about their players. They care about how our players play, and I think they really appreciate our players.