Tressel knows what it takes

He grew up knowing all about the Ohio State-Michigan series; now he's a part of it.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- When Jim Tressel was a kid, his father, the coach at Baldwin-Wallace College, used to invite players home to eat spaghetti with the family.
On any given night, by the time the youngest of Lee Tressel's three boys arrived at the dinner table, there might not be any chairs at the table or pasta left.
But the Michigan-Ohio State game was a time when father and sons had a chance to bond while watching Woody Hayes storm the sidelines and Bo Schembechler bellow at the officials.
"My earliest recollection would be somewhere in my childhood that, typically my dad's season was over and the Ohio State-Michigan game was probably the first time we had a chance to sit down and do anything with him because he was a football coach," the 49-year-old Tressel said. "For sure he was going to be watching the Ohio State-Michigan game."
Those were far different times. Now Jim Tressel is the head coach at No. 2-ranked Ohio State as it prepares for its annual showdown Saturday with No. 12 Michigan.
Game is still special
His father died in 1981. His mother passed away a year ago. The game between the Buckeyes and Wolverines remains special, a link to his childhood that conjures up many other Saturdays in November.
The second-year coach of the Buckeyes is almost a block of ice in public -- showing almost no emotion, speaking in a near monotone and answering questions in a cool and detached manner to sidestep controversy.
It's not just a facade. His players see the poker face and know that he's still on top of things.
"Some of the younger guys were saying, 'How tight is coach Tressel going to be this week?"' linebacker Matt Wilhelm said. "I was like, 'He's not."'
Tressel always knows how long it is to the most important game on the schedule. A TV reporter mentioned Michigan to him last spring and Tressel promptly said the game was in 174 days.
"We all have idiosynchrocies and mine might be keeping track of that," he said.
The man who preceded Tressel, John Cooper, came on campus with little knowledge of the football program's proud history. He knew that Michigan-Ohio State was a big game but always tried to soft-peddle it to his players as "just another game."
His players saw through that approach, particularly when Cooper grew increasingly tense as he lost games to the Buckeyes' chief rival. He finished his Ohio State career 2-10-1 against the Wolverines.
Won 26-20 last year
Tressel never led his players to think Michigan was a typical opponent. From the time he was a kid back in Berea, he knew better. His approach has always been direct, matter-of-fact and unemotional. It paid off in a 26-20 win a year ago in Ann Arbor in his first game against the Wolverines.
"Businesslike is a good word," free safety Donnie Nickey said. "There wasn't any sense that coach Tressel was saying, 'Hey, it's just another game.' He said, 'This is Michigan.' It wasn't more relaxed (than Cooper's approach). Maybe more urgent."
Tressel is old fashioned enough to require his players be clean shaven and to blush when they use foul language -- even during the heat of a game.
It is revealing that Tressel still gives pop quizzes to his players, asking them to list the hometowns and high schools of their teammates. Old school? Sure. But to have a team, Tressel believes, you have to at least know where the guy next to you is coming from.
In his prim sweater-vests and with a year-round tan, he looks like the president of the chess club. None of his players pretends to be close to him, but all of them have a combination of respect, fear and affection for him. In many ways, the players mirror the coach in their calm professionalism.
"Coach Tressel is obviously always in control," said quarterback Craig Krenzel, who frequently parrots the same phrases his coach uses. "We have a lot of confidence in our team that we're going to pull ourselves out of a tight situation and make the play when we need to."
Tressel was an assistant at Ohio State under Earle Bruce, then went on to win four I-AA national championships in 15 years as the head coach at Youngstown State. He and Lee Tressel are the only father and son to ever coach teams to national championships.
First team to go 12-0
And now this year's Buckeyes have become the first team in the 113 years of Ohio State's program to go 12-0.
"He is an outstanding football coach," Michigan coach Lloyd Carr said. "He has had a great career and has a great record. He knows how to coach."
How Tressel spends this week with his wife and four kids isn't known. He says he has trouble getting enough sleep this week, that he puts in long hours at the office looking at films and planning for everything that his team might encounter on Saturday afternoon.
Just like in his youth, the centerpiece is the game on Saturday.
"During the week, you work like crazy to get prepared and you hope when you walk into the game, you can say, 'You know what? We've done all we can do. Let's go play,"' Tressel said.