Tressel understands YSU’s side of the story

By PETE MOLLICA

VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF

YOUNGSTOWN — Jim Tressel knows Saturday’s game against Youngstown State will be special. He just hasn’t had the time to think about it. Losing 17 seniors and the Heisman Trophy winner will do that.

Tressel, who is 62-14 in six seasons at Ohio State and has 197 career victories and five national championships, expects Saturday’s game to be an emotional one.

“It really started this week as we began watching films of Youngstown State,” he added. “Just sitting there seeing that big Penguin out in the middle of the field brought back memories of my sitting there bleary-eyed, watching hours and hours of film back in Youngstown.

No time

“You really have to focus on so many things that it really doesn’t leave you a lot of time to get into emotions,” he added.

Tressel said having the Heacock brothers on opposing sidelines also could be an emotional thing.

“But Jim and Jon just can’t let those things get in the way come Saturday afternoon,” he said.

“The same goes for the Lane brothers, Shaun and Ben, who are playing against one another for the first time. They just can’t get caught up in the emotional things.”

Tressel says that he’s had plenty of things to worry about to keep his mind occupied.

“We lost 17 seniors, plus four others that left for the National Football League,” he said. “Finding replacements for the 11 starters that we lost has kept us pretty busy during this camp.”

Among the starters Ohio State has had to replace is Heisman Trophy winner, quarterback Troy Smith.

“Across the board we’ve had a lot of revamping to do to get ready for this season,” Tressel said.

Only the beginning

“This is game one of a very long and difficult season,” he added.

“It’s exciting to have a chance to play a game right now, because the last game that we played did not turn out like we wanted it to.”

A year ago the Buckeyes swept through the regular season unbeaten (12-0), but then ran into Florida in the Tostitos BCS national championship game and were soundly defeated, 41-14.

Tressel recalled a trip he and then-YSU athletic director Joe Malmisur made to Columbus in 1994 to talk Ohio State into scheduling a game.

“They weren’t responsive,” Tressel said.

Tressel said the Penguins will present some challenges for his young team.

“Youngstown State has an outstanding football team and we had a chance to watch them a lot against Penn State because we know a lot about Penn State’s personnel and had a chance to watch their playoff games against great teams like Appalachian State and James Madison and the like,” he said.

Penguin pride

“Just as I would hope, they’re a well-coached football team and maybe I’m a little biased, because Jon Heacock and I have spent a lot of time together, but they fly around the field, they take great pride in special teams, they believe in establishing a great running attack, they fly around on defense and put pressure on you from a lot of different ways so we’re excited about that.

“Yes, it will be a little different having spent so long there, but just like that guy that goes out into the stadium for that first game, as soon as you get whacked one time, you forget about any of those kinds of things and you’re focused on the task at hand and we’re excited to get going into our regular season and to see how good this 2007 team could be,” he continued.

Breakthrough

Tressel said the reality of playing the Penguins came after the NCAA extended the regular season to 12 games.

“Our strategy was to continue the intersectional home-and-home things, like we were in the midst of with Texas, and then try to have the rest of the games be at home. And then we had to build a hierarchy of who we were going to attempt to schedule on home games because it’s tough to schedule some teams because they want a return game,” he added.

“We had to find a group of teams who we could play here and so we said, ‘OK, our first thought will be in-state. So we began all the Mid-American [Conference schools] and Youngstown State and started building our schedule that way.”

mollica@vindy.com