Yes, that was a win-win game

Ohio State University Coach Jim Tressel did something former OSU Coach John Cooper never would. He put his Buckeyes up against the Youngstown State University Penguins.

We know Cooper wouldn’t play YSU, because OSU President Gordon Gee told us so in the mid-1990s, when Tressel was coaching the Penguins to four Division I-AA national championships. During an editorial board meeting at The Vindicator, editors practically begged Gee to make a Buckeyes-Penguins match happen, pointing out that the gate from such a game would be big money for YSU

Gee said Cooper (who was replaced by Tressel in 2001, three years after Gee left OSU the first time — he’s back now) wasn’t interested in a game because it would be a lose-lose for OSU. If they beat a I-AA team, people just shrugged; if they lost, it would be a disaster.

Well, even though the final score in Saturday’s game was 38-6 in OSU’s favor, not very many people were shrugging it off. The Penguins acquitted themselves well against the No. 10-ranked Buckeyes. And it was awfully tough to tell the difference between OSU scarlet and good ol’ YSU red in the stands.

A different view

Where some might see lose-lose, Jim Tressel and YSU Coach John Heacock saw a win-win.

Meanwhile, up north, at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Coach Lloyd Carr saw John Cooper’s worst nightmare come true.

Appalachian State, a football program that is today where YSU was 10 years ago, upset 5th-ranked Michigan, 34-32. The Wolverines loss to the Mountaineers is certainly the biggest upset Michigan has ever seen, and one of the biggest in college football history.

“We were not a well-prepared football team,” Carr said. “That’s my job and I take full responsibility for that.”

A casual remark made by Tressel last week showed that OSU’s coaches knew better. Tressel, despite everything he and other members of this coaching staff know about the Penguins, made a reference to something he saw while studying YSU films.

In scheduling YSU, OSU took the same chance that Michigan did in scheduling Appalachian State. But Tressel took nothing for granted.

Win-win.