Tressel seeks balance between fun, practice

By TIM MAY

LOS ANGELES — Jim Tressel’s pre-bowl practices have never been confused with picnics, but when the work for the day is done, he doesn’t believe in barricading the Ohio State players in, say, a monastery.

Playing well in the Rose Bowl on Friday against Pacific-10 champion Oregon is important, he said, but so is enjoying the rewards for a fine season.

It’s certainly a balancing act: Tressel is all too aware that his program is riding a three-game January losing streak. On the other hand, these Buckeyes might never experience the Rose Bowl again.

“You hope you can prescribe the right preparation, you hope they can experience a lot of things, because most of our guys have never been this far from home, and most have never had these kind of experiences, and you want them to enjoy it,” Tressel said. “That’s part of why they came to Ohio State, because maybe they’d get to do these things.

“We want them to experience everything, and we want to have the confidence in them that they’ll also be preparing for the game. And it really helps when you turn the film on and see a good Oregon team.”

“Ditto’ is what Oregon coach Chip Kelly all but said.

“They know they’re here to enjoy it,” Kelly said of his players. “But they also know they’re here to win the game.”

Toward that end, both coaches said each day takes planning, even when the fun things are going on.

“You make a schedule and talk a little as a staff: ‘OK, we need to get this covered football-wise, and we need this amount of rest. And it takes this amount of time to ride from point A to point B,’’’ Tressel said.

The practice facilities for recent bowl games in which the Buckeyes participated were usually no more than a 10-minute drive from their hotel. But in Los Angeles, a commute of a short distance can take a long time, depending on freeway traffic.

Both teams are staying in Century City, about 20 miles from the practice facilities at The Home Depot Center. Even with a police escort, a round-trip bus ride eats up at least an hour of the day.

What makes it work, Tressel said, is making at minimum a skeletal schedule, which usually includes free time at the end of the day to visit Hollywood, Santa Monica and other sites. But Tressel also wants his players to enjoy the planned events, such as the trip to Disneyland two days ago and last night’s annual “Beef Bowl” at the famous Lawry’s The Prime Rib restaurant.

There also are curfews: midnight the next few nights, then 10 p.m. as game day nears.

“We’ve talked about [the scheduling] with our guys, and they’ve had a schedule for quite some time, and we’re trying to stick with it,” Tressel said. “Part of the schedule is getting enough rest, but also part of the schedule is soaking it all in, like with those seniors being with each other for maybe the last time.”

In other words, it’s not football 24/7.

“For them to come out here and be feeling like they’re wired up tight like a drum, and ‘This isn’t any fun,’ I think would be a disservice,” Tressel said. “Now, it’s a disservice, too, if you don’t play as well as you’re capable of, so how do you do both? That’s the thing you work like crazy at trying to find that happy medium.

“The fun bowl games are the ones where you know the guys had a good experience, you know they played well, and they came up with a victory.”