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Tressel will not be at first two OSU games, even if NCAA adds penalties
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo
Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel, left, sits next to E. Gordon Gee, Ohio State University president, during a news conference Tuesday, March 8, 2011, in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State suspended Tressel for two games and fined him $250,000 for violating NCAA rules by failing to notify the school about information he received involving two players and questionable activities involving Buckeye memorabilia. Tressel also will receive a public reprimand and must make a public apology.
By Tim May
The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS
No matter what else happens in the Jim Tressel case, Ohio State already has decided that the coach won’t be on the sideline or even in Ohio Stadium for the first two games of the 2011 season.
With Tressel suspended for a major violation of NCAA rules, the Buckeyes will need to designate an acting coach for games in September against Akron and Toledo. The buzz has been building that the nod will go to co-defensive coordinator Luke Fickell.
Tressel, who coached at Youngstown State from 1985-2000, had used Darrell Hazell as assistant head coach but he left in December for Kent State. Since then, speculation has been that Tressel would recommend Fickell for the position. Fickell coaches linebackers and is co-defensive coordinator with Jim Heacock.
Ohio State announced penalties against Tressel on Tuesday because he failed to notify anyone that he had been made aware of potential NCAA rules violations in the program. Because of those violations, six players are facing suspensions in the 2011 season. Tressel, who also has been fined $250,000 by Ohio State, could face further penalties from the NCAA.
A check of Fickell’s personnel file revealed just four minor rules violations accumulated over his 10 years as an Ohio State assistant, and none since 2005.
Tressel thought enough of Fickell’s potential to elevate him to co-defensive coordinator in 2005. Fickell, 37, played nose guard for the Buckeyes from 1992-96. Last year, he was named the assistant coach of the year by the American Football Coaches Association.
There are already two former head coaches on the staff: Heacock and Tressel’s older brother Dick, the running backs coach. Each could be considered, too.
Heacock was coach at Illinois State from 1988-95 before joining John Cooper’s staff at Ohio State. Dick Tressel was coach at Hamline (Minn.) from 1978-2000 before joining his brother in his first year at Ohio State in 2001 as associate director of football operations.
What’s not clear yet, athletic department insiders said, is whether Jim Tressel or athletic director Gene Smith will decide who will be the acting coach.
It will be an unusual situation, too. It’s rare to see a major college football coach banned from the sideline. The last appears to have been Mike Leach at Texas Tech. He was suspended by the school for a 2009 bowl game and subsequently fired for not being cooperative in an investigation of the program.
But game suspensions might become more common.
In October, an NCAA news release stated: ‘At the recommendation of the American Football Coaches Association, the Division I and Division II committees on infractions have agreed to support the imposition of enhanced penalties by the enforcement staff, including game suspensions of coaches, for some specified secondary violations of NCAA football recruiting legislation.’