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Tressel foresees better season
CANTON
Bo Pelini’s first year at Youngstown State didn’t exactly go as planned.
YSU president Jim Tressel can sympathize.
“That first year is tough anywhere,” said Tressel, who spoke to the Hall of Fame luncheon club on Monday. “I think back to my first years at both Youngstown State and Ohio State.
“We were 2-9 at Youngstown State,” Tressel said. “We were 7-5 at Ohio State. Neither is acceptable. But there’s something about, as you go and become a part of what is, and help the young people through the transition, develop the relationships and get everyone on the same page, that usually the second year you can make a quantum leap.
“In our case, we were 2-9 and went to 8-3 and playing in the playoffs. We were 7-5 and we were 14-0 [in the second year].
“I’m hoping Bo can have that type of quantum leap.”
After winning at least nine games in all seven of his seasons at Nebraska, Pelini went just 5-6 in his first fall with the Penguins, including a 3-5 mark in the Missouri Valley Football Conference.
“He’s got a good group coming back — I think he only had seven or eight seniors — and he’s got some good young guys there,” Tressel said. “We’re in a tough conference, as you know.
“North Dakota State has won the darn thing about five years in a row and fortunately, that good quarterback [Carson Wentz] is going to be the second or third guy picked in the draft. So I think what Bo is doing there is great.”
A few weeks ago, Pelini told the Hall of Fame luncheon club that he’d like to see YSU join the Mid-American Conference, calling it “a great fit.”
Tressel wanted the Penguins to join the MAC during his stint as YSU’s head coach, but the conference turned them down in the late 1990s, prompting the move to the MVFC (then called the Gateway Conference).
When asked about moving to the MAC now, Tressel said the only way it would happen is if the landscape of college football underwent some drastic changes.
“I’m often asked that question [about the MAC],” Tressel said. “In my mind, the real question is, ‘What’s football gonna look like from a conference standpoint in the future? Will it look the way it does now?’”
There are 10 FBS conferences nationwide, with the “Power Five” ( Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Pac-12, Big 12) dominating the “Group of Five” (MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West, Sun Belt, WAC), both competitively and financially. Tressel doesn’t think that gap is going away.
“We get excited in March Madness, when a team like Middle Tennessee beats one this [big] team but when you get down to the Elite Eight, the eight are from the top leagues,” Tressel said. “And the upsets only occurred when the people from the top leagues were like ho-hum. When they’re playing each other, very seldom is it ho-hum.
“I think there may be a time when Youngstown State and Kent and Akron and OU [Ohio University] and Toledo and Miami and that whole group are in the same exact world. But I’m not sure it’s going to be in the same look that it is now.”
Tressel said he believes the Power Five teams will eventually pull away and the lower-level teams will look to rein in their athletic spending rather than try to engage in an arms race.
“I’m not sure those of us in mid-majors aren’t really stretching our overall university [budget] by the amount we spend,” he said. “If we’re together, it might not be called the MAC. It might not even be Division I-A or all that stuff. The only thing constant will be change in the future.”
YSU spent just under $15 million per year on athletics in 2014-15, while Akron spent more than $32.8 million per year (tops in the MAC) and Kent spent about $25.7 million, according to figures provided to the U.S. Department of Education.
“I like where we are [in the FCS],” Tressel said. “I think we’re spending at the right level. When you start playing for [FCS] national championships, that’s pretty darn exciting. Our first goal is to get back to that national championship caliber and we’ll see where it takes us.”