Tressel comments at weekly press luncheon

[FCollinsBuckeye]

Some interesting comments from the coach. Here's a few excerpts. The entire thing can be viewed at www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com

REPORTER: In the aftermath of Saturday night's game, Coach Bollman seems to be taking a lot of criticism for his role as offensive coordinator and for the offensive line's performance. I wonder, can you take us through who calls the play, how the plays are called and I wonder if you're confident in the techniques the offensive line is being taught to block.

TRESSEL: Well, I would have to say that I'm not an expert in offensive line technique and never spent a day there in my life, but to answer the question, am I confident, absolutely. As to who calls plays or whatever, hopefully you have a plan going in and you stick with that plan unless all of a sudden they're doing some things that you weren't expecting, which happens every week and you need to adjust from a different standpoint. You see something that seems to be the best things for the people that you have in the ball game or the best way to deploy. And then all of those discussions, when we're on the field, happen within a group of coaches and when we're off the field, probably the greatest contributors to what are we going to do are those guys that come off the field and say, hey, here's what they're doing. In fact, the one play I was talking about that could have been a touchdown, Bam Childress called that play and he was exactly right. That's the play that should have been called and that should have been a touchdown if we would have executed it. So it's a little bit of a combination and, you know, I'm not sure how many years ago the title of offensive coordinator began but it became so and so calls every play, you know, type thing and I'm sure the people that are most uncomfortable with that are the offensive coordinators because they know they sit around with three or four other guys all week long who have every bit the contribution to that and I would think that obviously Jim Bollman knows, just as the head coach knows or the leaders of the team know that whoever are in those positions, that's who's going to catch the heat. Justin Zwick knows that it's going to be, man, I can't believe we threw that interception and you accept that and you go.

REPORTER: I assume somebody has a final -- somebody in the end makes a play call, is that routinely Jim or is that you or -- TRESSEL: Well, we give the signal. I give the signal to Troy Smith, let's take this last game, or Justin may come over, or someone may go in with it, but the final line of communication, which is the way it should be, the buck stops here, is I give it to the person that is supposed to communicate.

Coach gets a little testy:

REPORTER: Jim, Lydell and Antonio both got the same number of carries Saturday night, and Antonio, I think, got six in the fourth quarter, Lydell none. I just wonder if that represents a change in your mind in terms of what order you want to go with those guys or how would you describe your tailback situation right now?

TRESSEL: I think there's good competition there and there's not enough production there, and that's not a slam at Lydell or at Antonio. Production happens to be a universal issue. And I think Branden Joe adds a little different dimension as we go forward. I hope that that competition leads to production. As long as the rest of us do our part as well, coaches and guys up front and receiver blocking, and there is no part of the game that isn't important, and that's what's difficult about -- when you talk about this guy or that guy, it's all in relation to the rest, but I would characterize it as, should have some good competition there which we plan on leading to increased production.

REPORTER: Jim, would you evaluate the running game, you coaches and stuff, what do you keep seeing? From the press box we keep seeing a big glob a lot of times at the point of attack. I just wonder, do you feel like you're a little bit predictable or there are some things you're doing that are tipping things off or is it all on the backs? You know what I mean?

TRESSEL: Were you asleep just now?

REPORTER: No.

TRESSEL: Oh, okay.

REPORTER: I just wonder, what do you see? TRESSEL: I've never seen what I would call a glob, but I'm not sure what a glob looks like. But what you see is all the parts that are important in production aren't all getting done. Now, it could be a receiver one time not on a block, it could be a lineman another time. It could be a back maybe not getting it done. And I think sometimes lack of production leads to not just letting loose and playing with the zest you'd like to play. I'm sure Justin would tell you, you can't stand there as a quarterback being worried about things. You have to stand there as a quarterback, having confidence, I know where everyone is, I know my ability, I know my receiver's ability, I know my protection's fine, I can't worry about any of that, I've got to play. And sometimes when you don't produce, you lose a little bit of that confidence or that feeling that, hey, this is fine, let's go. So I don't know if glob is any part of that.

 

[RugbyBuck]

Priceless. Thanks for the post, FC.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

TRESSEL: Were you asleep just now?

I nearly died when I read that...

 

[RugbyBuck]

TRESSEL: Were you asleep just now?

I nearly died when I read that...

I like his follow-up: "Oh, okay." What an ass that guy must've felt like.

 

[jimotis4heisman]

typical smart ass tressel comments, i was suprised when somemany people were shocked with his smart ass comments after the ncst game, he says stuff like that all the time

 

[buckiprof]

While I appreciate Tressel again pointing to the execution issue, the fact remains that many of the plays are predictable. If many watching at home can predict where the play is going or what the play is, and I use my wife as a good example, I am confident that the DC's who get paid decent money to do this have a fairly easy time of it. It is really hard to execute when the other team knows what it is that you are trying to execute.

 

[goodguy]

While I appreciate Tressel again pointing to the execution issue, the fact remains that many of the plays are predictable. If many watching at home can predict where the play is going or what the play is, and I use my wife as a good example, I am confident that the DC's who get paid decent money to do this have a fairly easy time of it. It is really hard to execute when the other team knows what it is that you are trying to execute.

I couldn't agree with you more. This is the biggest complaint I've had with Tressel's offense. Defenses do know what he's doing, but Tressel always drives home the execution as the reason for things going wrong. You gotta give your offense some element of surprise, because each linemen can only "execute" so many blocks on each play (one block at at time). I love ya Tressel but it's time to stop being so ordinary on offense. Execution isn't the only problem.

 

[cpete14]

I don't post much here, but I'll throw my 2 cents in. I'll agree that we are very predictable on offense and given the results that's obviously not a good thing. On the other hand, tOSU has always been somewhat predictable yet still had the athletes/power to get it done. When it's 1st and goal from the 5 everyone in the stadium and at home should know that we are going to run the ball at least 2 out of 3 times and they should expect that we are going to get 6 points from it. My point is that, while being predictable is a problem, it's not the only problem. The OLine and backs simply are not getting the job done.

This quote from Woody pretty much sums it up in my opinion:

"I've had smarter people around me all my life, but I haven't run into one yet that can outwork me. And if they can't outwork you, then smarts aren't going to do them much good. That's just the way it is. And if you believe that and live by it, you'd be surprised at how much fun you can have."

Sure the D. Coordinator might be smart enough to figure out what we are going to do. We just aren't outworking them to get the job done.

I'll shut up and go back to lurking now!