Michigan Week is a Season onto itself for Ohio State

Michigan Week is a Season onto itself for Ohio State
Jim Tressel

Michigan Week is a Season onto itself for Ohio State

Senior week might present Coach Tressel with the opportunity to get the seniors into the game early including Todd Boeckman and Maurice Wells to name a few. “Well, we haven't talked about that, although we're not very deep into the week.” He stated at his Monday press conference. “One time I remember I had so many seniors on offense in particular I started 11 seniors on the first play and then on play two, it was back to the rest of the group. I'm not sure that that's in the cards here, but I haven't really talked about that.”

By Steve Patterson

Not a Normal Game

Coach Tressel feels the Michigan game goes beyond normal game considerations. “I think it goes beyond the danger thing. Ohio State versus Michigan trumps everything. It trumps your record. It trumps whether it's dangerous or you don't have a chance or any of those kinds of things. It trumps all things because it's the Ohio State-Michigan game. And I would like to think our guys understand that, but there's only one demonstration of understanding that and that's at 12:00 noon on Saturday.” After thinking his team understood the significance of games against Florida, LSU, USC, and Penn State, Caoch Tressel verbalized that the coaching staff is never 100% sure that a team is going to respond when the game begins.

Freshmen Will Do Fine

While considering the number of true freshmen starting on the team including Terrelle Pryor and Michael Brewster, he doesn’t think the true freshman will have any trouble adjusting to the atmosphere once the physical nature of the game is felt. “I'm confident Terrelle can handle it or Michael Brewster in the middle making calls or Nathan Williams coming off the edge as long as they're focused on what they need to focus on. Will they come out of the tunnel and feel something maybe unlike they've felt? Yeah, but then they'll get popped once. The difference is as an assistant coach up in the press box, you weren't hit too much, so it might have taken me a little bit longer to get a feel for it, but when you get hit a couple times, its game on.”

Big Plays by Big Players

Some of the best players to come through Ohio State since Coach Tressel took over have had their best games against Michigan, including Troy Smith and Chris Wells. “I think if you go back into the history of the Ohio State-Michigan game, quite often you point to the people that stepped up and had extraordinary performances, or that extraordinary play and when the game's over and someone has won, you say, hey, that was a huge reason why that team won that game.” He explained. “But you have to go out and earn that every -- you don't get knighted as a guy that's going to play good in that game, you have to go do it against good people.”

 
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