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.”