This story, by College Football Insider Matt Hayes, first appeared in the Jan. 13, 2003, issue of The Sporting News under the headline “A Championship Plan,” marking Ohio State’s 31-30, double-overtime upset of Miami in the Fiesta Bowl, arguably one of the best championship games in college football’s top tier. The game, on Jan. 3, 2003, capped a 14-0 season and the Buckeyes’ first undisputed national championship since the 1968 season (Ohio State and Nebraska split the title after the 1970 season).
When it was all over, when Jim Tressel walked arm in arm with Maurice Clarett and the confetti flew and the crowd at Sun Devil Stadium still boomed, there finally was perspective. Ward Cleaver and college football's newest superstar were surveying the madness, waving and gazing at a sea of scarlet and silver, and somehow, some way, bridging one magical moment with the glory of the past.
When it was all over, when Tressel had gift-wrapped his second season as coach at Ohio State with the storied program's first national title since Lyndon Johnson was the president, one word from Tressel shed light on how it all had come together so quickly. Tressel grabbed his tailback's head, smiled and whispered in his ear, "This is fun, huh?"
Fun. That explains everything.
One of the game's most prominent programs is back on top again after one of the biggest upsets in one of the best games in the modern era. And the Buckeyes' heart-pounding, breathtaking 31-24 double-overtime win over Miami and its 34game winning streak was just another step in the process. The impossible became the improbable because Tressel has, in such a short time, changed the way the Buckeyes act and react on and off the field. In these days of scholarship limitations and facilities arms races and deep-pocket boosters, everyone has players. Not everyone has fun. Not everyone has a coach with the nerve and verve of Tressel. "We have faith in him," Clarett says, "because he has faith in us."
A man without hope is a man without heart. A man without emotion and motivation is a man without fire and desire. And that's how you win in the landscape of today's game. Unlike its pay-for-play counterpart, college football is not about playing for fat free-agent payoffs or trudging through tiring seasons; there has to be something else. Well, forget about the tangible rewards; it's all about the intangibles. And about getting the right coach with the right plan to make it all workand to make it all worthwhile.
How many times do we hear teams are a reflection of their coach? The Buckeyes are a mirror image of the man who never panics and always finds a path to success. "You see him on the sideline," says cornerback Dustin Fox, "and you get this calmness. It's like you know everything will work out, no matter what."
Two years ago, Tressel took the wheel of an underachieving team with unreasonable expectations and, without hesitating, declared it wouldn’t be long before it played for the national championship. Those were the Buckeyes on the field at the Fiesta Bowl last week, physically punishing Miami as no team had since the Canes' probation years of the mid-1990s. After the Buckeyes knocked down Miami's last gasp pass on fourth-and-goal in the second overtime, OSU players flooded the field and a bright white sign stood out from the stadium seats: "In Tressel We Trust."
"It was a rebirth," says linebacker Matt Wilhelm. "He came in, and we were reborn."
This is college football in the 21st century, or at least the latest trend. Look around the signs are every where. A day before Ohio State gave the Big Ten its first national title since Michigan shared a championship with Nebraska in 1997, another Big Ten team was rolling into the Orange Bowl with an 11-1 record. That was lowa, which three years ago had one of the worst teams in the country. Then Kirk Ferentz came along, and even though things got ugly in a loss to Southern California, the Hawkeyes clearly have made their mark. Ralph Frieden took over at Maryland, the ACC equivalent of Siberia, and has produced back-to-back 10-win seasons. Tyrone Willingham cleaned up Bob Davie's mess at Notre Dame in one season, winning 10 games and setting the table for what undoubtedly will be a return to glory by the Irish. Mark Richt led Georgia to its first 13win season and first SEC championship in 20 years in his second season, and Chuck Amato led N.C. State to a school-record 11 wins in his third year. Then there's Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, who, like Tressel, took over a program steeped in tradition and expectations and won a national title in his second season. Stoops is 11-1 in games against top 10 teams. Tressel willed eight wins out of last year's team, setting up this national title run with a convincing victory over Michigan-just as he predicted days after he took the job.
Need more proof that coaching means more than ever before? This trend goes both ways. Nebraska fans were livid when Frank Solich lost four games in his first season. He lost seven this year, and the Cornhuskers suddenly look a whole lot like Ohio State did in John Cooper's last season. Florida lost icon Steve Spurrier, and new coach Ron Zook was a gimme put away a missed chip-shot field goal by Auburn from losing six games in his first season. Texas wins 10 games and beats the Baylors of the Big 12, but it can't win a big game under Mack Brown.
It's not rocket science, folks. It's teaching and preaching and praising and finding the right buttons to push at the right time. It's coaching and motivating and delivering the fuel to an engine waiting to perform. Especially because parity is so pervasive in today's game, having the right coach is the key.
"These kids bought into what we were selling." says Ohio State offensive coordinator Jim Bollman. "Once that happens, you can do just about any thing."
Anything. That's one heck of a declaration. The results when it mattered most, though, were proof of that. Ohio State had a plan in the Fiesta Bowl, a plan to give a seemingly overmatched team a shot at taking down one of the best dynasties in college football history. Considering the scope of today's game, Miami's 34-game winning streak was just as impressive as if not more so than Oklahoma's record 47 in a row during the 1950s. The Canes' ros ter is stocked with future NFL players, not 10 or 20 but more like 30 or 40. They had two Heisman Trophy finalists, for goodness sakes.
Ohio State, meanwhile, had its Tresselisms. A funny thing happens when everyone at every position, and every coach, team manager, trainer and water boy, is on the same page. The simple things become the important things.
There were three “Tresselisms" — that’s what tight end Ben Hartsock calls them — for the Fiesta Bowl: superior special teams, relentless defense and a mistake-free, opportunistic offense. It's essentially the same formula the Buckeyes used throughout the season, getting six of their school-record 14 victories by a combined 32 points. Although the special teams weren't too superior against the Canes there was a botched fake field goal, a missed field goal and poor punt coverage the rest played out over and over.
Ohio State was plus-three in turnover ratio (five forced, two lost), and nearly every game-turning play had a scarlet touch to it. With 5 minutes to play and OSU nursing a 17-14 lead, Miami quarterback Ken Dorsey threw a dart to wideout Roscoe Parrish, who raced to the Buckeyes' 20, but he was stripped of the ball and the drive ended. In the third quarter, Krenzel hit Chris Gamble with a 48-yard deep ball the longest pass completed against the Canes all season and the Buckeyes were primed to increase their 14-7 lead. Instead, Krenzel's next pass was intercepted in the end zone by safety Sean Taylor, whose twisting, turning return seemed sure to end in six points before Clarett ripped away the ball and gave the Buckeyes life again. A series later, Mike Nugent's field goal made it 17-7, and OSU still had momentum.
They weren't so much Miami mistakes as they were Ohio State plays. The Canes didn't give it away; the Buckeyes took it. There's a big difference. That's relentless defense, that's the Tresselism. Dorsey was sacked nine times all season; the Buckeyes got him four times and harassed him every time he dropped back. It got so bad that Miami was forced to use three-step drops in the second half because its tackles couldn't handle OSU's rush end combo of Derrion Scott and Will Smith. Miami center Brett Romberg hadn't given up a sack in his career. By the end of the first quarter, he'd given up two to defensive tackle Kenny Peterson.
The final hit on Dorsey was a microcosm of the intensity. On fourth-and-goal from the 1 on the last play of the game, linebacker Cie Grant blitzed from the weak side "The best jump I've ever got," he says grabbed Dorsey and swung him like a rag doll as a desperation fling fell harmlessly at the goal line.
The Buckeyes effectively took away Miami's three main weapons: Dorsey, tailback Willis McGahee and wideout Andre Johnson. The plan couldn't have played out more perfectly. Physical cornerback Gamble, a two-way player, took Johnson out of the game, allowing strong safety Mike Doss to play closer to the line in run support. That gave Miami one more body to block and contributed to McGahee's worst game of the season. Before he left late in the fourth quarter with a knee injury, McGahee had 67 yards on 20 carries and never really was a factor. "Let's face it," says Buckeyes defensive tackle Tim Anderson, "the game was in our hands."
Just like all the games were this season, when the final Tresselism a mistake-free, opportunistic offense played off the relentless defense. Essentially, the mandate for the offense was simple: Don't screw up. Film work over the last six weeks generated 150 plays that Tressel believed could succeed against the Miami defense. Who could have imagined a whittled-down game plan resulting in the most basic of plays would become the key to the game? Tressel recognized that running quarterbacks hurt Miami because the Canes use mostly man defenses and over- pursue. So the plan was to spread the defense, put Krenzel in the shotgun and run him off tackle. The play is called 46Q, and it was the foundation of the game. Look, the Buckeyes would have lost if Krenzel hadn’t completed a four-and-13 pass to Michael Jenkins in the first overtime, or if Krenzel hadn’t convinced Tressel to let him throw a slant to Gambel on a second fourth-down play a series later, a play that breathed new life into the Buckeyes after a late pass interference call interrupted a premature Miami celebration at midfield. Those throws may have won the game, but Krenzel's legs his game-high 67 yards rushing got OSU in position.
"You give (Tressel) enough time," Krenzel says, "and he'll find a way to beat anybody." Why should we be surprised? Here's a guy Miami wanted to hire in the mid-1990s before Tressel, who was going through a divorce at the time, politely said no. He stayed at Youngstown State, where he won four Division I-AA national titles in six tries before arriving in Columbus before arriving in Tempe. As Tressel walked off the field in the cool desert night, fans clamored for a repeat performance next fall, and that sentiment surely will echo throughout the offseason.
"Life is about what comes next,” Tressel says. “We know what’s next.”
Why not? The right coach in the right situation means everything.