Jim Tressel Press Conference Recap- September 14th, 2010

The Ohio State site has a full recap here, but we'll bring you the important bits below.

First, about C.J. Barnett's injury:

Well, we'll start off with one of the questions you always ask, an injury report, and we unfortunately lost C. J. Barnett probably for the season, and C. J. was really playing well. He took advantage of an opportunity in preseason to get a lot of reps when Orhian Johnson had a calf pull and really did well and we thought played very well through the first game and three quarters. Unfortunately, I think today he'll be having surgery and probably won't have him the rest of the year. Other than that, we should get everyone back.

Barnett had impressed very early on in his sophomore year, and provided a positive impact on multiple occasions in the Miami game.

How many "winning performances" were in the game last week?

I think we had three guys on the defensive side grade winning performances and either five or six on the offensive side. Devin Barclay was the special units player of the week. He made five field goals and kind of pinched hit in there on some of our special kickoffs and did a good job for us there, and I think he was the Big Ten special teams player of the week.

Defensively it was Chimdi Chekwa who came up with a couple big plays and continues to lead back there and play with a lot of energy and enthusiasm and play like a senior. You know, we've said a million times that you can have a good team if your seniors have their career best year and Chimdi certainly is on task to perhaps make that happen.

Offensively it was Terrelle Pryor. I thought Terrelle did an excellent job against a very good defense and he got banged plenty. I don't know how many carries he had, but it was probably more than the 12 that I'd like to have him get and did a good job decision making in the passing game. If your quarterback does a good job, you'll have a chance to have no turnovers. It won't always happen, but that's the guy that starts with his hands on the ball, he and the center, and so he did an excellent job from that standpoint and I thought came up with some key plays and played with a lot energy and continues to get better every day.

Justin Boren was the Jim Parker offensive lineman of the week and Justin really had an excellent ball game. Those are some good guys they rolled in there. They had four three hundred and some pounders. They just kept bringing in two of them at a time, and Justin graded about 86%, which is a very, very good grade up front. And he won that award.

The attack force player was Dexter Larimore and he had a productive day and did a good job from a leadership standpoint and so the nice thing as you look at who stepped up in this ball game, it was your older, experienced guys, guys who had been there before and understood what it was going to take, and Dexter did an excellent job on that defensive front.

It's important to note that the threshold for a "winning performance" is very high. The coaches go through every play and grade each player for effectiveness.  The quarterback grade is especially high- I believe it's above 90%- and it's usually tied to decision-making and accuracy above pure production.

Now, the scourge of everyone, kickoff and punt coverage:

Well, the thing about special teams, not unlike offense and defense, is you need all 11 guys doing exactly what needs to be done. The difficulty of special teams is the field is so large and if you err on the offensive line as a right guard, there's only about a two-foot, three-foot issue. If you err on the line as a kickoff coverage guy, there's a 10-yard issue, and if there's a fast guy running through that 10-yard issue, everyone else is in trouble. So we've got to understand what the fundamentals are at every stage, and that's where I think special teams sometimes become difficult.

I'm sure Randy's down at Miami having the same discussions with his guys about kickoff coverage because interestingly enough, if you looked at the drive start analysis, after kickoffs, we won that statistic. Now, one wouldn't think that, you know, but there are different spots on the field where technique has to change. The first half of the kickoff, for instance, you can avoid and get back in your lane. When you get to the second half of the kickoff, you can't avoid and in all three long kickoff returns, our two and their one, there were people in the second half of the play going around blocks, avoiding as opposed to taking on blocks and holding gap integrity and so forth. So what can you do? You can do it right, just like any other play, but it's really magnified in the special teams.

As many poster's noticed, lane integrity was lost on both of the touchdowns. But what about changing the personnel?

You try to figure out how people are going to attack you and I think that's one of the other things that's a little more difficult. You may say, well, these guys typically double Number 4, so we'll put our bigger guy on 4 and he can hold the gap even though he's double teaming and we'll get the guy that's getting single gapped, then they come out in three. So you just don't have that much data because there aren't that many kickoff returns, but we're constantly looking for the right place for a guy because the thing you don't want to do on a special team is put a guy in a position that he's not capable of doing that job, and you hopefully, through April, August, September, get that figured out and the problem you have sometimes is injuries.

I know we thought we really had it figured out by mid-season last year and then all of a sudden we lost Sweat and we had lost Moeller going in, we lost Marcus Williams, and all of a sudden, now you're back to guessing who fits what lane best and so forth. And honestly, and our kickers wouldn't be mad if I pointed this out, really from about mid-season through now is we have not had the hang time and placement that we enjoyed with Aaron Pettrey. And we've got to get there. We've got a young guy who's got a ton of talent and there's going to be a day where he may look like that Miami kicker who I thought was extraordinary. I told him after the game I was so happy he was a senior. That guy is good. And he does all three, kicks, punts, and kicks off. So we've got to get better at everything, to answer your question.

Coach Tressel points out something interesting here; we all notice the loss of a defensive or offensive player, but when a special teams ace becomes injured, the impact is not necessarily noticed by fans. But losing a key special teams player, either within a season or to graduation, can change the strategy of the coaches. Coach Tressel also did not rule out putting Jaamal Berry or Jordan Hall on the coverage units moving forward. Without committing to any specific changes, it sounds as if the units will be altered personnel-wise.

About the confusion at the end of the half:

We couldn't call a timeout during the third down play because then we wouldn't have had one for a field goal if we got tackled on the field of play, so we couldn't do that. What we didn't do a good job of is, A, ever having had him in that exact situation, which we go through lots and lots of different two-minute venues and so forth, but the one where you've got one left, the clock's rolling, you've got two downs left, all that, the live kind of thing, we had never put our guys in that one.

Therefore, I don't think it was second nature that, hey, we've got to get up, we've got to get snapped and we've got to get a quick throw, and if the quick throw is a touchdown, great, you know, if not we'll be fine, we'll kick a field goal or if we catch it and don't get in, we'll be fine or if we, heaven forbid, get sacked, we'll be fine because we've still got our timeout and have a quick throw that was second nature in our mind, so great lesson for us. Great experience. I'm not sure Terrelle has been in that particular experience since he's been here. And that was a good one for us to experience.

In that situation, another play should have been at the ready. Using a time out, as Coach Tressel states, would have left them without a chance to kill the clock should the previous play fail to make it into the endzone.

There are numerous theories in the coaching world about maximizing the two minute drill, but the one common theme is having practiced a set of plays that you run in this specific situation, and a set of protocol that you always follow. It seems as if it was a failure to prepare for this specific situation that led to the confusion. Look for that to improve.

And now about Ohio University:

Well, as I said at the outset, Ohio University is a reflection of Frank Solich. He's hard-working, tough, disciplined, they're going to have fundamentals. He's had his coaching staff with him -- I'll bet you two/thirds of his staff, maybe more, have been with him all six years. I think he's been there six or seven. Six. Even a couple guys were there two or three years before him, so there's been great continuity and he fosters that environment, the people enjoy what they're doing there and they believe in their program. His entire playing and coaching life he's been around excellence and I don't know how many coaches can win 75% of their games and all of a sudden not have a job, but he's been around excellence and he's one of the real good ones.

And Coach Tressel ends with a slight jab at Nebraska for firing Frank Solich for Bill Callahan.