Jim Tressel: 'Price was paid' with NCAA when he left Ohio State
Ex-Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said he's not surprised that he's going into the College Football Hall of Fame while still under NCAA sanctions.
By
Jon Solomon
•
2 min read
ARLINGTON, Texas -- Former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said Monday he’s not surprised he has been selected into the College Football Hall of Fame despite still being under NCAA sanctions.
“The day I wasn’t the coach at Ohio State, the price was paid,” Tressel said on the field of AT&T Stadium prior to the inaugural College Football Playoff National Championship. “But I don’t sit around thinking about that and I think that’s why I’ll do fine. Like the Buckeyes didn’t worry about their adversity all year, I wasn’t sitting around worried about my adversity.”
Tressel led Ohio State to its last national title in 2002, which was also the last one won by any Big Ten school. He also lied to the NCAA about major violations and received a five-year show cause penalty that essentially made him unemployable as a coach.
Tressel is now president of Youngstown State. His show-cause order expires Dec. 20, 2016, and the Hall of Fame has faced some criticism that it's inducting Tressel while he's still under that penalty.
“I don’t know that I was surprised for that type of reason,” Tressel said. “I was surprised because you don’t sit around expecting things like that. … I’m not at all surprised that the 25 teams we were a part of (at Ohio State and Youngstown State) that played in the national championship nine times and did some pretty extraordinary things, I’m not surprised that those teams were recognized. And the way you recognize teams over a body of work typically is you elect a coach to a Hall of Fame.”
Tressel said he has “no inkling” to return to coaching. “I don’t foresee it,” he said.
In the 12 years since Ohio State won the Big Ten’s last national title, a lot has happened to college football. Tressel lived through the ascension of the SEC, which won seven-straight BCS National Championships, including the first two over the Buckeyes.
"The mind has a lot to do with things," Tressel said. "They might have listened to you guys that they were the be-all, and if you hear that often enough and you’re 19 or 20, you might start believing that. ... It was fun kind of watching some of the Wisconsin, Michigan State, Ohio State roll (on New Year’s Day). That had a lot of those people deleting some of their articles.”
Tressel believes there’s a day when the CFP will expand from four to eight teams but worries about the consequences.
“I think what we have to think through on a big-picture process is do we need as long of a regular season?” he said. “Are we robbing some of these kids of some other things? Some of these great players who probably do have a future at the next level, are we taking some miles off their treads by having so many of these kind of ballgames?”
Tressel, who was scheduled to be honored at Monday's game as a Hall of Famer, wore a Youngstown State tie and a traditional red Ohio State sweater.
“You couldn’t have written this up,” Tressel said. “Here I am in the Hall of Fame, the Buckeyes are playing a third-string quarterback?”
