Right: Coach Tressel spoke with the media on Tuesday. (Correction: The person in the photo is actually former San Francisco 49ers’ head coach Mike Nolan, not Jim Tressel)
AP Photo

It’s that time of the week as Lord James Patrick Tressel addressed a panel of media members, most of which have fat asses clad in goofy golf shirts, at the Chick-fil-A in the food court inside The Mall at Tuttle Crossing. For a shameless plug, Chick-fil-A is having a “Mascot Movers” contest. Every week, Chick-fil-A and ESPN are offering one lucky fan Chick-fil-A for a year and a V.I.P. trip to the Chick-fil-A bowl. Anyone can enter once a week online here.

Now we have learned over the years that Coach Tressel talks about the previous game along with mentioning the top players from that game. Then he ballyhoos the upcoming opponent as if Tressel was going to face the 1985 Chicago Bears on Saturday.

When speaking of Joe Paterno, does he say, “the old man probably hasn’t had a boner in 20 years?” No. When given his thoughts on Penn State quarterback Darryl Clark, does he say, “he couldn’t carry Terrelle’s jockstrap?” No. So basically the entire press conference is a bunch a fluff with little substance. But here we go.

In Coach Tressel’s opening statements, he mentions that James Laurinaitis was the Defensive Player of the Week, and Beanie Wells was the Offensive Player of the Week vs. Michigan State. Austin Spitler was the Special Units Player of the Game, Alex Boone, won the Jim Parker Offensive Line Award, and the Attack Force Player of the Week was Ross Homan.

Later he states:

As we move forward, we understand the difficulty of the challenge. Penn State’s an excellent football team. I think anyone that’s watched them play knows that, number one, they’re veteran laden across the board, very talented offensively, defensively and special units. If you look at the Big Ten statistics or the national statistics, you see Penn State at or near the top in many, many of the categories, that’s the way they’re playing.”

When Coach Tressel opens the floor for questions, the first one out of the pie hole of Joe Q. Sportswriter asked what was the difference between the Purdue game and the Michigan State game:

Well, I think that our guys have been preparing hard all along and executing to a certain degree at times and then all of a sudden you have one guy that doesn’t and you look like you’re not quite the same team, but I think we came out and seized the momentum early in the game and that really does something for you. And when the defense is flying around like that and all of a sudden Michigan State has to be a little different team than they really are.”

A later question was about Terrelle Pryor, and if there was anything more special about playing against a school from his home state:

Terrelle would never admit it if there were. I’m sure he’s excited. He loves the big stage and the big challenge. He watches that film. He sees how good they are. He knows he’s from there. Columbus is just as close as State College is. I mapped it out for him. But he’ll be excited.”

Hmm, Columbus is 208 miles from Jeanette, PA. State College is only 120 miles away. But Columbus is a big city, and State College is out in the middle of nowhere.

Later, Coach Tressel was asked about what he expects “The ‘Shoe” to be like Saturday night:

I expect it to be loud and fun and energetic and I hope it’s very difficult for the away team to hear. That would be one of my goals. I hope all they see is red and Bill’s towels waving next to the red. I hope it’s a tough environment. Now, good teams enjoy that too when they’re away from home. I know we’ve enjoyed going into those scenarios. Doesn’t make them easy.”

Tags: Buckeye Football //