Right: Senator Sweater Vest, minus the vest, spoke on Tuesday. (AP Photo)
It’s that time of the week and year when I disguise myself as Columbus Dispatch reporter Tim May, complete with a hillbilly accent, and crash Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel’s weekly press conference at the Jack Nicklaus Museum.
Most press conferences offer a lot of fluff without much substance, though this time around, being the first of the year, you do come away with some much needed info.
Generally, the first five minutes of so, coach Tressel begins with some opening statements. With it being the first one of the year, he talks about preseason camp and the Buckeyes’ first opponent, Navy.
First on camp:
I thought we had a good rugged training camp. And I hear some of the guys saying that it’s by far been the most rugged one we’ve had. I don’t have any proof of that, but they seem to be going hard at it and they spent a lot of time together.”
Then he talks about the Navy game:
There’s a whole bunch of excitement, I think, and you folks can feel it as well as we can, energy and electricity about the United States Naval Academy coming here. Everyone knows about their successes and we talk a lot about those big games that you play in and so forth and I think they’ve won 12 of their big games in a row when you count their games against Army and Air Force, which is as big as you can get. And eight-win seasons, one after the next, multiple bowl games in a row, and they’ve been very, very successful and they have good consistency going on, which I think consistency is the key to any operation.”
Coach Tressel then talks about Tyler Moeller:
Tyler Moeller, you know, won’t be with us all season and that’s — you wish you had a guy like that. It’s been good. He came back to town the last couple days and he’s doing great and progressing well and there’s no question in our minds that he’s going to be back playing for us shortly after the new year and into spring practice and so forth.
Tressel talks about who will not be available for Saturday’s game, whether it’s because of injury or in the coach’s doghouse:
Melvin Fellows will probably miss a little bit of time. Mike Adams, Orhian Johnson, Travis Howard, Jermale Martin won’t be with us probably on Saturday.”
Navy, which runs a run-heavy, triple-option offense offers a unique challenge for the Ohio State defense. Coach Tressel addresses that here:
The difficult thing perhaps about playing against Navy’s offense is there’s really not much carryover, after that you probably don’t use that package the rest of the year.”
Tressel then mentions which freshmen who will play, and those who are likely not to play and will keep their redshirt:
I would say Jamie Woods at safety is probably on the bubble. He’s on some special units in two deep but we’ll see. C. J. Barnett probably will, because he’s on a couple special units. Right near the top we’ll have to see this week of practice. Dorian Bell probably will. Again he’s on some special units. Jonathan Newsome probably is on the bubble as to whether he will or won’t. Obviously all of it’s based on health and everything else. Storm Klein will probably play. Jordan Whiting is probably on the bubble. Adam Bellamy probably will not based upon our depth inside there. John Simon probably will. Let’s see who else we’ve got here. Melvin Fellows, I mentioned won’t. Jack Mewhort is probably on the bubble in the offensive line, he’s in the two-deep but we’ll see how that unfolds. One thing Coach Bollman is comfortable with is we’ve got three or four guys that can play center. Sometimes you get nervous about you don’t have enough centers, make the calls and snap the ball and all the rest, so Jack’s been doing a good job in there.
Marcus Hall is on the bubble, but, you know, probably closer side of the bubble, whatever that means. Corey Linsley probably will. Reid Fragel probably will. Duron Carter probably will. James Jackson and Chris Fields, probably on the bubble, maybe more towards the side of the bubble that might not, according to how our depth is going out wide and so forth. Kenny Guiton right now is number three, so we’ll see. Jordan Hall and Jaamal Berry probably will. Zach Boren and Adam Homan will. Dominic Clarke probably will play. Corey Brown, on the bubble, probably closer to the bubble not this week, but we hope we stay — you never know. And you never know how guys progress.”
Tressel was then asked about Navy quarterback Ricky Dobbs:
I’ve listened to our defensive guys talk about the fact that he throws it extremely well. Obviously he runs it well. He’s had huge games running the ball. He brings back experience. He stepped in and took advantage of his opportunities, but the thing that I keep hearing as I listen is he’s a very, very good passer and that’s scary in this offense because if you don’t have the play action covered, there could be a sinking feeling when you see that ball flying out there knowing none of our guys are around.”
The Vest was later asked if it’s difficult for his secondary to prepare for Navy
Oh, absolutely. There’s to me, two huge things about the secondary. One is that they will never have seen so many guys flying at them at the speed at which it happens here and the number of cut blocks and so forth they’re going to have to deal with and number two is the speed of hard play action and you’re on your horse heading into the pursuit lanes and all of the sudden the quarterback’s off the line of scrimmage and here goes a receiver running by you. Maybe a guy you were running away from, so you didn’t get cut by him, now all of a sudden he’s running by you so, yeah, it’s tough for the secondary.”
