LINCOLN — It was his first day as Youngstown State’s head football coach and Jim Tressel had already made an instant evaluation of a talented local prospect from the stands at a high school basketball game.
Tressel’s thought: Bo Pelini didn’t belong on a court.
“I knew he wasn’t going to be a basketball player. That much I knew,” Tressel said. “I think he might have fouled out.”
Tressel wasn’t there for hoops, though. He soon offered Pelini a football scholarship, presumably hoping that the Cardinal Mooney High School standout would choose to stay in his hometown and play for Youngstown State.
Pelini eventually declined Tressel’s offer and picked Ohio State. But the connection between the now-prominent college football coaches has never vanquished.
“I didn’t blame him for going to Ohio State when he had that opportunity,” said Tressel, who’s now entering his 10th season as Ohio State’s head coach. “And (I’ve) been proud of him ever since.”
Tressel was in Lincoln on Monday to speak at Nebraska’s Sports Celebration Banquet, an event orchestrated by the state’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
Pelini was actually out of town Monday — though that didn’t stop Tressel from reminiscing on his mentor-like relationship with the third-year Nebraska coach.
Tressel said he and Pelini spoke a few times during the early months of 2008, after the Huskers introduced Pelini as their new coach.
But Pelini wasn’t exactly looking for advice back then. It was more like a series of calls to get some credible affirmation, Tressel said.
“I was a little bit more (like) a sounding board,” Tressel said. “He knew what he was going to do.
So Tressel hasn’t been too surprised with the success that Pelini has had during his first two seasons at Nebraska. The Huskers are 19-8 since Pelini took the job and expectations are rising as anticipation mounts for the 2010 campaign.
“You can see he’s done a great job of making sure that everyone understands the responsibility they have to live up to this tradition, the way that things are done in Huskerland,” Tressel said. “I think he’s very methodical, very prepared.”
Tressel talked with local reporters for about 20 minutes before his speech Monday evening, covering a number of topics. Here are some of the highlights:
• Expansion in the Big Ten is inevitable, according to Tressel.
He doesn’t want to appear that he has any inside knowledge on the topic, but he doesn’t seem to see a scenario in which his conference doesn’t add another team soon.
“I’m not much different than the people on the talk shows or anything else,” he said. “I just think it might happen.”
And what about Nebraska? Could the Huskers be a possible candidate to join? Some reports suggest that the Big Ten is considering the addition of as many as five schools.
All Tressel could say is this: “Nebraska’s very highly thought of.”
• Officials at Nebraska and Ohio State have discussed scheduling a home-and-home football series in the future, Tressel confirmed.
Tressel said that initially, 2021 was the earliest starting date that fit both programs’ plans. He’s not sure how quickly discussions have progressed lately.
Asked if he’ll still be coaching the Buckeyes at that point, Tressel said, “I’m not sure I’ll make it that far.”
• Tressel said he and his coaching staff at Youngstown State used to make regular trips to Lincoln during the spring practice season.
They wanted to see what Tom Osborne was up to.
According to Tressel, the two programs ran option offenses and were philosophically similar in their structures during that time. Both were also successful. Nebraska earned three national titles during the 1990s. Youngstown State won four Division I-AA championship during that stretch.
“In those mid-90s, we were kind of like the Nebraska of the I-AAs,” said Tressel, who coached at Youngstown State from 1986 to 2000.
• Count Tressel among the many who left Nebraska’s football facilities with a positive impression.
He took an Osborne-guided tour Monday and as it turns out, Tressel admitted that he might steal a few ideas of the Huskers’ ideas, so he can better lure young recruits of his own.
He really like Nebraska’s new Heisman room. “That’d knock your socks off if you were a recruit,” he said.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9585, jon.nyatawa@owh.com
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