EDITOR'S NOTE -- Here is a video link with the first 15 minutes of Jim Tressel's press conference:
http://scoutingoh.com/Bucknuts_Jim_Tressel_090208.htm
Jim Tressel is well aware of the gasps of horror and other dramatic reactions and overreactions that ensued in Columbus and across the college football landscape Saturday when his star tailback, Chris “Beanie” Wells, went down in a clump during the third quarter of Ohio State’s decimation of Youngstown State. Heck, the OSU coach said his heart “skipped a beat” as well.
Today, though, after calmer heads prevailed and medical minds evaluated the situation, it appears OSU’s lead horse isn’t going to have to be put down after all. He will most likely be stashed in the stable for a week, however.
During his weekly media luncheon address, Tressel went so far as to suggest that Buckeye fans can even go on with their lives.
“Tell them to worry more about (tropical storms) Gustav and Rita,” the coach told reporters. “Beanie will be fine.”
Tressel said the outlook involving Wells, a junior and Heisman Trophy candidate, has become increasingly optimistic in the last 70 hours. He trainers labeled Wells as doubtful for this week’s game with Ohio University early this morning.
“Then I saw Beanie about 10:30-ish in the training room and he said he felt great,” Tressel said. “He’s coming along.”
No one on the staff has yet ruled Wells as out for the upcoming clash with the Bobcats (noon Eastern, ESPN) at Ohio Stadium.
“I have the third vote,” Tressel said. “The first vote is the young person, because if they don’t want to play … I haven’t found too many of those guys. Most of those guys are saying, `I feel fine.’ But then the medical people have a major vote. And how you practice has a little bit to do with it, especially as you get into the back end of the week. Wednesday, Thursday practices are critical. So I’ll have that third and deciding vote, I guess.”
As OSU was sewing up a 43-0 win over the Penguins, Wells fumbled before contact inside the YSU 10-yard line and immediately began clutching his right foot. After being helped off the field before en eerily silent crowd, he went to the locker room on a cart for evaluation. After X-rays determined no fractures he returned with a walking boot and a very noticeable limp.
Speculation since Saturday night has ranged from Wells being able to return this week to him being out for the entire season. Certainly, the injury was frightening for OSU fans after he writhed in pain on the field for a full two minutes.
Wells later told coaches he felt a “pop” the play before, although one media outlet reported he said it was maybe a play or two before that.
As for official term of the injury, Tressel could manage only a shrug and humorous answer.
“I can’t even think of the word, if I’ve heard some fancy word,” he said. “His foot’s hurting. A lot of time you hear, `It’s his brachial plexus’ and all this stuff. It used to be ‘my shoulder is hurting,’ and now it became a brachial plexus. Let’s go back to ‘his foot hurts.’ ”
Moments later, Tressel offered the simplest scenario.
“If he’s ready, he goes,” he said.
Tressel, who will be looking for his 75th win at Ohio State while the program sits on 799 victories all-time, added that he is not sure who would start at tailback in Wells’ stead. The candidates are redshirt freshman Daniel “Boom” Herron, sophomore Brandon Saine and senior Maurice Wells.
Also on the health front, senior wideout Brian Robiskie is expect to be full-go after slightly re-injuring a jammed shoulder against YSU. Robiskie said he aggravated his shoulder after landing on the tender area of it.
Also, the prognosis for junior strong safety Kurt Coleman appears to be positive. Coleman rolled an ankle last week and was held out of the opener. True sophomore Jermale Hines played well in his spot, earning praise from coaches and teammates.
One Buckeye who clearly appears to be out of the fray is freshman kicker Ben Buchanan, who was slated to redshirt this season anyway. Tressel said Buchanan was whisked away Monday night to a local hospital for a possible issue with his appendix.
However, the team had a productive practice yesterday with no major setbacks.
“Hopefully you got to labor on Labor Day as we did,” Tressel said. “We had a nice hot one for our work yesterday. We were excited about the fact that we got to play a game on Saturday. With spring practice and all the preseason I can’t even imagine what the guys were thinking with all the time that they’ve spent in the weight room and out on the field on their own and so forth. It was good to get out there and see what we could do.”
The offense was productive with 495 total yards and 24 first downs. The defense was stifling with seven three-and-outs and by holding YSU to just 74 total yards. Still, the talk heading into week two centered on improvement in all areas.
“I think the coaches and our players are setting a standard for themselves that they want to be very, very good,” Tressel said. “The performances were solid, but I don’t know that they were extraordinary. Now we have a chance to get out on the field and see if we can get better.”
That change will come against the visiting Bobcats, who lost their opener at Wyoming last weekend, 21-20.
OU led 17-14 at halftime and 20-14 until midway into the fourth quarter but could not overcome two turnovers and a dozen penalties.
“I was impressed with the battle that they staged out at Wyoming,” Tressel said. “That’s a tough situation, going clear across the country. They lost a tough ballgame but really looking at the game they were in command a good bit of the time. A couple costly penalties against them on that last drive really made the difference.
“Ohio U. is going to be like the coaches. (Head coach Frank) Solich is one of those guys who’s all business. He’s a tough guy. He was a 150-pound fullback, and that tells you enough to know about what he’s all about. And his team plays that way.”
Tressel also noted that the Bobcats will enter town as “extremely competitive on special teams.”
Ohio U. ranked in the top 10 in the country last year in kickoff returns and busted a 100-yarder last week for a score. Tressel said the Bobcats also like to pressure the punt and are a heavy blitz team on defense.
Tressel thoroughly reviewed the tape of OU’s opener and also managed to see parts of three nationally televised games involving Big Ten members, all of them losses – Utah-Michigan, Michigan State-California and Illinois-Missouri.
“We got three losses in those games,” he said, “but I don’t think we have to apologize for the way our teams played. I thought they played extremely hard and those were good games, those were good teams.”
As for the now top-ranked USC Trojans, who the Buckeyes will see in person Sept. 13, Tressel was among those who took notice of their 52-7 destruction of Virginia.
“They dominated the game,” he said. “They did a great job. It’s impressive when you can go all the way across the country and dominant the way they did.”
Along with closely monitoring the physical progress of Wells as the anticipation builds for the USC trip, the OSU coaches also will continue to evaluate every position, most notably quarterback.
Tressel said he wanted reserve QBs Terrelle Pryor and Joe Bauserman to each get a chance to work with the second team and first team behind starter Todd Boeckman. A true freshman, Pryor entered the game ahead of Bauserman and scored a touchdown but Tressel pointed out how close the two are and that Bauserman actually took more snaps.
Still, Tressel offered up a crowd pleaser by inserting the highly recruited Pryor into the game’s third series. He took the field with five other first-year players – wideouts DeVier Posey and Lamaar Thomas and linemen Mike Adams, Michael Brewster and J.B. Shugarts.
“That’s a little frightening now that I think about it,” Tressel said of playing six true freshmen together that early in the game.
Tressel insisted he has no “clearcut” No. 2 quarterback at the moment but added that if the next game were today Pryor would be the first substitute in at QB.
He also said Pryor played “as I hoped he would,” but added that none of the three signal callers graded out to a winning performance (85 percent or higher) on Saturday.
The following are the winners of the staff’s player of the week awards post-Youngstown State:
Special Teams POW – Ray Small
Offensive POW – Rory Nicol
Defensive POW – Marcus Freeman
Jim Parker Offensive Lineman – Alex Boone
Attack Force – Nader Abdallah
Jack Tatum Hit of the Week – Malcolm Jenkins
Scout Team Special Teams – James Georgiades
Scout Team Offense – Ryan Schuck
Scout Team Defense – Zach Domicone
Tressel said the 6-8, 312-pound Boone is in the best condition that he’s seen him in and that the hulking left tackle graded out to 89 percent in the game.
He added that Small’s first game was a continuation of a productive fall camp. Small had three catches for 35 yards and his four punt returns totaled 79 yards, although his 45-yard return would have gone for 65 if not for an illegal block.
“Ray could be a real exciting punt returner if we didn’t have penalties,” Tressel said. “That’s about our third long one that’s been called back in about seven or eight games.”
A reporter mentioned to Tressel that Small, who has encountered a few off-field problems, didn’t know if he was still in Tressel’s doghouse or not.
“Don’t tell him either way,” Tressel shot back.
When asked if he has a doghouse, Tressel added, “Yeah, I’ve got a big one.”
(We will have a full transcript of Tressel’s address a little bit later today.)
Tressel Addresses Big Ten Media
Earlier in the day, Tressel began his portion of today's Big Ten coaches teleconference with a look back at the Youngstown State game and a look ahead to this weekend's game against Ohio.
"It's great to get the season started," Tressel said. "We seem like we've been practicing for months and months. Our guys had a chance to go out in Ohio Stadium and play a good football game. A lot of guys got a chance to play. I think the biggest thing we recognize from Saturday's performance is that we have a long way to go to become as good as we think we're capable of and would like to be. We're looking forward to Ohio University coming over. They had a whale of a game out in Wyoming, a 21-20 ball game and played very physical and tough just like coach Frank Solich is and teaches. We're looking forward to this week."
Naturally, the focus of today's questions for Tressel surrounded the injury status of running back Chris "Beanie" Wells, who left Saturday's game against Youngstown State with an apparent foot injury.
Tressel did not elaborate on the medical diagnosis of Wells but did say that he would likely not play in this weekend's game against Ohio.
"I would call him doubtful for this week, although I saw him in the training room earlier this morning and he said he feels really, really good and that type of thing," he said. "I think if the game we're today he probably wouldn't go but I guess we'll have to go day-by-day."
Tressel was also asked if he felt the condition was one that might linger throughout the season.
"I really don't know the answer to that," he said. "I would hope it doesn't because there's a lot of pounding on a big tailback's wheels, and I'd like to think we can get this behind us."
Wells's status for the September 13 game against USC appears to be not yet determined. Tressel said that he just hopes Wells can come back as soon as possible.
"We wouldn't play him Saturday if he doesn't get some work this week," he said. "I wouldn't expect him to practice today, but if he could get some work on Wednesday and Thursday -- basically Friday for us is just a walkthrough day. I'm hoping he can get back in there as quick as possible, as early as this week, but I don't realistically think there are any promises there."
The running back duties this weekend will fall to senior Maurice Wells, sophomore Brandon Saine, and redshirt freshman Dan Herron. Tressel discussed what their roles would be and gave an idea of what each player brings to the table.
"I think it's a little bit by committee," Tressel said. "I thought Mo Wells really had an impressive day Saturday. Dan Herron has been impressive ever since he's been here, and Brandon Saine is finally back to where he's 100 percent healthy. You can see him just starting to get his burst back. We won't do bunches of different things. The rest of the group has been working hard at the things that we do, so we're not going to change conceptually, just different people doing it.
"Mo Wells is the veteran of the group. He's done everything. He understands the pass protection. He's been in games, knows our offense inside and out and I think is a real good, solid back. Dan Herron is a young guy who has shown great explosiveness and very impressive to us a year ago on the scout team and then this year in preseason and even last spring. Then Brandon Saine is a guy that is so versatile. We've played him out wide, played him at fullback, played him in the slot. He'll probably focus a bit more at tailback this week. He's very, very talented."
Some have speculated that Wells's injury could mean a bigger role in the offense for freshman quarterback Terrelle Pryor. Tressel was pleased with Pryor's performance against Youngstown State but said the health of Wells might not have any impact on Pryor's future reps.
"I thought Terrelle did a good job, being a freshman coming in sharing reps," Tressel said. "There were three guys getting reps, and Todd of course getting the bulk of them. For the limited reps that he's had, I think he's grasped what he's trying to do. Will we continue to try to find ways to utilize his talent? Absolutely. I don't know if it's in relation to Beanie's health or not, but I just think that as Terrelle keeps coming on and understanding and filling the package from a knowledge standpoint, it's a great luxury I think to have three guys at quarterback like we have."
Another player who had a solid game against Youngstown State was wide receiver Ray Small, who has seen some time in Tressel's doghouse in recent months. Tressel says Small has made strides in the right direction and is doing better than ever.
"I think he's really been coming around from a consistency standpoint," Tressel said. "Everyone saw the punt returns and all that. I thought he did a good job out wide and is where he needed to be. I think he's playing faster with more confidence, and I just think he feels better about who he is and what he's doing -- maybe the best he's felt since he's been here."
Somewhat lost in the all the discussion of Chris Wells and Terrelle Pryor has been the fact that the Ohio State defense was dominant against Youngstown State, holding the Penguins to just five first downs and 74 yards of total offense.
"I thought our defense was really solid," Tressel said. "They had seven three-and-outs, which is a lot of three-and-outs. They were assignment sound. We didn't know exactly what offense Youngstown was going to run. We heard they went to a spread, but you never know. There's so many different kinds of spread attacks that they had to really react to what was being done, and I thought they did that very, very well. In fairness to Youngstown, they were doing something new, and going against our veteran defense is a tough first outing for any new offense, but I thought our guys played very well. We need to come up with some more takeaways, but sometimes when you get guys three-and-out it's hard to get takeaways. I think they're coming along."
Tressel also commented on the new clock rules, which were expected to result in quicker games. OSU's game against Youngstown State did not even reach the three hour mark.
"My guess going in is that we were going to have less plays, and I think maybe we did," Tressel said. "I think we averaged about 172 total plays in a game over the course of the season last year, counting offense, defense, and special teams, and I think we were somewhere around 150 (against Youngstown Sate). Our game was over in less than three hours. It didn't feel that different. There were no clock issues. There was no adjusting to any mechanical things. I just think realistically we're going to have less plays, but we'll see how the season bears out."
