Just saw the Ohio State news about Jim Tressel getting his ring of honor induction on September 5th. That man deserves every bit of that recognition even if it kills me to say anything nice about that program up north. Tressel coached the way college football was meant to be coached. He built those Ohio State teams with discipline and loyalty and you never saw his guys jumping into the portal every time things got tough. He won the 2002 national championship the old fashioned way with a defense that just refused to break and a running game that wore you down. Reminds me of what Barry Alvarez did here in the 90s when we went to three Rose Bowls in four years. You knew exactly what those teams were going to do and you still could not stop them.
I remember sitting in Camp Randall in 1993 watching us punch Ohio State right in the mouth and beat them 14-14 when we were still building something real. That game meant something because both teams had guys who had been in the program for four or five years. You recognized every face on that field. Now look at what we have. Oregon is sitting there with Dylan Raiola and Dante Moore fighting for one quarterback job while we are trying to figure out who is even going to be on the roster come August. Oklahoma State brought in 50 transfers. FIFTY. That is not a football team that is a hotel lobby.
The ring of honor ceremony is going to be something special because it represents an era that is completely gone. Tressel understood that you win with culture not with checkbooks. He found guys who fit his system and developed them over four years. You cannot do that anymore when every December is a free agency frenzy. I miss when the Big Ten was about winning the line of scrimmage and pounding the rock. Now it is about who has the biggest NIL collective and the flashiest uniforms.
Good for Tressel. He earned that the way we used to earn things around here. I just wish the game he loved still looked anything like what he built.