Jim Tressel Bit Quotations

I think the recruiting process, with all the Internet interviews and people checking up to see what things are said about them on the Internet, I think it's distracted young people a little bit. I'm not sure it's what they should be keeping their closest eye on, but I understand when someone's talking and you're one of the subjects, you're a little bit interested.

I think the strength of this class is its versatility. It has a little bit of everything: character, solid academic credentials and athletic ability. We went looking for help across the board at every position, and we feel as though we accomplished that goal.

I think in this day and age, you've got to be able to attack with a lot of different things. There are so many good guys out there that can throw and catch, and the evolution of football -- there's so many good ideas. Sometimes, things trickle down a little bit from the pros. Now, the pros don't allow their quarterback to get hit quite as much as we do in college football in our spread offenses and so forth, but I just think because people are so well-schooled on defense, you've got to give them more problems. I think if you have that as part of your package, it can give you a chance. Some of the people in our league do it very, very well.

I thought Troy did some real good things today. We'll go back and watch the film and I'm sure there will be lots of things that we say we need to do a little bit better, and maybe a ball or two we'd like to take a little off of or maybe not make that throw. But I think every time you're out there making decisions, you learn a little bit more, and I thought Troy progressed.

Troy did some realy good things, ... We'll go back and watch the film. I'm sure there will be lots of things that we need to do a little bit better. But I think every time you're out there making decisions, you learn a little bit more. Troy progressed and that's what we hoped for.

Most growth is through adversity. You've got to fight a little bit to grow.

Most growth is through adversity. You've got to fight a little bit to grow. That, in my mind, may be one of the reasons why Troy's had the extensive growth that he's had.

There are many times in a game there's a moment where you can break the spirit a little bit. It was only a 13-0 game. They had hope because of the score. Then all of a sudden when the score was 20-0, there's a little bit different emotion.

When you have to play extra people in the box to stop his run it's going to leave you a bit vulnerable to the pass. I thought he played hard. He kept getting hit and beat up and kept coming back. And his team won.

We feel like we've got some guys, we'd like to get the ball in their hands. Plus, we also think that if you can prove that you can do a good job throwing it, there aren't quite as many people in the box when you are trying to run it. Then I think when you add the quarterbacks into the run package, that's another bit of pressure you can put on the opposing defenses. So you'd like to be able to do it all, and I think that's why you see so many people doing it, and specifically the guys that we've got that are capable of making things happen when we deploy that way.

After the first play of the game, our defense dominated. After we were startled a little bit ... our defense decided no more of that and shut them down.

A lot of the games I've watched over the years, the unnoticed things are that 3rd-and-7 play where there's bracket coverage and everyone was tied up, and that quarterback ran for a first down and changed the momentum of the game. So we don't discount the importance of that, but you have to do things in progression. I just think Troy needs to be a little bit better from his progression standpoint.

I'm just excited to see his face and to see him smile a little bit and to see how anxious Maurice is to be back with his guys.

Absolutely. I think the consistency, or lack thereof -- where we are at this moment is not where you'd like to be after three games. We haven't done little things across the board. Everyone likes to discuss what we haven't done at quarterback, but we could talk a little bit about all the way down the line, where we need to get a lot better. We need to get a lot better fast, because when you start playing against the Big Ten defenses, yards and first downs and points are even more difficult. So we've got a lot of work to do and we've just got to get at it.

Antonio Pittman had an excellent spring and he's followed it up thus far with a very good fall. Erik Haw looks a little bit better right now than he did in the spring; maybe he's letting loose a little bit, maybe he was a little nervous. Maurice Wells is looking great.

Everyone likes to discuss what we haven't done at quarterback, but we could talk a little bit all the way down the line about where we need to get a lot better, ... We need to get a lot better fast, because when you start playing against the Big Ten defenses, yards and first downs and points are even more difficult.