Jim Tressel Ball Quotations

We're anxious to get into Big Ten play. I think the Big Ten is going to be a very, very tough conference this year. As you look at everybody from side to side and throughout the conference, they've had some tough ball games, they've had some great wins. I just think it's going to be a very strong league, and we start out with an awfully strong one with the university of Iowa. They're a physical football team. They have dropped a game, but they didn't have their quarterback that day. They're just an outstanding team as they've shown over the years, and we have to be ready to compete.

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.

Our punt return game, those guys have done a great job up front, plus Tone (Holmes) and Teddy (Ginn Jr.) back in the back. Somebody told me (the Aztecs) had nine three-and-outs. When they're starting with the ball on their 11 and they're having a three-and-out, and our punt-returners are catching the ball around midfield, that's huge for the offense.

Both sides of the ball did some good things. Now we've got to get better before next week.

We have a clock for each team, ... What we try to point out is you need to use every second to get ready for the opportunity to play a ball game because you only have, in this day and age, eleven opportunities, and next year begins twelve. You have to make sure you use your preparation time to get ready for that and most especially use your preparation time throughout the entire year so you're at your best in that last game. That's just something we believe in terms of preparation and something that we talk about and obviously have.

We felt going into the Big Ten season if we could evolve to the fact where we always had a 100-yard back, then we could probably spread the ball around enough to have a good offense. We're starting to get consistent with that.

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.

You evaluate the entire production. If we had caught that ball and win the game by nine points, I don't know if we're sitting here and saying we're perfect. You still figure out how we can be the best we can be.

Teddy is a terrific weapon and we want to get the ball in his hands as often as possible, ... The majority of his play will come on offense, but he gets a great break on the ball so there will be times in the red zone where we will utilize him on defense, too. With Maurice Hall (the school's all-time leader in kick return yardage) gone, we will use him on both punt and kick returns. He and Santonio (Holmes) give us two very dangerous weapons back there.

Teddy Ginn is a guy we try to have touch the ball as much as possible. I don't know if we'll ever limit ourselves.

It obviously was not by design that he didn't touch the ball more, ... If we would have done a better job of making touchdowns it would have come out differently.

As you watched Troy throughout his career, every day in practice, he learns a little something and gets better, and he learns from every ball game. He's very passionate about being a great quarterback, and each day he's taking a step closer to it.

As you know, we had a heck of a ball game with Michigan State, ... John L. (Smith) and his staff did a great job. The lead changed hands often in that game, two teams playing extremely hard, and like we face each week in the Big Ten, it was a battle down until the end. I'm real proud of the way our kids continued to play. We fell behind (but) we kept going after it and I'm very proud of them.

I like his energy level. During the course of that Iowa game, the more he ran, the more he wanted it. He would run by the sideline and say, 'Get me the ball again.' You love to see that.