Ohio Coaches Mourn OSU Loss

[Orestes]

Terry Pluto-----Plain Dealer

. "After a game like that, you feel crushed," said Akron football coach J.D. Brookhart. "Absolutely, positively crushed. It rips you apart inside."

Brookhart was talking about Ohio State's 24-21 loss to No. 3 Texas in the Fiesta Bowl on Monday night. It was a game the Buckeyes seemed to have won, until a defensive breakdown with 16 seconds left led to a 26-yard touchdown pass from Colt McCoy to Quan Cosby.

This was a game where the Buckeyes were at least an eight-point underdog. It was a game where many OSU fans feared another embarrassment like the losses to LSU (38-24) and Florida (41-14) in the Buckeyes' last two bowl appearances. But it became a game where coach Jim Tressel had his team on the verge of an upset that would help restore the Buckeyes as an elite college team after so many had written them off.

"This was so much worse than losing to LSU, because they came so close," said Brookhart. "That's why it hurts so much. My father is a high school coach. He says some losses take so much out of you, that no win can bring it all back."
. "I think all the coaches in Ohio in are mourning," said Ashland's Lee Owens.
Brookhart doesn't mean the Buckeyes' days as a national championship contender are over. He just knows how important the game was to Tressel and his players. Like so many Ohio college coaches, he desperately wanted the Buckeyes to win that game.

"Coach Tressel usually wins close games like that," said Baldwin-Wallace coach John Snell. "It had a chance to be such a great night. They had a great game plan and the kids played so hard ..."

But they still lost.

"I think all the coaches in Ohio in are mourning," said Ashland University's Lee Owens. "It seems like the longer you are in this, the harder the losses are to take and the longer they are to shake off. Coach Tressel is as balanced as anyone, but believe me, he's hurting today."

Owens mentioned Tressel's support of Ohio college football, how he plays Mid-American Conference teams and Youngstown State to help their budgets with guaranteed gates. He said Tressel has done fund-raisers for Ohio Division II and Division III schools.

Tressel's father was a coach at Baldwin-Wallace, and Tressel played quarterback for the school. He is still a strong supporter of B-W, and Snell knows the Tressel family well.

"He is such a good man, we should be proud of him in this state," said Snell.

But after Monday's game, the Big Ten is 1-6 in bowl games. The conference is 15-23 in bowls since Ohio State won the 2002 national championship.

"Before the game, Coach Tressel was talking about wanting to win for his 28 seniors," said Mount Union's Larry Kehres. "I believe that. It's a hard loss for the coaches and the underclassmen, but they are coming back to prepare for next year. But for the seniors, it's their last game."

Kehres has won 10 NCAA Division III national titles, but he has lost twice in the finals, twice in the Final Four. Each time, he said, he thought mostly about his seniors after the game.

"You don't want them to leave thinking they had a bad experience playing at your school, or that they somehow let you down," he said. "Those seniors have accomplished so much, as a coach, you don't want anything to wreck your relationship with them."

The Buckeye seniors have four Big Ten titles and a 43-9 record, but many fans and media members dwell on the 1-3 bowl record. The tendency is to forget where the Buckeyes were before Tressel -- 2-10-1 vs. Michigan compared to 7-1 under Tressel -- and major struggles in some minor bowl games.

Snell said it's one of those games that a coach looks back on and wonders ...

The Buckeyes twice went for two-point conversions and failed to convert ...

Star running back Beanie Wells had 106 yards in 16 carries but left the game in the third quarter with a concussion ...

There was the final play for Texas, where a tackle was missed ...

"You have to let it go, or it just makes you miserable," said Snell. "It's your last game, there is nothing you can do about it now."

Kent State's Doug Martin is not from Ohio, but mentioned that he barely knew Tressel when he called the OSU coach for advice when one of Martin's players had legal trouble. They talked a couple of times, Tressel being gracious and giving useful advice.

"I hurt for him," said Martin. "You know that he and his players were so motivated to get back that respect that his program really does deserve."

Ohio State has lost its last three bowl games.

Texas coach Mack Brown said it was "ridiculous" to judge Tressel only by those bowl games. He added, "Jim is the most consistent football coach and team for at least two years, because he's the only guy whose team played for the national title two years in a row ... people forget and say, 'You didn't win the big game.'"

Mount Union's Kehres said he heard Brown speak at a coaches convention about "not losing the joy that comes for coaching."

He said Tressel keeps that perspective, that he sat with Kehres in a coffee shop at 6 a.m. a day after a rough loss a few years ago. The Buckeyes coach was gracious, treating high-school and small-college coaches as peers.

"You won't find a better man to represent football in our state," said Kehres. "People need to remember that."