| 16 December 2010
Tressel can't close. We have heard it for so long we can just use the abbreviation, "TCC". There were rumblings even before the National Championship game in the 2006-2007 season. After that most forgettable game the bottom fell out of recruiting. It looked like one of those years that Buckeye fans would always remember. A National Championship and the number one recruiting class. Fans were talking about it like was just a matter of time. A player like Joseph Barksdale, rumored to be a Buckeye even before the season started verballed LSU. It seemed to steamroll from there. Tressel can't close.
It seems to rear its ugly head every year at the end of recruiting. The message boards on the various sites are dominated by it. Fans no longer believe the Buckeyes are going to finish strong in recruiting. The recent verbal of Ohio born and raised Tank Carradine set off a barrage of I told you so posts when Carradine verballed Florida State on Wednesday.
Here is the truth. It isn't that Tressel can't close. Tressel doesn't try to close. Not the way it is done out there by so many programs. I will never forget a few years ago talking with the mother of an out of state recruit I got friendly with during recruiting. This was post-signing day. Her son did not sign with the Buckeyes. She saw them all. About the only major coach who did not offer her son was Mack Brown at Texas. Every other coach made his way into her living room. She told me the only coach who did not negatively recruit was Jim Tressel. It is important to keep in mind that her son did not choose to become a Buckeye. The Buckeye coach is not going to play the game the way the "closers" play the game. Pete Carroll is a great guy. You can hate him all you want. People associated with Ohio State speak highly of him. Do you recall just a couple of years ago that two of the nations best receivers were comparing notes and discovered that Carroll told each of them that he was their number one guy? Nobody is going to forget that spectacle last year with Urban Meyer, after resigning, coming back and some of the things he was telling recruits. It was appalling. Do you see Jim Tressel doing that?
A cousin of mine found himself in a position to go along on an unofficial recruiting visit with his wifes cousin because the young mans Dad could not make it here. My cousin was always a Buckeye fan but became a diehard Jim Tressel fan after this recruiting visit. He says they drove around campus that day in a truck. Jim Tressel never brought up football.
Jim Tressel can't close? No he can't. He never will.
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