Hello and welcome to another edition of Tressel Tales, our weekly look back at the first year of Jim Tressel’s tenure as head football coach at Ohio State.
This week we find the Buckeyes reeling after a historically significant loss at Penn State, where they blew a double-digit second-half lead for the second Big Ten game in a row.
From the Buckeye Sports Bulletin archives
Ohio State traveled to Minnesota on Nov. 3, 2001, with a record of 4-3.
The Buckeyes were 2-2 in Big Ten play with a pair of painful, fall-from-ahead losses at the hands of Wisconsin in the Horseshoe and at Penn State.
That meant things were fairly desperate when they headed north to face a team coached by Glen Mason, an Ohio State alumnus who was among the finalists for the Ohio State head coach position in January.
Game recap: Ohio State 31, Minnesota 28
Minnesota scored first on a 30-yard field goal by Dan Nystrom midway through the first quarter.
Ohio State answered with a 12-play, 85-yard drive capped by a 2-yard touchdown run by Jonathan Wells out of a Full House backfield.
The Buckeyes went up 14-3 on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Steve Bellisari to tight end Darnell Sanders, but the Gophers scored 10 points in the last five minutes of the second quarter to send the game to the half with Ohio State leading 14-13.
Minnesota jumped in front 20-14 on a 52-yard touchdown run by Tellis Redmon one play after Wells lost a fumble, but Ohio State quickly responded with a 1-yard TD run by Wells to go back in front by a point.
Bellisari set up Wells’ score with a 20-yard gain on a QB draw and a 10-yard pickup on a sweep.
Early in the fourth quarter, the Buckeyes extended the lead to eight points with a 36-yard touchdown pass from Bellisari to Chris Vance, who out-battled Minnesota DB Ukee Dozier for the ball in the end zone.
“I was thinking right away, ‘You’re fixing to get dumped on,’” Vance recalled afterward.
Freshman Mike Nugent, who missed a 48-yard attempt in the second quarter, hit a 35-yard field goal to make it a two-possession game with 4:17 to go, but Minnesota drew within three with 1:55 left.
That left Michael Jenkins to recover the onside kick for Ohio State, and the Buckeyes were able to run out the clock after Wells ripped off runs of 18 and 21 yards.
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Notes and quotes from the game:
In a surprising twist, not one but two Minnesota players predicted they would beat the Buckeyes in pregame interviews. “We’re going to prepare like we’ve prepared the last couple of weeks, and we’re going to beat Ohio State,” said WR Antoine Burns. Tight end Ben Utecht also chimed in: “They’re coming off a tough loss. We’re going to give them another one.”
Ohio State ran for 265 yards and threw for 203, the type of balance Tressel had been searching for all season. Wells finished with 152 yards on 24 carries, Lydell Ross ran for 45 yards on 11 carries and Bellisari added 66 yards on 11 carries.
“We always talk about playing a full game on offense, and this is probably as close as we’ve come,” said Ohio State offensive coordinator Jim Bollman. “We’ll try to build on this.”
The passing game was efficient as Bellisari completed 12 of 17 passes for 203 yards and two touchdowns without a turnover. He was not sacked and averaged 16.9 yards per completion. Vance finished with 101 yards on five catches while Michael Jenkins caught three passes for 50 yards.
“He played great,” Wells said of Bellisari. “That’s what we’ve been waiting for. The guy has been giving us 110 percent in practice.”
Designed QB runs were a big part of the game plan for Ohio State, including the draw and sweeps out of the shotgun. Those took advantage of Bellisari’s well-known athleticism, which had been limited somewhat by a sprained foot in prior weeks.
“It’s something we’ve had in the playbook that we haven’t really gotten to yet,” Bellisari said. “We decided to use it this week, and it kind of paid off.”
Ohio State nose tackle Tim Anderson had two sacks and seven tackles, tied for second on the team with fellow linemen Darrion Scott and Will Smith. Linebacker Joe Cooper led the Buckeyes with eight tackles, and Mike Doss had an interception.
Tressel and Mason downplayed the idea there was any bad blood between them over the way Ohio State’s job search played out. At the time, Mason reportedly was distraught about not getting it, but he was eager to move on by the time the game rolled around, saying “I think a lot of things were fabricated by the media.”
Mason and Tressel, courtesy Buckeye Sports Bulletin
Tressel, who was on the same OSU staff as Mason under Earle Bruce in the early ‘80s, also claimed the entire episode was mischaracterized in the press. “You guys have painted a much different picture than there really is. I’ve known him a lot longer than I’ve known all of you, and I like all of you, by the way.”
Ohio State improved to 9-0 at the Metrodome in what Wells confirmed felt like a game the Buckeyes could not afford to lose. “It was 100 percent a must-win. If we would have come out today and lost, it could have gotten ugly for us.”
A primetime game meant Ohio State took the field after Big Ten frontrunners Purdue and Michigan lost in the afternoon. Illinois upset the Boilermakers 38-13, and the Wolverines lost 26-24 to Michigan State on a last-second touchdown pass from Jeff Smoker to T.J. Duckett made possible by the Spartan Stadium clock operator stopping the clock perhaps too quickly when Smoker spiked the ball a play earlier.
By beating Purdue, Illinois moved into a tie for first place with Michigan. They were both 4-1 in the league while Ohio State, Purdue and Michigan State were a game back.
As luck would have it, Ohio State was scheduled to finish the season with Purdue, Illinois and Michigan, so the Buckeyes’ fate was in their own hands despite the two losses in which they blew huge leads in October. “Now we’ve got our second wind. If we win out, we’re Big Ten co-champs. We know what we’re playing for now,” right tackle Shane Olivea said.
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Today’s perspective
It is hard today to think about Ohio State having to win at Minnesota to avoid the season completely going off the rails, but that was indeed the situation.
The Golden Gophers then were similar to now. After eight straight losing seasons, Mason had them in the middle of the pack in the Big Ten but not able to get over the hump, so this was a game that could have gone either way — perhaps similar to the way the rest of this season might play out for Ryan Day’s Buckeyes.
In another bit of symmetry between then and now, Tressel talked prior to the game about his team having trouble in the red zone and especially at the goal line:
“Short yardage is attitude and perfection. They’re going to have 10 guys up there, so you’ll have 10 up there. They don’t have to backpedal because there’s the end zone. You have to beat the guy over you and do it perfectly. It is a little bit of a guessing game. Are they going to pinch or angle or are they going to blitz? Are you going to block out, down block or throw it? But it comes down to attitude and execution. We know when we get into those high-anxiety areas we can’t make any mistakes. We have to eliminate the missed assignments.”
Next up
Ohio State was set to return home to play host to Purdue the following week.
The Boilermakers were coming off a season in which they shared the Big Ten title with Michigan and Northwestern and went to the Rose Bowl behind the play of QB Drew Brees. While he was gone, they remained formidable with Brandon Hance taking over head coach Joe Tiller’s then-unique one-back, pass-happy spread offense.
“When you have two losses, you have to get help from a lot of people if you want to have a chance to hang in the race, but that’s the beauty of the Big Ten — everyone is going after everyone else. Now we have a chance to get back in it,” Tressel said.
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Previous editions of the Tressel Tales:
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