Ohio State's Offensive Meltdown Was Years in the Making

Ohio State's embarrassing 10-7 home loss to Michigan State on Saturday featured 178 yards of total offense and a near shutout, as Ohio State scored with 10 seconds remaining in the game.  In fact, Ohio State's scoreless first half was their first at home since 1982.  

Moreover, Ohio State's offensive line, which consists of four former 4-star recruits and a 5-star in Center Mike Brewster, was shredded for nine sacks.  Head Coach Luke Fickell even pulled promising Freshman starting QB Braxton Miller in the 4th quarter, just five days after proclaiming Miller to be "our Quarterback" and after affording Miller very few opportunities on Saturday to work out of the spread, shotgun or even throw the football on first or second down vs the Spartans.  Incredibly, very few designed quarterback runs were called, despite Miller's great quickness and open field skills, which were highlighted the previous week in his first start vs Colorado.

This complete offensive meltdown, unfortunately, doesn't fall totally at the feet of the overwhelmed first-year Head Coach or their embattled Offensive Coordinator and Offensive Line Coach Jim Bollman.  This debacle was actually years in the making due to the offensive control and the staff composition of former Head Coach Jim Tressel.  

During Tressel's ten year run at Ohio State, not one Assistant made over $309,000 annually, even though Tressel made $3,522,000 in 2010.  In fact, the three highest paid Big Ten Assistants in 2010 were Wisconsin's brilliant Offensive Coordinator Paul Chryst and Illinois Assistants Paul Petrino and Vic Koenig.  While many high profile schools like Florida, LSU, Texas, USC and Tennessee have made it common practice to pay their coordinators $500,000 or higher a season, Tressel never sought high profile coordinators.   

Rival Michigan even went out this offseason and lured Offensive Coordinator Al Borges into Ann Arbor along with former former Ravens Assistant Greg Mattison.  Mattison, Michigan's Defensive Coordinator, is being paid $750,000 in 2011 and will receive an additional $150,000 if Michigan wins this year's Big Ten Championship; Borges will make $350,000 in 2011.

However, Jim Tressel primarily chose or retained two types of assistants while he was at Ohio State:  friends or cronies who he had known and/or coached with for years who were not in demand, such as his brother Doc Tressel, Defensive Coordinator Jim Heacock and the aforementioned Bollman; and young coaches who had limited or no BCS Conference Coaching experience, such as Mel Tucker, Paul Haynes, Darrell Hazell, Luke Fickell, John Peterson, Tim Beckman and Nick Siciliano.  

Mark D'Antonio, Taver Johnson and Mark Snyder were exceptions to these categories, but for the most part, Tressel chose assistants who were not going to be in immediate demand from other schools.  What the program gained in continuity and stability, it lost in vision and creativity, as the staff seldom, if ever, challenged the controlling Tressel.  That was especially true on offense where Tressel was the real Offensive Coordinator, play caller and Quarterbacks Coach.  

When Tressel announced his resignation on May 30th, Athletic Director Gene Smith, a former football player himself at Notre Dame, should have known that Tressel's ten years of failing to attract the nation's top Assistants, especially on offense, would finally catch up to the program this season.  Through five games, we are all clearly seeing what Smith should have known and should have attempted to rectify long before Tressel's resignation in May.