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Football
Tressel Talks (Briefly) About OSU-Michigan
By Brandon Castel

COLUMBUS — A day after delicately evading questions about Ohio State and Michigan from the local media in Columbus, Jim Tressel was faced head-on with questions from the national media Tuesday.

Asked about the future of the rivalry during the Big Ten coaches’ teleconference, Tressel initially deflected the conversation back to his 2010 Buckeyes much like he did Monday during his weekly press conference.

“We’ve tried as hard as we can not to join that dialogue and that discussion with the thought in mind that we’ve got a ballgame here come up quickly, and a season to play even before that has any effect on anyone,” he said.

“I’ve always been one of those old fashion guys that my seniors, at this moment, are my greatest concern and that particular question doesn’t have much to do with my seniors.”

It was a similar stance to the one Tressel took Monday during his filibuster at the Fawcett Center.

“We do try to focus on the moment. What's most important to us right now are these 25 seniors and this 2010 Buckeye football team and the team itself, the group, where we fit in the whole picture is what's important. That's the way we feel. That's the way we've always felt,” he said Monday during the opening statement of his Marshall-week press conference.

“And obviously you've gotten a zillion and we've gotten a zillion emails about what's going to happen in the future from a conference standpoint and from a rivalry game standpoint and all those things, and I guess the way I always look at those things, I've sat in a lot of meetings with a lot of groups and what's most important at the end of the day, just like when we sit with our staff, whatever we bang out, whatever we decide that we're going to do, when we walk out of the room, we've got to make sure that that's what we believe in and that's what we teach and we gave it adequate discussion and so forth and sometimes they're the things that you really thought were good ideas and sometimes they weren't.”

It was a vague response to a very central topic, but Tressel was a little more specific about his feelings Tuesday.

“What in my life have I enjoyed? I’ve enjoyed being a part of and observing Ohio State and Michigan playing at the end of the season,” the 57-yeard old Tressel said.

“But I’m not silly enough to think my feelings are the only ones that are important.”

Tressel had hinted Monday that he would be in favor of keeping the game where it is, but more importantly he is in favor of doing “what the group needs and what the group decides.”

That group includes Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee along with athletic director Gene Smith, both of whom have expressed feelings that playing the OSU-Michigan earlier in the season would not take away from the rivalry. Those sentiments were echoed by Michigan Head Coach Rich Rodriguez during his portion of the Big Ten coaches’ teleconference.

“I think it's great having it at the end of the year, but inevitably change may happen,” Michigan’s third-year head coach said. 

“It will still be the greatest rivalry in college sports."

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