Ohio State Football: Comparing careers of Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel

Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel were two all-time great Ohio State football coaches. Here is a comparison of their outstanding careers.

Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel will forever be legends in Ohio State football history. But who was the better head coach while at the helm of the Buckeyes?

It’s pretty obvious who is the better head coach over their entire careers. But I think it is very close when comparing their tenures as Ohio State head coaches.

We know who the greatest head coach in Ohio State football history is but Meyer and Tressel are the only two that can compete for second on that list. This is a comparison that has always interested me.

In this article I am going to give my opinion on who the second place coach should be. It should be noted that I am only comparing their times at the helm of the Buckeyes. Let’s get started.

Both of these legendary coaches were born in raised in Ohio, and had a head coaching job in the state before they eventually came to Columbus to coach the Buckeyes. Both were able to bring a national title to the program, each defeating a dynastic program on the way to victory.

But after that there are quite a few differences. We will start with coach Tressel.

Jim Tressel was hired as the Buckeye head coach at the start of the 2001 College Football season. He inherited an Ohio State program that went 14-10 over the previous two seasons.

While 14-10 isn’t awful for most programs, let it be known that Urban Meyer lost 9 times in 7 years and Tressel lost 22 times in 10 years. So by Ohio State standards, 14-10 is abysmal.

Tressel would go 7-5 in his first season but he would keep good on his assurance he made to Buckeye fans attending an Ohio State basketball game just after being hired as head coach. He said his team would be ready to play Michigan the last game of the regular season, and ready they were as the Buckeyes defeated the 10th ranked Wolverines 26-20.

The next season is by far the most memorable in Tressel’s tenure. He would lead the Buckeyes to a 14-0 record en route to one of the great national championship games in college football history as the Buckeye’s defeated Miami (FL) by the score of 31-24 in double overtime.

Coach Tressel would get to the national title game two more times over the course of the next eight years only to come up short in both instances. Ironically, one of those losses was against an Urban Meyer led Florida team.

His failure to capture another title doesn’t mean that the next eight years wouldn’t be great for the Buckeyes.

At the end of Tressel’s ten year tenure, his overall record as head coach of the Buckeyes would be 106-22, good for an 83% win percentage and 66-14 in the Big Ten, also an 83% percentage. He won the Big Ten title 7 out of 10 years including winning 6 in a row to end his tenure.

Even more importantly, Tressel only lost to Michigan once, in 2003. This is no small feat either, the Wolverines were still very formidable under Lloyd Carr, not so much under Rich Rodriguez.

In Ohio State head coaching history, Tressel is tied for first in bowl wins, second in conference championships, ranks third among all Ohio State head coaches in total wins, conference wins and conference win percentage. Finally, Tressel ranks fifth in total win percentage and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2015.

Some of the more notable players that were molded under Tressel’s guidance include Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith, Terrelle Pryor, Ted Ginn Jr., Malcolm Jenkins, Beanie Wells, Craig Krenzel, A.J. Hawk, James Laurinaitas and Chris Gamble.

Now a look at the accomplishments of this great head coach.