Ohio State Football: Putting together the all-time Jim Tressel team
By Ryan Stano
The Ohio State football team had plenty of great players during the Jim Tressel era. The Buckeyes kept winning the Big Ten. He coached some truly awesome teams, including a national title team and two teams that played for consecutive national titles.
The players Jim Tressel coached had a lot to do with it. He was a master recruiter and was great at getting the most out of the players he coached, even the ones that weren’t as highly rated coming out of high school. Some of those lower-rated players actually make this list.
Here, we try to put together an all-time team of players that Tressel coached. As we did for Urban Meyer’s all-time team, that means that players he just recruited and didn’t get to coach won’t be on this list (sorry Braxton Miller), but that still gives us a ton of really good players to choose from.
The first position we will fill on this team is quarterback, which was the easiest decision on this entire list.
Ohio State football all-time team under head coach Jim Tressel
Ohio State Football All-Time Jim Tressel team, Quarterback: Troy Smith
This was a no-brainer. In my opinion, Troy Smith is the greatest quarterback in Ohio State football history. Smith was a Heisman Trophy winner and is still the last Heisman winner that the Buckeyes have had. He won overwhelmingly in 2006, having the largest margin of victory until Joe Burrow in 2019.
Smith threw for 5,720 yards in his career as well as 54 touchdowns. His legs are what made him special. In 2005 alone he ran for 611 yards and 11 touchdowns. While he used his legs less in that Heisman-winning season, the threat still made defenses have to gameplan for it.
Smith was clearly the best quarterback that Tressel coached. It was unfortunate that his last game was that awful National Championship Game against Florida. That was by far the worst game of his career and it was on the biggest stage. But he’s still remembered as an all-time legend.
Next, we move to running back. This was a much harder decision.