Jim Tressel's Record at Ohio State and His Similarity to Bob Stoops

He has accumulated many nicknames over the years, from the Senator to CheatyPants McSweaterVest. He has also accumulated many wins, conference titles, a national title, and two spectacular flameouts in the past two BCS title games.

He is Jim Tressel, head coach of Ohio State and one of the more controversial figures in college football.

He would seem an unlikely candidate for controversy. He wins a lot but seldom via embarrassing blowouts. He speaks out in public only on rare occasions. He projects an image of a conservative, almost introverted college professor who is more likely to give a lecture on economics than a pregame motivational speech.

Then again, Tressel earned the second nickname listed above thanks to a string of off the field incidents ranging from player arrests to guys taking money from boosters.

They date back to his time at Youngstown State, and a New York Times article from the week before his game against Florida outlines the major stories if you're interested.

One thing that can't be denied, however, is that the man wins a lot of games. Through seven seasons in Columbus, he has won a national title, four conference titles, and appeared in five BCS bowl games.

He is one of only two coaches, along with Bob Stoops, to have made three BCS championship games. However, they are also the only two coaches to have lost two of them in a row.

Ohio State has won the Big Ten three years in a row, and it appears to have the best team going into 2008. That means Tressel is threatening to turn the Big Ten into what Pete Carroll has made the Pac-10: one team on top and everyone else playing for second place.

Here is Tressel's record broken down by site. This table does not include games against I-AA teams.

Overall, that's pretty impressive. That's a winning percentage of .818, which is about as good as anyone can do over an extended period of time.

The bowl record obviously could use some work, but I'll get into more of that later. The home record isn't quite as good as I had expected, but two of those five losses came in Tressel's first year.

Here is Tressel's record broken down by site. As always, first tier opponents are teams that had a winning percentage of .750 or better, second tier were .500 to .749, third tier opponents were .250 to .499, and fourth tier opponents were .249 and below.

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