Ohio State has captured at least a share of five consecutive Big Ten titles.
Since 2002 the Buckeyes have won 86 games, the fourth most among FBS schools.
OSU has represented the Big Ten in the BCS Championship game three times during that span.
In four of the six seasons the Buckeyes didn’t reach the title game, they still appeared in a BCS Bowl game, playing in the Fiesta Bowl three times, and reaching the Rose Bowl this season.
This barrage of success has all come after Jim Tressel took the helm at OSU in 2001.
And yet, after Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz was named Big Ten Coach of the Year on Monday, Tressel still has no coaching awards to show for his nine years of excellence.
One could make a strong case for Ferentz earning the distinction this year.
He led a Hawkeye squad to 10 regular season wins after it lost its starting running back for the year before the season started.
Iowa, picked to finish fifth in the conference’s preseason predictions, was ranked as high as No. 4 in the BCS this season.
Certainly, Ferentz’s credentials merit such recognition.
Tressel’s ‘09 resume could warrant the award as well. The Buckeyes coped with the loss of 28 seniors from last year’s squad by knocking off Penn State, Iowa and Michigan in succession to clinch the outright conference title.
OSU relied heavily on sophomores and juniors, and maintained a ranking inside the Top 20 all season.
Neither Ferentz nor Tressel would have been a wrong choice for Coach of the Year.
But despite the accolades “The Vest” has piled up throughout his Buckeye tenure, Tressel has never earned recognition of being the Big Ten’s best coach.
Since arriving at Ohio State, Tressel has led the Buckeyes to a 93-21 record and six Big Ten championships.
He has beaten rival Michigan in eight of his nine seasons — including a running streak of six victories.
Tressel will say that numbers and statistics don’t mean anything, but they paint a vivid picture of the excellence he has instilled in the OSU program.
When success goes unnoticed for so long, often times it eventually gets rewarded even when not at its peak.
When Kobe Bryant captured his first NBA MVP award in 2007, many experts reasoned that “he was due.” After all of the magnificent, stat-sheet-stuffed seasons he had put together without taking home the coveted distinction, even just an above-average year by his standards would have been enough to merit the award.
Many prognosticators used the same method of thinking when predicting the outcome of this year’s Heisman Trophy race. Texas quarterback Colt McCoy had slung touchdown passes left and right for two seasons, but finished behind Tim Tebow in ‘07 and Sam Bradford in ’08 in the Heisman voting. Instinctively, he was appointed the favorite entering 2009 because he was due.
If the same reasoning was applied to determining the Big Ten Coach of the Year, then Tressel is long overdue.
Eventually, his rare string of success in Columbus must be noticed and rewarded.
To Tressel, statistics don’t mean much. But to voters, they should.
