While tomorrow’s Fiesta Bowl will be the first time Ohio State and the University of Miami have faced each other since 1999, the team’s two head coaches are far from complete strangers.
Like OSU coach Jim Tressel, Miami’s head boss Larry Coker has ties to the Buckeyes. For two seasons in 1993 and 1994, Coker was the defensive backs coach at OSU under former coach John Cooper. At the time, Tressel, who was an assistant at OSU in the 1980s, was the coach at Youngstown State.
But more recently, the two second-year leaders met face-to-face when Tressel visited Coker and the Hurricanes during a spring practice session in Florida this off season.
“Our coaches were all around the country during the spring,” Tressel said. “But Miami was the only place I personally visited.”
Visiting other top-tier programs during the spring is nothing new to college football. A majority of football coaches spend the spring season traveling around and meeting with their colleagues.
“I think in April or late March, it’s the time of year that coaches bounce things off each other,” Tressel said. “I think whenever you can get together with any of your colleagues, you talk about everything that makes up a program.”
Hosting coaches, like Coker did, also has its advantages.
“When someone comes to visit us, we always try to gain more from them than we give,” Coker said. “Hopefully, we gained some things from Jim as well when he was here.”
While Tressel was in Florida, the two coaches discussed a wide variety of topics. However, the majority of the time was spent discussing off-the-field issues.
“We talked about a lot of things,” Tressel said. “We talked about recruiting, strength programs and the things young people confront in this day in age. What was neat was how open Larry was.” In fact, Tressel only watched the Hurricanes in action for a short period of time.
“Really, the football part was only about two hours on the field,” Tressel said. “That’s why I enjoy going to spring practices.”
Coker said that wasn’t as much by design as the timing of Tressel’s visit.
“We did run some scrimmage time,” Coker said. “But actually, it was an early spring practice for us.”
However, the irony of Tressel’s visit to the Buckeyes opponent is not lost on Coker.”Anything’s possible in college football,” Coker said. “Jim didn’t tell me when he was down there that we’d see him in the national championship. I don’t know if he even thought it was possible at the time.”
But while the two teams now face each other for the richest prize in all of college football, Coker is not worried that the Buckeyes may have an added advantage from Tressel’s visit to Miami.
“I’m not too concerned with that,” Coker said. “I think the thing Coach Tressel probably got more out of than that practice was seeing our 12 game tapes.”
