Reports indicate the Indianapolis Colts have interviewed Jim Tressel for their head coaching vacancy.
Multiple reports have surfaced that former Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel has emerged as a strong candidate for the Indianapolis Colts head-coaching vacancy. Frankly, I think he would be a good fit.
Why not?
Reports state Colts owner Jim Irsay flew to Florida on Friday and discussed the team’s head-coaching job with Tressel. This isn’t the first meeting the two men have had. The report indicates they have met on ‘multiple occasions’.
Tressel resigned from his position with Ohio State in May amid an NCAA scandal that enveloped the Ohio State football program, was hired by former Colts coach Jim Caldwell in September to be a game-day consultant in a role that allowed him to work from the team’s coaches booth and advise the coaching staff about replay reviews.
After a 2-14 season – without the services of injured quarterback Peyton Manning – Jim Irsay has wasted little time gutting the Colts front office and coaching staff. Jim Caldwell was fired on Tuesday, two days before eight assistant coaches were let go.
I believe Tressel can be successful in the NFL and I think he’s an ideal fit for the re-building Indianapolis Colts. Tressel would know he’d have to hire a staff with NFL experience and guys who could work with the offensive pieces already in the Colts locker room, and he’s been around the game’s highest levels long enough to presumably know who some of those coaches might be.
The Colts just finished a nightmarish year and are going to have some tough questions to answer in the coming months. A cut-or-keep Peyton Manning decision is coming very soon, and it seems the Colts may have to cut ties with the guy who led them to new heights.
What if their other big-name free agents move on, too, by their choice or the organization’s? What if presumed No. 1 pick Andrew Luck doesn’t light the league on fire in the first month of the season?
Tressel can take the heat. He’s been there. Lots of NFL coaches have melted amidst tough times, and the thought that Tressel can handle the spotlight is likely atop the reasons he’s supposedly being considered.
The Colts provide a situation almost any coach would at least explore. They have the No. 1 pick in April’s NFL Draft, play in a shiny new building and can compete in the AFC South. There’s also the thought that Luck has a chance to be really good sooner rather than later, and having a great quarterback has rarely been bad for an NFL head coach.
He’ll ne 60 this year and could easily coach four or five years which is a very long time in today’s NFL. The Colts are clearly going through a transition period, and Tressel could provide a stable bridge. He seems like the type of guy who’d be fine with Luck being the face of the franchise.
He’s experienced in telling less than the whole truth, which makes him a fit for the job as well. To coaches and GMs, the whole notion that there are still secrets in the NFL isn’t going away anytime soon. Tressel knows how to command respect in a locker room, and though there certainly a number of college coaches who have failed miserably in the NFL for a number of reasons, ego is chief among them. Tressel has one, sure. You’d have to think the events of the last 15 months or so have tempered that.
Step back and think about it for a second, both Tressel and the Colts have been to the top of Football Mountain. Both have been knocked — swiftly back to the bottom.
