Buckeyextra ran the following comments from Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel:

“I think the fine line and the edge in games is always the mental part,” Tressel said. And he concluded, “I’m not so sure –and again, that’s why you start with yourself — if we had our team as mentally prepared as we could have had it.”

As for the SEC-Big Ten scenario, “Wisconsin went and did the things that you have to do: They won the turnover margin and they won the kicking game, and they beat the second-place team in the SEC (Arkansas, in the Capital One Bowl).”

He said he has never been an expert at knowing “for sure if a team was ‘ready to play.’ You hope that the preparation leading up has made it such. Inevitably, what goes on early in a football game might tilt that one way or the other.”

As he pointed out, Ted Ginn Jr.’s return of the opening kickoff for a touchdown was a major boost. But personal fouls on the Buckeyes put the Gators in position to take a 14-7 lead and control. Kicker Aaron Pettrey was called for a face-mask penalty on the ensuing kickoff, and then Larry Grant was called for a late hit on a punt after Florida’s first touchdown.

“We weren’t exerting the kind of pressure you need to take control of a game,” Tressel said. “So I guess the answer to the question is, I could kind of see (the field start to tilt) on that kickoff and then on that punt.”

He tried to change that by going for it on fourth-and-less-than-a-yard from the Buckeyes 29-yard line while trailing 24-14 late in the second quarter. Running back Chris “Beanie” Wells was stuffed. Florida went on to kick a field goal and then score a touchdown after a Troy Smith fumble on the next series to take a 34-14 lead.

“I felt that at that point in time we needed to step up and make a yard when a yard was needed if we were going to ultimately be the ones who got to put the big ring on this time,” Tressel said. “We didn’t get that done. … You have to make decisions. Some of them are the right ones, some of them end up being the wrong ones. But ultimately you have to look and say why was it or why wasn’t it the right decision, and go from there.”

Those are the thoughts that haunt most coaches, he said.

“I think those two things of looking ahead and evaluating backward are hard to separate,” Tressel said. For example, he said the way the 8-4 season of 2004 transpired, the questions it generated and the lessons learned from it, were on his mind through the 10-2 season of 2005.

He said what happened in 2006, both the 12-0 run and the lopsided loss to Florida, likely won’t leave his mind “for a long, long time.”

We feel exactly the same way, Jimmy…  thanks for the memories!