Saturday, December 22, 2001
Buckeyes won't profit on travel plans
Tressel, not players, making arrangements
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS — Thanks to Ohio State coach Jim Tressel's postseason travel plans, some thrifty Buckeyes won't get a holiday bonus this year.
The Buckeyes, minus 18 players who live farther than a four-hour drive from Columbus, took a chartered flight Friday to Tampa, Fla., where they will play South Carolina in the Outback Bowl on Jan.1. The other players will meet the team in Tampa.
That's far different from the travel plans of former coach John Cooper, who let the players make their own travel plans after Ohio State gave them a $300 air ticket allowance.
Some players booked super-saver fares, drove or carpooled to the bowl — allowing them to pocket the money they didn't spend.
The NCAA permits schools to give players enough money to cover a full coach airfare from the campus to the bowl site.
“I pretty much knew that wasn't going to happen this year,” said defensive tackle Mike Collins. “That's not the way Coach Tressel does things. Someone asked me right after we got the Outback bid if I was going to be driving down again this year. I said, "Yeah, I'll be driving all right. I'll be driving with coach Tressel.' ”
The Buckeyes also are leaving earlier for their bowl game. Ohio State hasn't left before Christmas for a New Year's Day game since 1996, when they lost the Citrus Bowl.
Tressel said his travel plans are an attempt to avoid the distractions of last season when Ohio State players bickered with each other — and one offensive lineman sued another — in the week before the Outback Bowl.
Ohio State lost to South Carolina, and Cooper was fired the next day.
“As we've researched it, and as many of our coaches have experienced, the teams traveling to a different climate benefit by having a few good days of work before all of the hoopla begins, when you're torn back and forth, and your focus is a little bit splintered,” Tressel said.
NOTRE DAME:
George O'Leary says he was asked to resign as football coach after admitting he lied about his background, contradicting the school's statement that he offered to resign.
“I was asked for my resignation, which I wasn't going to fight that,” O'Leary said in an interview to be broadcast Sunday night on ESPN. “I think they did what they had to do based on the facts they had.”
A Notre Dame spokesman repeated the school's earlier statement that O'Leary offered to resign five or six times Dec.13 after admitting he did not have a master's degree from New York University as his biographical sketch stated.
“We stand by our statement that he offered his resignation. That's definite,” Lou Nanni said.
MIAMI:
Fullback Najeh Davenport will miss the Rose Bowl against Nebraska because of a foot injury. Davenport, a 6-foot-2, 248-pound senior starter, broke a bone in his right foot during practice Thursday and had season-ending surgery Friday morning. He will be sidelined six to eight weeks, meaning he might not be ready for the NFL combine in February.
I-AA TITLE GAME:
Yohance Humphery ran for 142 yards and a touchdown and Chris Snyder kicked two field goals as Montana beat Furman 13-6 at Chattanooga, Tenn., for its second NCAA Division I-AA title.
While most of the game was a defensive stalemate, Montana put together a 99-yard drive in the second quarter, capped by Humphery's 2-yard scoring run up the middle.
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Buckeyes won't profit on travel plans
