Ohio State is making a clear statement on Sept. 5: Jim Tressel’s place in program history is secure, even if his legacy still carries more debate than most former coaches would prefer. When the Buckeyes honor Tressel in the Ring of Honor during the season opener against Ball State, they will put his name alongside Woody Hayes and Paul Brown, a small and highly visible group that says as much about stature as it does about sentiment.
The timing matters because Tressel’s recognition comes with the usual Ohio State contradictions attached. He won a lot in Columbus, compiling a 106-22 record that was later reduced after wins were vacated from the 2010 season, and he also left under pressure in 2011 after the school’s investigation. That combination helps explain why the honor feels significant: Ohio State is not pretending the difficult parts never happened, but it is also not ignoring the way his teams performed on the field.
Tressel coached Ohio State from 2001 to 2010 and delivered the kind of success that makes institutions remember, even when they would rather not relive the full history. The Buckeyes reached two national title games during that span, and his supporters point to that run as proof that he belongs with the most celebrated figures in program history. His critics, meanwhile, have long argued that his public image was too polished for the fallout that eventually followed.
A place beside Hayes and Brown
The comparison with Woody Hayes is unavoidable. Hayes remains a towering figure at Ohio Stadium despite a disciplinary record that included a two-month investigation, a one-year probation in April 1956, a 1959 locker room altercation with two California sports writers, a 1971 sideline outburst against Michigan, a scuffle with Los Angeles Times photographer Art Rogers before the 1973 Rose Bowl, a second Big Ten probation in 1977 after an incident with ABC cameraman Mike Freedman at Michigan, and the notorious 1978 Gator Bowl incident involving Charlie Bauman. Ohio State has never separated Hayes from the program’s identity, and Tressel’s addition to the Ring of Honor shows the school is comfortable preserving complicated legacies when the football case is strong enough.
That is also why the honor is likely to draw attention beyond Columbus. Maurice Clarett is set to be the first Victory Bell Ringer in the 2026 season, another reminder that Ohio State continues to choose public recognition as a way of telling its own history. In Tressel’s case, the school is effectively saying that his impact still merits a permanent place in Ohio Stadium, even with the controversy that followed him out the door.
The larger takeaway is simple: Ohio State is not waiting for history to soften before it celebrates one of its most successful coaches. Tressel’s ring-of-honor inclusion is both a tribute and a test, because it invites the same question that has followed the program for decades — how much success is enough to outweigh the mess that sometimes comes with it?
