toledoblade.com --

From the White House to the weight room.

It's a big transition, but Ohio State's football players know that the rehearsal for a possible repeat as national champion starts with sweat, and that's about where it ends.

The afterglow of defeating Miami in the Fiesta Bowl for the national title last January has to become an afterthought, as the Buckeyes seek to become the first team to repeat as champion since Nebraska, which won 25 straight games over the 1994-95 season.

OSU coach Jim Tressel, guest speaker at the National Football Foundation's Scholar-Athlete Awards Dinner at the Stranahan Auditorium last night, said his players are the best people to ask in regard to finding the proper balance between the task at hand and the task just completed.

"I've asked them that question," he said. "What I hear from them is, `Hey coach, we need to understand that last year was last year, this year is this year and if we don't understand that, with the schedule we have, we're going to be in for a tough situation.'

"I think it's about focusing in on the task at hand, which has nothing to do with last year, except that the bull's-eye gets painted bigger. It just got bigger on Ohio State's back."

Ohio State coach Jim Tressel signs footballs for Bob Eberly of Maumee and his sons, Nick, 17, and Matt, 12.
( THE BLADE/JETTA FRASER )

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Tressel maintains that his players have to realize that their 14 wins last season can't contribute anything this year.

"They have to be willing to learn from lessons where we did well and from lessons where we didn't do as well a year ago and from lessons where we were fortunate," he said. "You can't ever ignore the fact that the ball might have bounced your way."

Tressel is aware that good fortune followed his team much of last season. There were the dropped touchdown passes by Cincinnati and Illinois that would have probably given either team a victory. There was the fourth-down touchdown pass against Purdue in the closing minutes, to name a few.

But no championship team goes through an entire season without a few close calls.

"You have to be aware and have an understanding of how you accomplished what you did," Tressel explained. "A lot of it was hard work and most of it was what we did. Intelligent play, working together and the hard work did a lot more than good fortune did, but you also have to be aware that, hey, it might bounce the other way and you might have to make up for that. I just think that's awareness."

One thing that Tressel is aware of is that he's got a returning quarterback in senior Craig Krenzel, who is a proven commodity. Last year at this time, Krenzel was someone who could stand in until someone else, such as freshman Justin Zwick, could stand out.

But it was Krenzel who came to the rescue, making plays when the outcome was on the line. He wasn't flashy, just totally satisfactory.

But that doesn't mean the emphasis of spring practice this year will steer away from Krenzel. Tressel said everything and everyone will be tested.

"We won't work any less hard on the quarterback position than we did a year ago," he said. "We feel Craig did a great job. He did a great job leading and evolved into a very solid quarterback, but he knows what he wants to become and we know what we want him to become, so he has a lot of work to do like the rest of us.

"I guess we never enter the spring with any less or greater feeling about a position no matter what it might be. The minute you think you're set at a position, you're kidding yourself. And when you're sitting there worrying about not being OK at other positions, don't worry, don't make yourself sick. Go to work."

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