Meet Jim Tressel’s homegrown gameday stand-in

As expected, Ohio State has officially anointed co-defensive coordinator Luke Fickell as Jim Tressel's stand-in during the head coach's five-game suspension this fall. Aside from two years at Akron to get his feet wet in 2000-01, Fickell is a Columbus lifer: He was a legendary high school wrestler at nearby DeSales High (here he is en route to the state championship in 1992), was one of the anchors of some hellacious Buckeye defenses from 1992-96, and he's spent the last decade as an OSU assistant. According to the Columbus Dispatch, he's also been cited for "just four minor rules violations in 10 years," the last one coming in 2005, which is frankly not a bad record.

And that is your Luke Fickell Minute. The other pressing practical question about Tressel's game-day banishment ? who's going to call the plays on offense? ?�wasn't answered at today's press conference, and Tressel said he doesn't think "it's that big a deal." ("We don't have that many plays," he said, an admission no one will question.) My hope remains that at some point Tressel will urgently phone the sideline with coaching tips gleaned from TV, a la a concussed Luther Van Damme in the 1993 Pioneer Bowl, whose crucial insight that one of the West Texas guards "sticks his butt up in the air" before pass plays clinched Minnesota State's first national championship. Alas, in reality, all contact between Tressel and the sideline is verboten.

Otherwise, the Senator is around for the other six days of the week, which means nothing much should change: Practices, meeting and game planning should go on as usual, leaving it up to Fickell mainly to take the lead out of the tunnel and in arguing with the refs. If he holds an attrition-ravaged, scandal-plagued team together through a 5-0 start that includes dates with Miami and Michigan State, he'll be going places ?�even if it's only to the bigger office down the hall in a few years.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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