Beyond dollars, nobody in the conference has Tressel’s recruiting advantage. Only Pennsylvania among Big Ten states can consistently match Ohio for pumping out Divisiion I-caliber football talent, but Ohio State is an overwhelming presence in its state like no other school can claim to be in its own.

Michigan typically recruits a third or less of its players from within its own borders, and has to fight Michigan State for those. A rejuvenated Pitt will always hold its own in the exceptionally fertile western Pennsylvania market.

Illinois pumps out a fair number of players, but the University of Illinois has rarely been a regional factor, let alone a national one. Champaign-Urbana is no easy place to recruit to, as a graveyard filled with coaches’ carcasses would attest.

Everywhere else in the Big Ten, they must import heavily. And they’re usually taking others’ leftovers.

It should never have been as hard as Earle Bruce and John Cooper made it look to win consistently at Ohio State. But it probably shouldn’t be as easy as Tressel makes it look, either.

Bruce projected zero magnetism. Cooper arrived from Arizona State as a charismatic figure but too often looked awed by the magnitude of the big moments that regularly descend upon Columbus. Ultimately, he had two fatal flaws: He failed to either recruit or develop decent quarterbacks, and, notoriously, he got the yips every time he saw a winged helmet or heard the first strains of “The Victors” wafting on the Midwest’s November gales.

Tressel has managed those defining moments with the utmost aplomb. Just as Lloyd Carr crawled inside Cooper’s head and haunted his every waking moment, so Tressel appears to have taken a commanding psychological upper hand on Carr.

It traces, of course, to Tressel’s first day on the job, when they handed him the microphone at halftime of a nationally televised basketball game and he promised the rabid faithful that they would be proud of their beloved Buckeyes 310 days hence when they traveled to That School Up North, as Woody dismissively refered to their historic rivals.

As bold strokes go, that one should be granted permanent status in the all-time top 10.

Now, given the sordid Maurice Clarett affair and a laundry list of controversies that includes NCAA probes, arrests, scandals and suspensions, you could argue that what makes one proud is a relative matter.

You could argue that — if you wanted to suggest to anyone that you’d never set foot inside Ohio and prove to all that you’ve never spent a meaningful moment at Ohio Stadium.

What makes Ohioans most proud is a dominant Ohio State football team, one that regularly beats Michigan, puts double digits in the win column and chases national championships relentlessly.

By that measure — one anyone employed by The Ohio State University would admit under truth serum was the only one that mattered — Jim Tressel has, indeed, been everything they hoped he would be when they handed him that microphone on Jan. 18, 2001.

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