INDIANAPOLIS — Jim Tressel is heading to the NFL.
The disgraced Ohio State coach was hired Friday by the Indianapolis Colts as a game-day consultant to help determine when the team should challenge plays. Coach Jim Caldwell said it was a position he’s wanted to fill for the past couple of years.
“He’s a guy I have known for quite some time and have a good relationship with,” Caldwell said. “We have hired him as a game-day consultant. He was around last night and will be working with us next week.”
Caldwell did not provide details on the friendship, but it’s likely the two crossed paths on the recruiting trail in the 1980s and early 1990s when both were coaching quarterbacks at big- time schools.
Tressel was an assistant at Syracuse in 1981 and 1982 before taking a similar post at Ohio State from 1983-85, then leaving to take the Youngstown State head coaching job in 1986. Caldwell coached quarterbacks at Penn State from 1987-92. He coached at Northwestern, Colorado and Louisville, too, before joining Joe Paterno’s staff.
Tressel had been actively seeking employment after resigning from Ohio State on May 30 amid a damaging NCAA scandal. He had been seen at practices in Cleveland and Indianapolis recently and attended the Colts’ preseason finale Thursday in Cincinnati. But his job with the Colts, Caldwell said, will be limited exclusively to working game days from the coaches’ booth.
