The calls for Jim Tressel's head have begun in earnest, and it, for lack of a better word, sucks.  It's useless to point out to the people who have begun wailing in agony that Jim Tressel has lost just 20 games in 9 years at Ohio State for an average of 2.2 games per/year. It's useless to point out to those same people that 9 of those losses came in 2001 and 2004, and that 11 games over the other 7 seasons is nothing short of remarkable. Yet this mentality persists:

[...] the reality in college football today is that JT is 0/6 in the last 6 games that matter [ed note: "games that matter" being "those against top-5 opponents"], against teams that can equal his physical talent on the field. If that’s not enough reason for firing him for you, then I’m at a loss for words. Does it have to keep going? Do we have to go 0/10 against top 5 teams? 0/12?

 You can find much of the same nonsense being spewed in all corners of the Ohio State intertubes, and frankly, it perplexes me. In order to understand and hopefully rid the 'tubes this mentality, I have to think like someone who has it. Unfortunately, I can't afford a frontal lobotomy. So I 'm just going to have to try. Let's discount the fact that Jim Tressel had a spotless record against Big Ten teams that went undefeated in bowl games in 2002 (Iowa, who would eventually lose to SC, had rotated off the schedule). Let's discount the fact that he has lost three games in the Big Ten conference over the last four years, twice to Penn State and once to Illinois. Let's basically discount Jim Tressel's entire Ohio State career because he coaches in a down conference, a conference that is down - perhaps permanently - for reasons beyond his control. I'm willing to be That Guy for now, only to prove a point. I'm going to sink to that level momentarily.

This article is dedicated to those of you who think firing Tressel will solve all our problems. Those of you out there who want a new offensive coordinator who brings some innovation and new life to the staff, I'm with you. Those of you out there who think our strength and conditioning just isn't up to snuff - I'm also coming to your side, having watching our defense get so gassed late in games. Those of you want Jim Tressel fired and this program thereby dismantled from within, read on.

This we know: Jim Tressel is 8-8 against Top-5 teams. Since 2005, he's 2-6. You'd think that it's been years since Jim Tressel has beaten a top-5 team, but, of course, it hasn't. In 2006, Tressel did it twice, and he did it twice in the same season: at #2 Texas and against #2 Michigan. I will grant you that neither team finished the season at those spots, but a ranking is a ranking; Penn State didn't finish in the top-5 in the country at the end of the season last year, but people still include it when "discussing" (read: whining about) this six-game losing streak.

Let's take a gander at the records vs. the top-5 of some of the other luminaries of the college football coaching world, along with some interesting tidbits about their overall records. Starting with the tippy-top, with no real hierarchy after Meyer and Carroll, and working from 2005 onward for purposes of expediency and sample size:

Urban Meyer

In four seasons at Florida, here is Urban Meyer's record against top-5 opponents, as well as all of his losses:

2005: 2-0, with losses to 16th-ranked Alabama, 8th ranked LSU, and unranked South Carolina

2006: 1-0, with a loss to 10th-ranked Auburn

2007: 0-1, with losses to unranked Auburn, Michigan, and 19th-ranked Georgia

2008: 3-0, with one to unranked Ole Miss. At home. Those three victories came against Alabama, Oklahoma and a pre-collapse LSU team

Overall, every idiot's dream man for the Ohio State job (it's not happening, people) is 6-1 against top-5 outfits, and that one loss was to eventual champion LSU. About as solid as it gets, right? I'd say so. To go with those 6 wins, however,  are four losses to unranked teams in four years, compared to Tressel's one in the same time frame. I'm not knocking on Meyer - he's far and away the best coach in America, but he does have his faults. He also has, far and away, the best record of any coach in the country against top-5 ranked opponents, as you shall see.

Pete Carroll

In 9 seasons at the helm of USC, Pete Carroll has been the end-all, be-all of "big game" coaches, setting a standard by which no coach can fairly be judged.

2005: 0-1, undefeated again but lost in the Rose Bowl to Vince Young by his own damn self

2006: 1-0, with losses to unranked Oregon State and UCLA

2007: 0-1, lost to pre-collapse 5th-ranked Oregon to go with the Stanford debacle

2008: 1-0, victory over a rather-overrated Ohio State squad followed by a loss at one of the other OSUs. Penn State was ranked 6th at the time of the Rose Bowl

So Pete Carroll, the Golden God of the Big Game, has beaten 4 top-5 opponents at USC, and lost twice. That's across his entire tenure. The last four years, Carroll is 2-2 against top-5 teams. Do you think USC fans are shouting UNACCEPTABLE from the roofotps because their coach only wins these games at a 50 percent clip? Probably not.

Mack Brown

Starting with Vince Young's breakout season, Mack Brown has largely shaken off the "can't win the big game" label. It got so bad at one point that Brown was known as "Coach February", for his inability to beat the best teams he played despite having one of the three most talented teams in America. Even with said oodles of talent on his side, Brown still needed a special, once-in-a-generation player to get him over the hump.

2005: 2-0, victories over Ohio State on the road and in the Rose Bowl

2006: 0-1, with losses to Ohio State and unranked Kansas State and Texas A+M Squads.

2007: 0-0, with losses to unranked Kansas State and Texas A+M (again)

2008: 1-1, with a triumphant win over Oklahoma and a last-second loss to Texas Tech

Brown is 3-2 against top-5 opponents since '05, with two of those wins coming in Texas' 2005 championship run. Take those out, and he too has a losing record against the best-of-the-best.

Les Miles

2005: 1-0, with a victory over undefeated, 4th-ranked Alabama in overtime. LSU also lost to 12th-ranked Georgia in the SEC championship game by 20 points.

2006: 1-2, with a victory over 5th-ranked Arkansas and losses to top-5 squads at Florida and Auburn

2007: 1-0, with a victory over OSU in the championship game and a loss to unranked Arkansas and 18th-ranked Kentucky

2008: 0-1, loss coming to #1 Bama, to go along with a 30-point loss to eventual-champion Florida, and two double-digit home losses to Georgia and Ole Miss

Overall, Miles is 3-3 against top five opponents, to go with quite a few "embarrassing" losses that would have the most panicky sections of our fanbase on their knees, wallowing in despair.

Bob Stoops

2005: 0-1, one loss coming to the eventual champion Longhorns. However, The Sooners lost on opening day to TCU, to UCLA a couple weeks later, and then again to 21st-ranked Texas Tech in Lubbock

2006: 0-0, with losses to 18th-ranked Oregon and the same Texas team Ohio State had thumped 24-7 in week two

2007:  1-0, with losses to unranked Texas Tech, Colorado, and a memorable 20-point loss to West Virginia in the Fiesta bowl

2008: 1-2, that one win being a pretty emphatic one over Texas Tech and the losses to Texas and Florida

That's a 2-3 record against top-5 teams for a man who many consider Tress's big game doppelganger.

Others

I left Saban off the list for obvious reasons, but he is 1-2 vs. the top 5 in two years at Bama, with three losses to unranked teams - all of which came in his first year at the helm. Joe Paterno is on a 6+-game losing streak against top-5 teams, and Bobby Bowden has beaten one top-5 team in the past five years: The #2 Boston College Eagles in 2007. Shockingly, Lloyd Carr was 8-3 against Top-5 teams in his career.

Now, for funsies, let's take some brief looks at two of the names being proffered by idiots as replacements for Jim Tressel.

Brian Kelly has yet to beat top-15 team in his tenure at Cincy, and obviously never achieved that feat at CMU. In fact, Kelly is winless against ranked non-conference opponents at both schools. I know what you're thinking - it's Cincy and CMU - but there just isn't a track record of his teams performing consistently better than anyone else when matched up against superior talent.

Chris Petersen has been phenomenal at Boise State, but he hasn't beaten a top-5 opponent either. Oklahoma was 8th in the country when they pulled off the monumental Fiesta Bowl upset, and his BSU teams have also lost to unranked East Carolina and 4-9 Washington, and the program is on a two bowl game losing streak.

Alright, I'm done being an idiot and ignoring everything else Jim Tressel brings to this program. There is one name here that I feel would guarantee Ohio State the same level of year-to-year consistency as well as those elusive victories over top-5 opponents, and that's Urban Meyer. And he's not going anywhere.

I'm going to be the coach at Florida for a long time, as long as they want me.

Another thing in particular stuck out to me: Tressel has played more top-5 squads than everyone else, with 8 games in just the past four years. The next closest is Urban Meyer himself, with seven. The fact remains: outside of Meyer and Brown, the biggest of big-time coaches are, to a man, .500 or worse against top-5 opponents since just before Tressel's "big game" struggles began.

"My best was never good enough" (except for that one time)

In college football, you just have to pick your poison. Among the top-flight coaches in big bold letters mentioned above, there are roughly 15 losses to unranked teams over the last four years, while Tressel has all of one. Each coach in bold above has at least three in that timeframe. Simply put, Jim Tressel is as consistent of a coach as they come. For all the talk about his struggles in "big games", his record in small ones is unmatched among his contemporaries. But "nobody cares about those wins, because weak Big Ten national championship blowouts WE'RE OHIO STATE bler blah bler" so on and so forth. You know who cares about those wins? Recruits and boosters. The people from which the talent and money flows, respectively. The people who matter. Recruits see the big game losses, undoubtedly, but that is not all they see with respect to our program. They see the facilities, they see the consistent production of first-day draft picks, and they see conference championships. If big games were really all the elite recruits care about, would one of you mind telling me how in the hell Charlie Weis keeps bringing in top-5 classes? The guy has beaten 8 teams with winning records in four years at South Bend. He doesn't seem to have any major problem pulling in talent. Do you really think he just hoodwinks all of them, or is there more to recruiting, and more to program health, than big game wins? The "TRESS IS DESTROYING OUR PROGRAM WITH THESE BIG-TIME LOSSES" argument just doesn't hold water.

Returning to my real bone of contention, though: Tressel has given Ohio State an inordinate amount of consistency in today's college football world. He has not won fewer than 10 games since 2004. He was won 43 games overall since 2005. 15 of those victories - more than a third - were against teams ranked in the polls at the time of kickoff. This 6-game losing streak to top-5 teams? Yeah, it's frustrating. Especially these last three games, where one ill turn of fate proved to be our undoing in hard-fought battles. Earlier in his career, Tressel's teams frequently won these games, and lately, he just hasn't. The chips just haven't fallen our way. Is this really a fireable offense?

Bitch as much as you want about his conservatism and how much it can boggle the mind; the simple fact is that he wins 10 games a year and has pulled in consecutive top-5 recruiting classes. The program is not coming apart at the seams under his leadership; in fact, it's winning now more than it ever has. Some say his style of football - playing the percentages, playing sound defense and winning the special teams battle - is going the way of the dodo. Before Saturday night, I might have been more inclined to agree but more and more lately I'm coming to the opinion - after playing two straight stacked OOC opponents to the bitterest of ends - that what this program really needs is of just a bit of tweaking. Whether that entails the hiring of a new offensive coordinator or maybe some changes to the conditioning staff remains to be seen. We're so close to winning these games again. By what stretch of logic will total program upheaval (i.e. firing Tress) make things better?

Does Tressel have to make changes? Undeniably. I can't make any argument against that. The offense just isn't firing. I think it has more to do with failure to execute on the players' parts than many are willing let on, but new blood simply can't hurt in a unit that has mustered just 74 points during this 6-game losing streak to "the best of the best". Perhaps the unit will come alive against Toledo, tear through the Big Ten and surprise us in the bowl game. I don't expect it to, and neither do most fans. Some shake-up is needed here, because - and Jim Tressel basically copped to this in his press conference yesterday - 15 points isn't going to beat any of the teams on or above Ohio State's level. In that respect, I agree with the aforelinked Doctor Saturday article. But firing Jim Tressel in the hope of stopping this losing streak? Don't be ridiculous. Coaching transitions are never easy. Just ask Michigan.