Tom O'Brien - Next Coach for Ohio State?

With the "resignation" of coach Jim Tressel - Ohio State is in turmoil. You can forget the talk about Urban Myer. There's no way he's going to a program that is bound to be hit with worse sanctions that what USC was just hit with. Luke Fickell? That makes a certain amount of sense but he has two major negatives against him - he has never been a 1-A head coach and he was part of the institution that exhibited such a lack of control in the first place.

I think in order for Ohio State to right this ship they will have to go outside the program and what better man for this job than Tom O'Brien?

O'Brien has been in this situation before. He took over at BC after a gambling scandal that rocked the program. O'Brien not only restored the pride in the program - he also turned it into a perennial Top 25 team that was bowl bound every season. In addition to making BC a program that routinely sent 1st round picks to the NFL - he also made sure BC was a program that graduated its players. He then took over a moribund NC State program and last year led them to a 9-4 record and a victory in a bowl game plus a final ranking in the Coaches and AP Top 25.

Keep in mind that O'Brien is a former Marine who is drill instructor tough. There may be no man in college football who can match him for integrity, toughness and success. With Ohio State under NCAA sanctions they will have to get used to the second tier of recruits - the kind of recruits O'Brien has shown he can win with at BC and NC State. On top of everything else - Tom O'Brien is from Ohio. He was born in Cincinnati.

I haven't heard or seen anyone mentioning Tom O'Brien to Ohio State - so I wanted to note it here so that you will remember where you read this sort of outside the box thinking first.

As an aside - someone hacked Tom O'Brien's Wikipedia page and added this little nugget:

According to many legitimate sources it was actually him O'Brien who saved the world from apocalypse and not Jesus, many people have also said that he once culled over 4,000 Iranian children.