COLLEGE FOOTBALL ’93 : Under Fire : Entering His Sixth Season at Ohio State, Coach John Cooper Still Feels the Heat From Buckeye Fans

Every Sunday during the football season, Ohio State star defensive end Jason Simmons buys a Columbus Dispatch.

And every Sunday, Simmons turns to the only pages that matter, the only pages that don’t cause him to pop a neck vein.

“I read the comics,” he said. “That’s about it.”

It has come to this. Sometimes Simmons glances at the summaries on the sports-results page, but he never reads any of the Ohio State game stories--no matter if the Buckeyes won by 30 or lost by one. Instead, he sends the paper to his mom in Akron and she cuts out the articles for the family scrapbook.

Simmons won’t watch the 11 o’clock news. He won’t listen to radio talk shows. He is tired of it all. Tired of the rumors involving Buckeye Coach John Cooper’s employment status.

“It seems like they’ve been there forever,” he said.

It is never a good sign when a 22-year-old senior has more job security than a 56-year-old coach, but that’s how it is. Simmons knows he will be at Ohio State all season. Cooper can’t say the same.

“Everyone knows the position that Coach Cooper’s in and everyone is genuinely trying to avoid him getting fired,” Simmons said. “It is a little extra pressure. It would be a lot easier to play if people weren’t screaming for a different coach every year.”

This will be Cooper’s sixth season at Ohio State. He came to Columbus from Arizona State and promptly told reporters that the Buckeyes would win a national championship some day. You could quote him, too.

Then he added, “I hope I’m here when it happens.”

And there’s the rub. Cooper, whose record is 35-21-3, has three more years on his contract, but that doesn’t mean much. Former Buckeye coach Earle Bruce averaged nine victories during his nine-year tenure and got shown the trapdoor. So anything can happen at Ohio State--and usually does--as the fans, boosters and alumni continue their seemingly never-ending search for Woody Hayes Jr.

“That’s Columbus, Ohio,” said Cooper, whose team was 8-3-1 last year. “Ninety-five percent of the fans in Columbus, Ohio, are fantastic. They’ll support you 100%. But there’s 5% of them that, hey, they don’t like you. They didn’t like Woody Hayes, didn’t like Earle Bruce and they don’t like me.”

It didn’t start out that way. Cooper could do no wrong when he arrived in 1988. He was everything Bruce wasn’t: outgoing, accommodating, less confrontational.

Of course, that was before Ohio State went 4-6-1 that year, the worst Buckeye finish since 1959. Included in the record was the first of four consecutive losses to hated Michigan and the first of five consecutive losses to Illinois. Since then, Cooper has been in more hot water than a lobster at dinner time.

There was the humiliating defeat against undersized Air Force at the 1990 Liberty Bowl. That was followed by the Robert Smith debacle in 1991, when the star running back sat out the entire season in protest of Ohio State coaching policies that he said compromised his ability to earn an education. After that came the much-debated contract extension given to Cooper by university President Gordon Gee. And last season, there was the 13-13 tie with Michigan, which was considered by Buckeye fans to be only marginally better than losing.

These are the mementos Cooper has collected so far. And what’s that line about dreams coming true? “Be careful of what you wish for . . .”

“I asked one of the sportswriters up in Cleveland (recently), ‘Has there ever been a coach up here you guys have liked?’ ” Cooper said. “I mean, Marty Schottenheimer, Sam Rutigliano, now Bill Belichick. Same thing in Cincinnati. It’s the nature back there. You ain’t gonna please them all, I’ll tell you that.

“But Columbus, there’s nothing else but Ohio State football. Somebody can screw up in L.A. and it’s on the fourth page. You screw up at Ohio State and it’s on the front page of the sports section.”

Cooper knew that going in. What he didn’t know was that the talent level in the program “wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.”

Most of his players, he said, needed directions to the weight room. And the ones who did know the way were nothing to write Charles Atlas about.

Recruiting was a mess, too. By the time he was hired to replace Bruce, the Buckeyes had fallen behind in the race for the state’s best players. In the end, Cooper said the delay might have cost Ohio State the services of Cleveland native Desmond Howard, who went on to win a Heisman Trophy at Michigan, and O.J. McDuffie, a wide receiver from the Cleveland suburb of Warrensville, an All-American at Penn State last season.

“We lost a year of recruiting in a six-week period,” Cooper said.

Nor did it help when the rumors of his imminent departure began. He’s gone. He’s staying. He’s gone. He’s staying. To this day, Cooper maintains that opposing recruiters used his tenuous status as a weapon against the Buckeyes.

“I don’t think there’s any question that that happened,” he said.

Cooper’s coaching peers might have appreciated his problem, but Buckeye followers didn’t. They weren’t interested in excuses, legitimate or otherwise. Instead, they wanted to know when they could start booking their excursion fares to Pasadena.

They’re still waiting. Impatiently.

The Ohio State crowds were never meaner or more demanding than last season. It began when the Buckeyes barely beat Louisville at home and then struggled to victory against Bowling Green. An upset of Syracuse was nice, but then, with Smith slowed by injuries, the Buckeyes were beaten by Wisconsin one week and Illinois the next.

Simmons said he will never forget the taunts and boos. At times, he had to make sure he was at Ohio Stadium and not Michigan Stadium.

“We walk off the field and people are yelling for (Cooper’s) job,” he said. “It’s frustrating. You go out there and do the best you can. They don’t care about (that). All they care about is Coach Cooper’s neck on the line.

“I said something . . . last year, that we had 94,000 people going to our games, but I’d rather have 30 who are going to cheer us rather than boo us. The rest of them can stay home because we really don’t need them out there. I really do believe that. I think we’ve got some of the worst fans in the Big Ten.”

The reasons for their discontent are obvious enough. Cooper is 0-4-1 against Michigan. If you don’t think that’s a big deal, simply ask Tennessee’s Johnny Majors about the heat he took for an 0-7 stretch against arch-rival Alabama. Or ask Alabama’s Gene Stallings about the benefits of a 3-0 record against in-state foe Auburn.

Cooper is also 0 for bowls. Four tries, four defeats.

He also has yet to win a Big Ten title. He has come close, but close isn’t what Ohio State had in mind when he was hired.

“If you’re asking me, ‘Has it taken us a little longer to get that program back where it should be?’--the obvious answer is yes,” Cooper said. “I’m a little frustrated that we haven’t. I fully expected when I went there that we were going to win the Big Ten, that we were going to the Rose Bowl.”

If it happened, if Cooper were able to lead Ohio State to a conference title and Rose Bowl victory, he would become an instant trivia answer: Name the only person in NCAA history to earn Rose Bowl victories as a Big Ten coach and a Pacific 10 coach.

The thought crosses Cooper’s mind. He could live with that kind of legacy. After all, Woody Hayes never did it.

The Buckeyes have a chance to be special. Granted, Smith is gone to the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, which, contrary to what you might think, didn’t put a smile on Cooper’s face.

“People will say, ‘Boy, I bet you’re glad you don’t have to put up with Robert Smith anymore.’ I look at them like they’re crazy,” said Cooper, recalling that Smith led Ohio State in rushing yardage and touchdowns, despite ankle and rib injuries, in 1992.

Also gone are linebacker Steve Tovar and quarterback Kirk Herbstreit, among others.

But for the first time since he took the job, Cooper isn’t reluctant to say that the Buckeyes have enough depth and talent to overcome the departures. He raves about his offensive line, which features Alan Kline and Korey Stringer at tackles. He feels good about his backfield, his receivers and his new quarterback, Bobby Hoying.

On defense, Simmons is only four sacks away from becoming the school’s all-time leader. Defensive tackle Dan Wilkinson has the potential to become a dominant lineman. Chico Nelson is a safety worth watching.

Said Simmons: “The attitude on the team is the best it’s been since I’ve been here.”

Then again, it’s early. The Buckeyes could stumble, as they did last season, causing an early resumption of the Cooper rumors. Or they could do something different, such as let Simmons finally read his Sunday paper.

John Cooper’s Record

TULSA

Overall Conf. Year W L T W L T 1977 3 8 0 2 3 0 1978 9 2 0 4 1 0 1979 6 5 0 2 0 0 1980 8 3 0 4 1 0 1981 7 4 0 5 1 0 1982 10 1 0 6 0 0 1983 8 3 0 5 0 0 1984 6 5 0 5 0 0 Totals 57 31 33 6 0

ARIZONA STATE

Overall Conf. Year W L T W L T 1985 8 4 0 5 2 0 1986 10 1 1 5 1 1 1987 7 4 1 3 3 1 Totals 25 9 2 13 6 2

OHIO STATE

Overall Conf. Year W L T W L T 1988 4 6 1 2 5 1 1989 8 4 0 6 2 0 1990 7 4 1 5 2 1 1991 8 4 0 5 3 0 1992 8 3 1 5 2 1 Totals 35 21 3 23 14 3

Career total: 117-61-5