JIM TRESSEL, who went from retired Youngstown State University president and a former football coach to the state’s lieutenant governor, said he hasn’t ruled out a run next year for governor.

“You know what? You don’t know where you’re going to end up,” Tressel said Wednesday in an interview with Ogden Newspapers’ editors and reporters.

Tressel was introduced Monday by Gov. Mike DeWine as his nomination for lieutenant governor in a surprise announcement. Both are Republicans.

The state legislature voted Wednesday to confirm Tressel as lieutenant governor.

Tressel was uncommitted Wednesday to seeking the gubernatorial seat next year, but said of a potential run, “I wouldn’t rule that out.”

Tressel said Wednesday: “I have given no thought on anything (other) than getting to the next day, quite honestly, and learning all I can.”

Tressel said he was told a long time ago by an athletic director that if you want to have the most impact, you need to keep your mind and your rear end in the same place.

“That was a watershed moment for me,” he said.

Tressel added: “That’s letting you know how I live.”

Tressel, who has never held or run for elected office before, said he was “surprised” when DeWine met with him Feb. 1 at his Medina home to discuss the job offer.

“I could tell by the look in his eye that this was an important conversation,” Tressel said.

DeWine said it was his idea to ask Tressel and the former YSU president never raised the topic to him.

DeWine reiterated Wednesday, as he did Monday, that he and Tressel haven’t discussed a potential run for governor in 2026. DeWine can’t seek another term next year because of the state’s term-limits law.

But DeWine said Tressel would “make an excellent governor. I wouldn’t put anybody in that (lieutenant governor) position if I didn’t think they wouldn’t make a good governor.”

DeWine added: “I wouldn’t put him in this position unless I thought he was the best person I could think of to serve as governor of the state of Ohio. So, yeah, I think he would be a very, very fine governor if something happened to me.”

The lieutenant governor’s seat opened when DeWine appointed Jon Husted, who held the position for six years, to an open seat in the U.S. Senate on Jan. 17.

Husted had eyed the governor’s position for years but instead will run in 2026 for the remaining two years of the Senate term. Republican J.D. Vance left the Senate job to become vice president.

Attorney General Dave Yost has announced plans to run for the Republican nomination for governor with Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur with close ties to President Donald Trump, planning to announce his candidacy later this month.

Dr. Amy Acton, DeWine’s former health director during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, is running next year as a Democrat for governor.

DeWine said there were a lot of good candidates he considered — both in his cabinet and outside of it — and he interviewed a number of them. But he said Wednesday he decided on Tressel even before talking to him about the job Feb. 1.

Regarding Tressel, DeWine said, “Throughout his career, every place he’s been, he’s been successful and been a leader. He’s a natural born leader. I don’t think it would matter what he was doing, put him in any company, any occupation, he would have been a leader. He’s an extremely hard worker. He’s extremely well-prepared. I trust his judgment a lot.”

Tressel was hired by YSU to be its head football coach for the 1986 season and led the team to four Division 1-AA national championships through 2000, when he was hired to be head coach of The Ohio State University football team. During his time at Ohio State, the team won a national title in 2002 and seven Big 10 championships.

Tressel resigned in 2011 after the university’s football program got caught up in an NCAA investigation involving players improperly selling memorabilia for benefits, including tattoos.

After serving as vice president of strategic engagement at the University of Akron, Tressel returned to YSU as its president, starting the job May 2014. He retired in February 2023.

DeWine said he knew Tressel for years, but really got to know him well during his YSU presidency.

DeWine praised Tressel for getting the Mahoning Valley business community to work with YSU.

“There used to be a wall between higher ed and business and he understood that you had to have that type of relationship,” DeWine said. “I wanted someone who could really be governor.”

DeWine said: “He has the ability to use the bully pulpit of the office of lieutenant governor and reach people like no one else can because he’s Jim Tressel. All of these things combined made him the best person to serve as lieutenant governor.”

DeWine added of Tressel: “He would be a very great, excellent governor. He has the ability to do that.”

Tressel said the night of the announcement, he received 785 texts and hundreds of emails.

DeWine said he gives out his cellphone number and has never received 700-plus texts in a day.