The videotape “A New Beginning” — chronicling Ohio State’s 2001 football season — is available exclusively through Buckeye Sports Bulletin for $19.95 plus $4.95 shipping and handling ($24.90 total). Send your check or money order to P.O. Box 12453, Columbus, Ohio, 43212. Credit card orders are accepted 24 hours a day at (614) 486-2202.

Condensing the highs and lows of an entire football season into just over an hour could be a daunting task, but a recently released videotape goes even further.

Starting with first-year head coach Jim Tressel’s now-famous “310 Days” speech at Value City Arena, “2001 — The Ohio State Buckeyes: A New Beginning” chronicles most of those 310 days with views, highlights, game footage and insider comments from the first season of the Tressel Era.

Produced by Paul Spohn, Rob Kunz and Drew Yaussy of WBNS-TV in Columbus and hosted by WBNS sports anchor Jeff Hogan, “A New Beginning” actually starts at the end with the euphoria experienced during and after the victory over Michigan, the program’s first in Ann Arbor in 14 years.

Interspersed among action footage of the game are comments from Tressel as well as senior Buckeyes Courtland Bullard, Jonathan Wells, Joe Cooper and Jamar Martin. There also is a quick glimpse of a giddy OSU locker room with players jubilantly belting out the chorus of “Buckeye Battle Cry.”

After more than seven minutes concentrating on “The Game,” the tape moves back in time and spends at least five minutes on each of the other 10 games on the Buckeyes’ regular-season schedule. (The tape was produced before the team’s Outback Bowl appearance.)

But before you think this tape was simply a cheerleading vehicle for the university, the 7-4 season is shown warts and all.

Early-season struggles by the offense are well-chronicled as are the season-long kicking problems. In fact, did you realize that Ohio State missed at least one field-goal attempt in nine different games this past season? Or that the loss to Illinois was the Buckeyes’ third consecutive Senior Day defeat? Even the suspension of two-year captain and starting quarterback Steve Bellisari is discussed, albeit very briefly.

There are plenty of highlights, though, and that is the video’s strength. Game footage of nearly every important play is contained within the 65-minute tape. It moves briskly through the season, beginning with the opener against Akron. Tressel is shown leading his troops onto the field for the first time as the Buckeyes came away with a solid 28-14 victory.

Coverage of the “Show You Care” rally in Ohio Stadium is shown as all college football games were canceled in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Some 15,000 fans attended the rally and donated over $650,000 to victims’ funds during a telethon that was held in conjunction with the rally.

The tape quickly gets back to football with West Coast footage from the Buckeyes’ narrow 13-6 loss to UCLA in the Rose Bowl as the OSU defense tries to make a statement by causing five Bruin turnovers.

The tape contains lots of field-level footage shot from the sidelines, allowing fans to get rare glimpses of blocking schemes along the offensive line as well as defensive line and linebacker formations. Hogan supplies most of the narration, but there are occasional audio snippets from “The Voice of the Buckeyes” Paul Keels taken from actual game radio broadcasts.

Each game gets its own five-minute vignette and the tape does a good job of hitting the highlights of each contest. Some of the top scenes include:

• Lydell Ross’ rushing efforts against Indiana as he became only the third OSU freshman in history to top the 100-yard mark in a game;

• A field-level view of Wells’ 71-yard scoring scamper on the second play of the Northwestern game, the Buckeyes’ first-ever conference night game in the Horseshoe;

• Safety Mike Doss’ bone-crushing tackle of San Diego State running back Larry Ned; and

• Flanker Chris Vance’s one-handed touchdown catch in the back of the end zone against Purdue.

The tough losses to Wisconsin and Penn State, games in which OSU blew double-digit leads, also are there. Scenes from the loss to the Nittany Lions provide a witness to history as Penn State head coach Joe Paterno set the Division I-A record with his 324th career victory.

The tape also helps jog memories that the tone for the game was set not only by Lions freshman QB Zack Mills, who came off the bench to spark a second-half rally. Penn State also was aided by another freshman, kicker Robbie Gould, who nailed a pair of 46-yard first-half field goals — the longest of his brief career — to keep the Lions close.

Included, too, is the night win at Minnesota when Ohio State had to stave off a pesky Gophers team that desperately wanted to win for their head coach, Glen Mason, as well as the Senior Day loss to Illinois as the Buckeyes could hold neither an early 10-7 lead nor a 22-21 advantage they had scratched back to attain in the second half.

Near the end of the tape, WBNS sports reporter Dom Tiberi presents bonus footage of five of the greatest victories over Michigan. With comments on each of the games from OSU historian Jack Park, viewers are treated to glimpses of the 1975 game, which served as Archie Griffin’s final regular-season game; the 18-15 win in 1979 in Earle Bruce’s first OSU-Michigan game as the head coach; the 23-20 victory in Ann Arbor in 1987 that came just days after it was announced that Bruce had been fired; and the 31-16 pounding of the Wolverines in 1998 in which Joe Germaine threw for 330 yards and three touchdowns.

Perhaps the best nugget of all is some black-and-white film from the Buckeyes’ 50-14 pounding of the Wolverines in 1968 that sent OSU to the Rose Bowl and helped them along the way to the program’s last national championship.

The final 10 minutes of the tape is devoted to more game action from the most recent victory over Michigan — a win that Hogan describes as making the “taste of a 7-4 season that much sweeter” — as well as more interviews from senior players and Tressel.

Several seniors make note of the fact that their class is the first since 1987 to finish their career with two pairs of Gold Pants. And there is an extremely reflective Tressel who admits that even with the big win over the Wolverines, his program is not where he wants it to be.

“We have a lot of work to do,” the OSU coach said. “I wouldn’t or couldn’t sit here and say, ‘Boy, we’ve arrived’ (because) we haven’t. But we’ve progressed.”

That progression is evident throughout the tape, which should be a must-have for any Buckeye fan, especially those living outside the Columbus area and unable to watch many 2001 games on television. It provides a glimpse into an evolving program that capped a transition year with one of its biggest wins in recent memory.

The videotape “A New Beginning” — chronicling Ohio State’s 2001 football season — is available exclusively through Buckeye Sports Bulletin for $19.95 plus $4.95 shipping and handling ($24.90 total). Send your check or money order to P.O. Box 12453, Columbus, Ohio, 43212. Credit card orders are accepted 24 hours a day at (614) 486-2202.