Mike's grandfather, Lee Tressel, an NCAA Division III Football Championship-winning coach at Baldwin Wallace University.
Tressel attended Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, where he was a member of the football and wrestling teams.
In 2002, he joined his father and uncle at Ohio State, where he was a graduate assistant assigned to linebackers under defensive coordinator Mark Dantonio.
When Dantonio was hired to be the head coach at Michigan State University in December 2006, Tressel joined him along with seven other Cincinnati assistants.
[6] In his role as linebackers coach, Tressel oversaw two-time consensus All-American Greg Jones (2009–2010), who was also named the Big Ten Co-Defensive Player of the Year in 2009.