Sunday is review day. Same as it is with college coaches. And for Fred Hughes, it's not that much different. Except he doesn't get to break down film with his star. And he can't observe from the press box. Instead, Hughes watches with 260 other inmates, huddled around a 25-inch TV a thousand miles away.

Hughes knows at 3 p.m. every Sunday, Chris Gamble, Hughes' 19-year-old son, will be dialing him up at Miami's Everglades Correctional Institute. Fred will remind Chris -- the Ohio State sophomore who's starred at both cornerback and wideout -- about the catches he should have made the day before, or how he got lucky when he bit on a pump fake, or how he needs to wrap up better in run support. They'll also chat about how the old man is doing at Everglades, and how the son is coping with the Columbus cold and his new-found stardom.

	“	It'll be hard not being there, especially if they win. But he knows where my heart is. ”
		— Fred Hughes, Chris Gamble's dad who is serving time at Miami's Everglades Correctional Institute

But the meat of the half-hour Sunday conversation is dad nagging Gamble about keeping his grades up. Then Hughes will hang up the phone and go back to routine, working at the prison park facility, doing calisthenics and counting down the days until the next Buckeyes game.

Hughes, 42, has been at Everglades since Nov. 1, 2001. He is serving a four-year sentence for robbery. At one time a standout cornerback at Ft. Lauderdale's Piper High, Hughes is known around his dorm as Chris Gamble's father. "He is so proud," says a classification officer at Everglades. "That's all he ever talks about."

With good reason. Fact is, you could make a case for Fred Hughes, inmate No. 640413, having as much to do with the Buckeyes' ride to the Fiesta Bowl as anyone. His kid saved OSU's defense by taking over at wide-side corner and it was the old man who convinced Gamble to go to Columbus in the first place. Gamble's mom, Latricia, wanted Chris to go to Miami. Hughes, a huge Hurricane fan, would have liked that, too.

"But I broke it all down to Chris," Hughes says. "I told him, 'You can make a bigger impact in the Big Ten; they don't have have as many receivers.' And it's worked out great for him."

Hughes couldn't see every Ohio State game (the prison gets ABC and CBS, but not ESPN), but he's seen enough to take the Buckeyes' 13-0 run to the title game in stride. "I'm used to it," Hughes says. "He's been 13-0 before." Gamble's pee-wee teams, his Optimist league teams and even his high school teams dominated all the leagues they played in.

Nor is Hughes shocked his son emerged as college football's latest ironman star. "He's always had great endurance, even back when I first started coaching him when he was five and playing eight-man flag football." Back then, Hughes had Chris and a trio of other future college players (Iowa WR Maurice Brown, NC State CB Greg Golden and Tennessee WR Tony Brown) pulling double duty for the West Kenwood team. Hughes also helped coach Gamble's AAU basketball team, the Florida Roadrunners.

"He was always there for Chris' games, always coaching him," says Matthias Askew, a Michigan State DT and a former teammate from Dillard High. "If Chris ever dropped a pass, you would hear Fred. He'd be yelling from the fence."

Gamble spent five hours visiting Hughes over Thanksgiving break a few weeks ago. Before Gamble left Everglades, his old man had some words of encouragement, just in case the Buckeyes ended up facing Miami. "You gotta watch that Andre Johnson," Hughes explained. "He's very physical. If you're gonna play bump-and-run, you really got to hit him because he's so strong. You probably should front him, and don't cheat. And watch for play-action. Dorsey loves play-action."

The father wishes he could be there with his son Jan. 3, not to coach, but just to enjoy the moment with him. Instead, he must settle for watching it on that 25-inch screen at Everglades. "It'll be hard not being there, especially if they win," says Hughes. "But he knows where my heart is."

Bruce Feldman covers college football for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at bruce.feldman@espnmag.com.