Roethlisberger does not believe he will ever relate to another coach the way he did to Hoeppner. Who else would trust him so implicitly? Damian Strohmeyer/SI

The Steelers are not quite in the class of the Patriots and the Colts this season, and Roethlisberger is not yet in the same class as Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. But he is himself again. Over Roethlisberger's first seven games last year (he missed the opener), he had seven touchdown passes, 14 interceptions and a 72.2 rating. This year, in seven games, he's thrown 15 TDs and just six interceptions, and his rating is 102.2. He looks bigger than he did last season but just as nimble -- still able to sidestep pressure, skip out of the pocket and throw on the move.

His only regret is that Hoeppner is not around to nitpick his footwork. "He always used to tell me I was overstriding," Roethlisberger says. "I think about that every time I miss a pass. So I guess that means I think about him every day."

They met in the summer of 1999, when Hoeppner was in his first year as coach at Miami and Roethlisberger was coming off his junior year at Findlay (Ohio) High, where he'd spent the season as a receiver, catching passes from his coach's son. At Miami's football camp for high schoolers, Hoeppner noticed that the big wideout also threw a pretty nice pass.

Findlay's coaches had noticed too. Roethlisberger was the jayvee quarterback as a freshman and sophomore, and he earned the varsity job in his senior year. After he tossed six touchdown passes in his debut, against Elida High, Hoeppner hurriedly offered him a scholarship. By the time Ohio State called the following month it was too late.

"The relationship between Ben and Terry was like father-son," says Shane Montgomery, an assistant under Hoeppner at Miami and now the RedHawks' coach. "Actually, it was beyond father-son." When Roethlisberger left Miami for the NFL after his junior season, Hoeppner accompanied him to the draft ceremony in New York City. After Roethlisberger joined the Steelers, he would call Hoeppner on the Friday before every game. And when Roethlisberger crashed his motorcycle on June 12, 2006, Hoeppner drove from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh and camped out in the quarterback's room at Mercy Hospital.

By then Hoeppner was the coach at Indiana. Six months earlier doctors had removed a tumor from his right temple, but he'd been back on the field for spring practice. If he could recover, so could his old quarterback. "You are going to be O.K.," Hoeppner told Roethlisberger in the hospital room. "You are going to be great."

They both spent the fall of 2006 shuttling from football fields to doctors' offices. Roethlisberger had the appendectomy in September and suffered the concussion in October. Hoeppner's second brain tumor was diagnosed in September, and he had another operation shortly thereafter. He returned to the Hoosiers' sideline two weeks later. Both men finished out their seasons, neither too successfully: Roethlisberger had a career-low 75.4 passer rating as the Steelers went 8-8 and missed the playoffs; Hoeppner's Hoosiers finished 5-7, and Indiana failed to make a bowl game for the 13th straight season.

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