We have clearly lost the name war.I talk to dozens on people that don't even know that Ohio exists as a university. I'm not sure what it would take to educate the masses, but we are really behind. Keep trying, I guess.
I think you are using the wrong tense here. We lost the first dozen or more battles of the name war, but we've been winning recently. I find more and more folks who know who OHIO is and can distinguish us from the Evil Empire. I think this is especially true among sports fans. The war is not won yet, but we've got the momentum. In terms of the name recognition issue, Ping was like McClellan, but Glidden and McDavis have been more in the mold of Grant. [Charlie was an excellent president in many, many respects, and he brought us back from near bankruptcy with a deft hand; he is a man of great integrity. However, the name issue was not one of his strong suits.]
You are right among true sports fans of course, but that is a fairly small number of people in the greater scheme of things. I am in Colorado now and we are virtually unknown here. We tend to think about our own little world in Ohio, but if we haven't played some fans team around here, they think of Ohio State first and them Miami next believe it or not. We have a name recognition problem, I can tell you.
I agree that we have a name recognition problem. Not enough people know "Ohio." I also agree with OCF that this fight is not over. I believe we've made significant progress the last decade and am not ready to concede defeat on getting our name out there.
3 things have helped a little:
Weeknight games with no fans in the stands(this can't be Ohio State playing) but again only hard core fans watch this
Frank coaching here- all the Nebraska fans know about us.
Perhaps the sweet 16 run as well, some good pub.
Perhaps another deep run or two would help put us on the map, but that's really, really hard to do as we all know. Or another athlete like Mike Schmidt who would be in the limelight for 10-15 years