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Yes and no when you consider that less than 1 in 4 people in Ohio actually have a college degree. They have to root for someone.
That does not even make sense to me.....in a state where you have two PRO franchises that no one roots with the passion and obnoxiousness as tO$U, I am always amazed by my undegreed friends from Marion,Mt Gilead, Cardington, Sandusky and other corners of the state that still root for the Buckeyes even after they have lived in Napa and regularly attend SF/Oakland FB games and travel all over following Duke Basketball. I Never have figured that out as they have no ties to COlumbus or any of the branch campuses save for this weird cult following of the Bucks. Some of those friends also work at Marysville Honda and still can't give a reason why the Bucks colors are found in their houses, choice of cars/sneakers/cell phone cases and anything imaginable. Not having a degree you would think they would be more likely to go the pro route rather than taking their Wal Mart alumni status to an unreal type of fandom...and you will rue the day if you say anything negative about "their" Bucks as you will be reminded how good tO$U is everytime you see or talk to them. Then again......maybe you are onto something with the uneducated masses and sheepdom....problem is...there are lots of states where the same ratio of non degreed folk is true and they do not have masses flocking to a local college to get their saturday afternoon worship on the tube out of the way.
A classic case of overcompensation. They have no real connection to the university, so they overcompensate with this bizarre over-the-top fandom of the football team. It's a stark contrast to my one OSU alum friend up here. He has nothing on his car, wears a cap or a sweatshirt occasionally but jokes that "you never wear more than one item of clothing unless you're in the stadium and never wear college stuff while flying and going through airports."
I don't think it's all that unique to OSU though. Subway domers, Wal-Mart Wolverines. It's more of a bandwagon thing, but when USC is doing well the non-alum fanbase is one of the most obnoxious in the country. They just have the decency to disappear when the program goes into a bad spell. Hell, I would bet that the non-alum following for Wisconsin is every bit as pervasive. It's not uncommon to see truck drivers with Bucky Badger mud flaps.
To go off on a tangent, I've often wondered that the more competitive it becomes to get into OSU, that maybe they'll start pissing more and more people off and lose them as fans. Hard to root for Buckeyes when they rejected your daughter. Hard to stay a fan of OSU while attending a MAC school because your beloved Buckeyes slipped you the thin envelope. At least I think it would be, but who knows with some people.