What I don't understand is why do we schedule home/home with UMASS and Texas State and drop Marshall. We are competitive in Huntington and own them in Athens.. Huntington is a short bus ride and the other two are plane trips. It doesn't take a genius to figure out we make more money playing Marshall. I could careless if we ever played Umass and Texas state. We haven't played Umass in how many years and they are in our division.

I wish this season was a year that Ohio played a much better non conference schedule because I feel this is a team that could rack up some wins over good teams. Sure Minnesota is still on deck, but playing teams like Idaho who might be the worst team in the country and an FCS school in Southeastern Louisiana leave a lot to be desired. Even Marshall this year wasn't very good. I'm sort of getting tired of our schedules being the same tired mix of FCS teams and bad FBS schools with usually only one headliner game sprinkled in. We're almost always assured of going 3-1 by default because the teams usually suck. Yes I like winning but I also like facing other decent competition, and I can't imagine the guy who come here to play for us wouldn't want to as well. It's like our AD targets some of the worst teams in the country like New Mexico State and Idaho and locks them up, which if no surprise seeing Kansas on there now too because they are arguably the worst Power Five team in the nation.

I think Ohio's schedules will be a little more appealing in the future. Next year the team has Kansas and Tennessee. In 2017, there is Purdue and a home game against Kansas, and in 2018, there is a game at Cincinnati with games still to be scheduled.

OUr ideal OOC schedule should look like this every year-

1. FCS, always Home.
2. P5 payday, tough but winnable, always Away.
3. P5 low level, H/H.
4. G5 Marshall or other top tier, H/H.

I'm not sure what you are basing that reasoning on.
We've had two P5 programs come to Peden since Frank started.
Pitt 24,545
UConn 24,617
Those are both good crowds, so I'll completely disagree that it is just "diehards" on this board who care about big-time opponents. In fact, I'd argue that average P5 teams like Kansas or Purdue are even more important to the casual fans because those are names they recognize as playing in the big conference. Meanwhile, I think most diehards on this board would consider showing up for no-name opponents.

I like playing winnable P5 teams like Kansas. They aren't great at football, but I think they DO interest casual fans and I enjoy seeing good crowds in Peden. When the fanbase is excited, it makes the atmosphere more fun to be a part of.

If anything, the fact that Norfolk State outdrew Pitt is a sign of how much Frank Solich has grown this program in the last decade. In 05, Pitt drew over Peden capacity of 24k. Would Norfolk have drawn that much back then? No way. RJ claimed "frank fever" was the reason for high attendance at Pitt. In reality, Frank Fever is the reason for Norfolk State attendance being high. They built a fan base. 24k for Pitt a 10 years ago. Kansas will easily outdraw that. Because the program has grown. And Kansas will easily outdraw Norfolk. Because casual fans have name recognition with Kansas while there isn't any with Norfolk.

Many on this board like to bash Frank but the clear reality is he has completely changed the culture of this program. 10 years ago, 24k for Pitt was a great crowd. Now, 24k for Pitt is being talked about like it isnt big enough.

About the only complaint I have against the OOC schedules the past 5-8 years is that we play many of our 1 and 1 with remote or long distance schools like Idaho, North Texas, Wyoming and New Mexico State to name a few. Makes it look like we're in CUSA. Just kidding about that, but it would seem that there would be some closer teams who we could have scheduled.

This is the best point brought up this whole thread. There is no huge incentive to play a power 5 at home, when you can play on the road and get paid. Our ticket situation is good for Athens. We will always play and FCS team and one pay game. The next two need to be home and home, and power schools are tough to come by that will do that. We need to win Non-Con games to be bowl eligible, no need to overload it.

I do think we should be play closer to Athens though. WKU, Navy, APP State, Middle Tenn, Old Dominion. Those are all much closer.

Your first comment is exactly my point, the rest is sarcasm

I never said the crowds were bad against P5 opponents. I asked a simple question: How do can this program justify spending money and/or leaving money on the table to get "name" opponents in Peden when there is absolutely no financial benefit?

We pretty much hit capacity for our 1AA games, and likely will again this weekend. We hit capacity ANY Saturday that's nice, and that's a great thing. All I'm saying is that there's no measurable financial incentive to pay up to get the bottom feeders of the P5 world to come to Athens.

When the Pitt game was played in 2005 ticketing at Ohio was handled differently. There were no family packs and when student overflowed the student section they were given tickets to sit in the corners. That is why the Pitt game was packed so tightly. Schaus has created a bubble of no shows by forcing fans into season tickets and requiring the students to sit in their section. Then he's selling SRO tickets to the stadium with limited reserved seating.

2005 Peden Capacity
Reserved Sections (16,400)
Student Section (5,600)
Victory Hill (2,000)
Participants (500)
Total Capacity (24,000)

Pitt listed attendance 24,457. Pitt actual attendance 24,301 (99%)

2015 Peden Capacity
Reserved Sections (16,400)
Student Section (9,600)
Standing Room Only (2,000)
Participants (500)
Total Capacity (28,500)

Marshall listed attendance 25,210. Marshall actual attendance 22,689 (90%)

A Peden sellout today is defined as Reserved+SRO and then how many students turn out for the game. The crowd last week then was about 19,000 sold and 6,200 students, 10% of which between all season tickets (including the ozone season tickets) didn't show. Russ said the hill wasn't very full but fans were standing around the corners. Instead of increasing the seats they've increased the amount of people they can fit in there.

That New Mexico State game back in 2012 set a record with 9,000 students leading to a record crowd and the Akron game that year was also one of the highest all time student games. That was before the premium family pack and the start of a few years in a row with increased season ticket sales. Today those crowds would be a couple thousand more.

The academic center project had an aim of allowing another 1,500-2,000 spectators when it was first came out. When the design was presented it included bathrooms at the concourse level but no seats. Its because the game is to increase the SRO by another 1,500-2,000 and 30,000 overall SRO. With a big scoreboard upgrade in the other endzone it makes sense to push the SRO crowd under the academic center by the bathrooms and concessions. The most amount of reserved season tickets that can be sold is 13,000 because of the student and visitor allotments. That way they keep the demand tight. Tickets for homecoming for seats in the midfield reserve section are $44 dollars counting processing fee on Ohiobobcats.com. This is only the beginning for MAC schools creating an expensive ticket. Toledo is charging $70 dollars between the 40's for Iowa State.

Wes,

How are you producing official attendance numbers that no one else seems to have the ability to access?

I was on the hill Saturday and it was a wet, muddy mess so that almost certainly discouraged a lot of people from sitting there. I was also on the hill for the Pitt game and that was pretty unreal.