Why should we be jealous that the Broncos have to make a long trip to collect their Power 5 payday? Call me when the Trojans land in Kalamazoo and I'll consider a pang of envy.

Good point! ;-)

Most of the time the money games are the first or the second game of the year, and you aren't going to notice that much difference. Now, if you could play in sunny SoCal in November....

And the best cheerleaders...ahh the song girls.

Right on...big difference...could be used as a sales point in recruiting if you can tell a kid we play a PAC-12 school once in their 4 years in Athens, plus added visibility to possible JUCO's we tend to recruit from...ahem....California.

If the money's equal, I do see a difference. Yes, there's less prestige in Minnesota's program than USC's, but you're also more likely to pull an upset at Minnesota than you are at USC.

Don't get me wrong -- if USC came to us with a hole in their schedule and $1 million to fill it, I think it'd be great. I just don't think it's any kind of accomplishment for any program to be a schedule-filling mid-major. It's simply a reality of the current landscape. Winning those games is an entirely different matter.

Put a different way: Should we envy UC Davis' program because they got to play Stanford last year?

+1

Personally I don't think you gain much prestige from losing to a Top Ten team, at least, not unless you can hold it very, very close, and even it isn't much, and doesn't last long. A year after Ohio nearly upset Ohio State in 2008, for non-Ohio fans, the closeness of the game was forgotten, and it just another game in the loss column for Ohio, and another "W" for Ohio State. I do think you get lasting prestige from beating a P5 team, any P5 team. Thus, the "W" over Illinois in 2006 remains as a point of prestige.

As far as recruiting, yes, I think there is something to be gained from playing in an area where you recruit, and these days the bulk of Ohio's recruits come from Ohio, with a few from Florida-Georgia, and some from Maryland, some from Pennsylvania, and some from Kentucky. Almost never do they recruit anyone from California other than Jucos. Going back as far as 2002, the only non-Jucos from California have been William Johnson, Dylan Reda, and Brooks Rossman.


I don't think the strategy will ever change, however, as Ohio continues to improve, the teams that "they have a chance of beating" keep getting better. Thus, now you see OOC home and home series against teams like Kansas and UC, where before you'd see La-La, NMSU or NTSU. It's been a slow change, and for some too slow, but I do see it happening.

The real key that determines how far Ohio can swing in that direction is the fans, and ticket prices. The better the home attendance, and the higher the ticket prices, the more attractive Ohio becomes as a place to play, and the more they can afford to play home-home series instead of "money games" on the road in far away places.

We are in Athens and playing in Peden Stadium. Unless Apple moves their headquarters here and Phil Knight decides that he's been supporting the wrong OU/UO, we are who we are. The attendance(with mid week games) and ticket prices are fairly much stuck where they are.

It's an interesting Catch 22. On one hand Ohio plays Minnesota and most likely will have a better chance at winning, given the recent Minnesota history and the payday might be somewhat smaller. On the other, you go to USC, get a fat payday and some fun in the sun and get your name out there for recruits, but you might get beat by 50. Of course the roles could be flipped depending on how good USC and Minnesota are.

When the next coach comes into Athens, I think you'll see a different approach to the schedule. By that point in time Ohio will have the academic center and a weight room upgrade. The next coach could have good Florida recruiting ties and want to get Florida State and Florida on the schedule. That is what Louisville did to build their program. They played Florida State and Miami and was also able to pull off some wins. They married themselves to the excitement surrounding those programs. Playing Kentucky, Tennessee and Minnesota is not going to attract attention for our program. I'd rather schedule Kansas State, Oklahoma and TCU. There is a lot of momentum in the Big XII right now like there is in the PAC-12. Boise State married themselves to the rise of Oregon and Oregon State. ACC schools are closer to Athens but its full of programs of the past like Syracuse and Pitt and schools that aren't pay day worthy. I think excitement is more important than regionalization when it comes to schedule. When you are going against Kentucky, Tennessee, Marshall and then you bring in an FCS school from North Carolina for parents weekend its a very mid-south orientation. That is like the dead zone of the college football universe.

For those who worry about scheduling games where Ohio is recruiting, here is where Ohio has recruited Freshmen from the last three years:

Ohio - 34
Florida - 5
Michigan - 3
Georgia, Nebraska, Virginia, British Columbia - 2
WV, Missouri, S. Carolina, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Samoa - 1

Sorting a bit:
Ohio - 34
SEC Area (Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, S. Carolina, Missouri) - 10
B1G Area except Ohio (Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania) - 6
Outside the US (BC, Samoa) - 3
Big 12 Area (Oklahoma, WV) - 2
ACC Area (Virginia) - 1

gosh, I wish we could travel 4,600 miles across 3 time zones and back to lose a game and get beat up in week 1.