Yes, we were the ones that backed out of the original Louisville deal.  As I said this first Louisville offer really came as a result of ESPN trying to setup a season opening TV game.  I think it would have been another Friday night game in late August.  We would have had to drop some poor sister of the dead off of our schedule because the offer came over the summer.  I think we claimed we couldn't make the adjustment and then Louisville (who had a schedule opening for some reason this late) found another school.  The second Louisville offer came after this ESPN deal and was for a straight 1-1.  I'm not sure what excuse we used to refuse this one, which was not immediate but a year or two out -- giving us plenty of time to drop a sister of the dead.  I also hear that we turned down U of Cincy on a 1-1, but I don't really have any details on this one and I'm actually a little skeptical about it because Brian Kelly was known to have mouthed off about not wanting to play Oxford Tech any more in Oxford, but was overruled by the AD.  

The key is consistency in bringing those BCS names. Iowa State, Pitt and UConn all drew over 24,000 fans to Peden Stadium, the only schools ever to do so. Having 1 of those type of teams in the house is going to give a sellout in Peden every year and further legitimize the program among the students and alumni. I can guarantee this. The football program has a name coach, recent bowl appearances and games on ESPN. It has a lot going for it but the one thing that can be easily improved is to bring a BCS team to the stadium every year. Even to get another 1,000 alumni out of the woodwork as season ticket holders would be huge. Not only would you be making more money by having that BCS team in the house it would also be furthering overall season ticket sales and enlarging dontations to the Ohio Bobcat Club. I would be okay with the kind of football schedules we have in place over a 4-5 year period IF this program was in rebuilding mode. Clearly we are not as we've beaten Miami the historically best football team in the MAC 5 years running, and by a large margin on the road in 2010 even in a year where they won the MACC. The program is clearly built, the only chance it has to take the next step is to continue to win on stronger schedules. As ify as what the QB situation looks for Ohio it is hard to see the team finishing any worse than 9-4 with loses to Rutgers, Marshall, CMU, and in the MAC Championship game. Folks the MAC East is a cakewalk at this point, our 3 top competitors in the East (Kent, Miami, Temple) all are bringing new coaches into Peden Stadium. The time is come to improve the home schedule.

Ball State.  Yikes.

Rest of the conference, for fun:

Akron - 10,185, 6 games.
Buffalo - 12,981, 6 games.
Kent State - 16,152, 5 games.
Temple - 20,515, 6 games.

Central - 20,448, 5 games.
Eastern - 15,885, 5 games.
Western - 14,255, 6 games.

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/pdfs/2011/2010+national+college+football+attendance

You've got me hooked; what did they say?  I was sorry not to see anything in the paper's reporting of the event last night.  I'm looking forward to seeing it in the coverage of the Cincy and Cbus events as well, as surely there will be a media outlet or two at those, and I'm sure we'll have posters raising their concerns at each as well.

I'm bookmarking this post so I can read it for sanity's sake every time the scheduling rants come out...

Well said Mike!

I agree. It would be exciting to play BCS schools all the time, but I don't want to end up 1-17 against them like Miami and have people not show up because of the poor results. In reality, look at the numbers. There was little difference in attendance opening the season at home with UConn and with Wofford. Most people really don't care who we're playing, but they care more how we're playing. I'll let Solich schedule the way he thinks is best. He probably knows better than any of us.

You are assuming quite a bit here that isn't given.  For starters, you are assuming that all fan bases react to BCS games the same way.  Perhaps Ohio fans value BCS home games more than other MAC programs? Given that I believe our three highest attended home games in history all were against BCS opponents, this is certainly plausible.

Second, it's unclear what impact the prevalence of BCS games had on each of those school's attendance.  For instance, maybe Miami's attendance would have been even lower if they hadn't been hosting BCS programs during that time. 

Third, your data just accounts for record vs. BCS games generally, and not the number of BCS home games that each program had.

So the data presented here alone really doesn't justify the current scheduling strategy in my mind.

I'll preface this by saying it is pretty neat when a FBS team comes to Peden.  I was at the Pitt game, and it was largely the launching point for me (re)discovering a significant interest in Ohio Football.  And it was also cool to go to the UConn game.

And for both of those games, no one on this board knows if the events cash flowed for the Athletic Department, particularly considering the increased attendance at both was bolstered by higher student attendance (which is a GREAT thing, although it doesn't produce revenue for the gate), HEAVILY discounted tickets (remember the $5 tickets that were only available for a couple of weeks but actually were available until the week of the games) PLUS likely comp tickets for high school marching bands in the case of the UConn game.

I think that the university should be working hard to deliver FBS schools to Peden on occasion to deliver value for the students, season ticket holders and to deliver casual fans that might normally just pass over the program.  Hovever, my primary concern is that a lot people here are assuming that this is EASY to do, and I think that is awfully pollyanna when EVERYONE wants to play Big Six schools non-con on a one for one.

So WMU admits in the mlive AD article that they will likely lose money on the Illini home game, as I would surmise we likely did for both Pitt and UConn.  IF WMU is already admitting that, do you think they needed to sweeten the pot for the Illini to come?  Likely so.  Why does everyone think that we would get an even swap with a Big Six team?

Just for giggles, say you are in the Big Six conferences: which of you WON'T produce more than double the attendance in your home stadium WITHOUT deeply discounting your tickets when you host Ohio compared to the gate Ohio could deliver when you played them in Peden.  A little research and speculation leaves me with the following list:

ACC-Duke, UVA, Wake
Big 12- IA St.
BE- Cincy, maybe UConn, Louisville, USF
Big Tweleven- IU, NW
Pac 12- WSU
SEC- Vandy

You have 12 CUSA, 9 SBC, 9 WAC, 13 MAC, 9 MWC and three independents all vying to land one for ones with you.  That's 55 (soon 53) schools total against 13 likely targets.  Not a target rich environment.

HOWEVER, you also have the options of paying for one and dones with all the FCS schools with the appropriate scholarship level against whom a victory counts as a FBS victory, and after the payout are surely going to be as profitable for you as the one home game of the one for one that the non-BCS schools want you to sign.

Please explain, why would the 13 above schools not have leverage for a better deal than a one for one with the 55 non-BCS, and why does everyone think this should be easy for Ohio to pull off every year?

Our strategy.

And I think that's where the debate needs to be: whether or not the strategy is a good one. But in reality, the strategy is already in full force and the proof will be in the results over the next 3 to 5 seasons. In other words, we can all debate, but it's kind of pointless.

This is year 4 of the strategy. In my opinion its already mission accomplished. Its time to move on and schedule up with at least 1 BCS home game a year to pump up the fanbase.

No worries, most of the Bobcat fanbase still feels the same way. I'm imploring that we are there looking from 1) Solich's winning record and length of tenure at Ohio, 2) Five straight wins over Fiami, 3) Program Depth, 4) Recruiting improving each year. We've averaged 7.2 wins over the past 5 seasons. For the MAC that is pretty top notch. Ohio wins 10 games next year and that five year average moves to 7.4. The only piece of the success formula that is missing from the program is that 1 BCS home game a year to maximize alumni interest.

This will help our image:



Big time football being played there.  Big time.