I saw a lot of split allegiance shirts/hats/flags/etc. It is what it is, the only thing that would sway those people would be if Ohio won a national championship, and even then I'm not sure they would fully embrace Ohio as a national champion.
I did find my conversations interesting that I had with a couple people wearing green and red. Unfortunately, both people I spoke to answered my question the same: Would you rather OU win today and ruin OSU's chance at a national championship or witness the biggest possible win in OUr program's history?
Both people said they would rather OSU win and keep the playoff hope intact...
That stinks.
Turn in your diploma.
I would guess that many of these folks with split allegiance were in Athens during some of the dark days of Ohio Football, most notably the Brian Knorr debacle. Older ones were likely here during the Cleve-Lichty eras.
With a BS in 70 and a PhD in 93 I experienced the good and bad times of Ohio Football.
I stuck with Ohio Football during dark times.
You either Bleed Green or you don’t.
I agree with this. I hope that our new athletic director places a lot of emphasis, through his fund raising efforts, to encourage those pertinent alumni to support their school at greater levels than they support Ohio State. If we can carve into that it will, in actuality, be a new source of income.
This is not a knock on our past players as we had many fine players who gave great effort but the days of the football team being a complete afterthought when compared to Ohio State for many alums doesn’t “hold near as much water” anymore. I’m not naive enough to say we are on the same level as Ohio State but there has been 20 years of good football in Athens. Those alums need to put the tired old comments and thoughts behind them.
Adults often fall behind and approach with dated views on universities or football. They remember having to pick up up satellite coordinates to watch games and having one bowl game to play for. Its different now as Ohio is regularly in a bowl game, on TV every week be it network or streaming and for basketball in Cleveland every year. Its like following any other D1 program these days.
If Ohio State football was like Minnesota football where they were normally down and out with few T-Shirt fans I'm sure that would direct more Bobcats alums to follow the program. OSU's elite strength however means they pass up on in-state talent creating opportunities for the state to support a couple of strong G5 programs. That was Cincinnati then Toledo/Ohio the last 20 years but with UC moving to the 16 team Big 12 they won't win another conference title. At least the MAC is mostly a 3-4 team race between Ohio, Toledo, Miami and BG then in basketball its Ohio, Toledo, Akron and Kent. It makes for it to be reasonably competitive for Ohio but not too competitive. The casual alum of course can't appreciate it like a serious fan.