Ohio State Spring Game in Cincy. How does it affect UC?

Saturday, Urban Meyer’s Ohio State Buckeyes will travel down 1-71 for a couple of hours before they play their Spring Game at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati.

Since Ohio Stadium is currently receiving upgrades, they decided to move the game to Cincinnati. Some might say “Why Cincinnati, why not Cleveland? Why not Toledo?”. Well, it’s simple, really. Cincinnati is a hot bed for high school football. Some of the most elite high school football programs in the nation are in the Cincinnati area, such as St. Xavier, Moeller, Elder, Colerain, Middletown, etc.

Ohio State does a great job promoting their Spring Game, it’s actually a big deal for Ohio State fans. Most schools are lucky to sell 20,000 tickets, but Ohio State does that easily.  In 2009 Ohio State broke the Spring Game attendance record after 95,722 people showed up.  Of course Paul Brown Stadium only holds about 65,000 people, but people still will come. And some of the people there could be future college football players from the Queen City. They’ll see big-name college football players like Braxton Miller, Carlos Hyde, Ryan Shazier, Devin Smith, and Philly Brown, they’ll see arguably the best coach in college football, Urban Meyer. They’ll see the best band in the land, too.  They’ll fall in love with Ohio State and from that day on, make it their goal to be an Ohio State Buckeye and play for the biggest program in college football.

No doubt will this Spring Game steal future recruits from the University of Cincinnati. I’m not talking about guys that are currently high school juniors and seniors, I’m talking about the kids that are in 7th, 8th, 9th grade that will play football at the D1 level in college.

Cincinnati Head Football Coach, Tommy Tuberville said the OSU Spring Game in Cincinnati doesn’t bother him. He said he’ll watch them practice.

Ohio State already has a huge advantage over UC in football. Sure, both teams have great, proven, head coaches now, but Ohio State still, and probably for a while, will be able to recruit better. Ohio State has more fans, a bigger stadium, a tougher schedule, better players, and perhaps most importantly, more national publicity.

The bottom line is, this Spring Game will hurt UC recruiting a little bit, and help Ohio State.