I find that interesting for several reasons.
To start, I think it may kill any shot that Mich State has at wooing Fickell. Fickell knows that the AAC is well above any other G5 in terms of football quality and depth. And now with Norvell having left Memphis for FSU, and USF requiring a total rebuild, and Houston a bit wobbly, and SMU always brought back down by its history, Cincy is set to battle it out with UCF for years to win the AAC and be the first in line for the G5 team in a New Years Six Bowl. Fickell will have an easier time getting there at Cincy than he would at Mich St.
Until about the dawn of the 1980s, when FL talent began to mushroom, OH was universally seen as producing the 3rd most football talent behind CA and TX. By the 21st century, GA also eclipsed OH a bit. But producing the 5th most talent is a big deal, one that is much bigger that it may seem at first because there is only 1 P5 team in OH: the Ohio State University Buckeyes.
Big Ten football has always thrived from that fact, as various BT schools have risen very much according to how many of the near top tier OH players they can take away from tOSU, Mich, and ND.
This Cincy class - top-rated among the G5 - has 11 OH players, 4 other midwestern players, 4 players from the South, and 1 player from MD.
That leads me to this question: how powerful a recruiting factor would Cincy be if it were in the ACC?
The University of Cincinnati was OK with wallowing in sports mediocrity, allowing the sacred Buckeyes to be the 1 and only darling in OH. Cincy began to awaken only after Louisville set its sights on eventually being added to a Major conference (Louisville and Cincy are old, major rivals in both revenue sports). Perhaps even more than previous Cincy coaches with football success (Dantonio, Kelly, Jones), Fickell may prove that Cincy in a major conference can be a beast keeping near-top level OH talent in state rather than allowing it to go to IU, Mich St, Purdue, Illinois, etc.
And that means that continued rise of Cincy football as an ACC member would not be at the expense of any current ACC members recruiting, as neither Louisville nor even Pitt focus much on recruiting OH.
OH is easily the largest state that has only 1 P5 team, and that means that OH is the state most able to be added to a P5 and gain that P5 new TV viewers.
Perhaps we can persuade Moo to get even with us by leaving the ACC. It would serve us right.
To start, I think it may kill any shot that Mich State has at wooing Fickell. Fickell knows that the AAC is well above any other G5 in terms of football quality and depth. And now with Norvell having left Memphis for FSU, and USF requiring a total rebuild, and Houston a bit wobbly, and SMU always brought back down by its history, Cincy is set to battle it out with UCF for years to win the AAC and be the first in line for the G5 team in a New Years Six Bowl. Fickell will have an easier time getting there at Cincy than he would at Mich St.
Until about the dawn of the 1980s, when FL talent began to mushroom, OH was universally seen as producing the 3rd most football talent behind CA and TX. By the 21st century, GA also eclipsed OH a bit. But producing the 5th most talent is a big deal, one that is much bigger that it may seem at first because there is only 1 P5 team in OH: the Ohio State University Buckeyes.
Big Ten football has always thrived from that fact, as various BT schools have risen very much according to how many of the near top tier OH players they can take away from tOSU, Mich, and ND.
This Cincy class - top-rated among the G5 - has 11 OH players, 4 other midwestern players, 4 players from the South, and 1 player from MD.
That leads me to this question: how powerful a recruiting factor would Cincy be if it were in the ACC?
The University of Cincinnati was OK with wallowing in sports mediocrity, allowing the sacred Buckeyes to be the 1 and only darling in OH. Cincy began to awaken only after Louisville set its sights on eventually being added to a Major conference (Louisville and Cincy are old, major rivals in both revenue sports). Perhaps even more than previous Cincy coaches with football success (Dantonio, Kelly, Jones), Fickell may prove that Cincy in a major conference can be a beast keeping near-top level OH talent in state rather than allowing it to go to IU, Mich St, Purdue, Illinois, etc.
And that means that continued rise of Cincy football as an ACC member would not be at the expense of any current ACC members recruiting, as neither Louisville nor even Pitt focus much on recruiting OH.
OH is easily the largest state that has only 1 P5 team, and that means that OH is the state most able to be added to a P5 and gain that P5 new TV viewers.
Perhaps we can persuade Moo to get even with us by leaving the ACC. It would serve us right.
