Ohio’s Best Team: Not the Buckeyes
For more than a century, there’s been only one college-football team that matters in Ohio. Right now there’s still only one. But it’s not Ohio State.
The University of Cincinnati, a large but long-overlooked school better known for basketball, has turned this state’s ancient football pecking order on its head. The unbeaten Bearcats, ranked No. 5, are in the thick of the national-title race while Ohio State, ranked No. 19 and coming off a humiliating loss to Purdue, is all but out of it.
When Cincinnati initially passed Ohio State in the Associated Press poll on Oct. 4, it was the first time since 1951 that Cincinnati had jumped ahead of the Buckeyes and the first time since 2004 that any Ohio team had done so. In that poll, the two schools were still so close (No. 8 and No. 9) that most fans assumed the planets would realign. They haven’t.
wsj.com
10/21/9
