In Ohio, football is king.
Fall weekends are reserved for it. Three days filled with America’s most popular sport to fill an obsession for one of the most passionate states in the country.
None of this is new information, of course. Not to me, anyway. Born in Cleveland, raised in Youngstown and currently residing in Columbus, I’ve spent my entire life in this state, living in different areas, and nothing is really all that different.
Sure, people root for various teams, but the passion is the same. Our favorite teams are better than your teams, no matter what the scoreboard says. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s just the way it is here.
In Ohio, football is everything. You can see it in the crowds at all the high school games played on Friday nights across the state. You can see it at Ohio Stadium on fall Saturdays and you can see it in Cleveland and Cincinnati on Sundays.
“Here in Cleveland, you know how big the Browns are and people go to a (high school) game on Friday night, they watch Ohio State on Saturday and the Browns on Sunday,” said Tom Lombardo, the head football coach at St. Edward High School in Lakewood, Ohio, located on the west side of Cleveland. “It’s sort of a livelihood for a majority of people.”
When people show up to work on Monday mornings in the fall, their mood is often determined on how their favorite team did over the weekend. But that’s OK, because when one person has a bad weekend, usually everyone in their office shares their pain.
Football is not just a game in Ohio, it’s so much more than that. Football here is exactly what Lombardo described it as: a way of life.
Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer knows better than anyone how important his home state is to his program. Not only is there passion in Ohio, there’s also a lot of talent.
“We certainly are going to recruit in the footprint of Ohio and do the very best we can,” Meyer said one day after winning the 2014 national title. “Ohio State is a national brand and I think it’s always been done there. Of course it’s been a national brand and a national recruiting base, but we’re always going to attack our local areas first. I think you see that when you see a breakdown of the class, you’d like to have 50 percent or more from the state of Ohio or within the footprint, and then you’re going to go cherry pick.”
“You look at Ohio State and they focus on recruiting Ohio kids and they’re winning a national title so that says something for you right there.”– Dave McFarland, Lorain High School Football Coach
Maintaining a high level of recruiting in the Buckeye State has been one of Meyer’s biggest points of emphasis since he was hired at Ohio State. Keeping elite prospects in state is a huge reason why a program can maintain success over a period of time.
Ohio has a lot of top-end talent in it, too. Of Ohio State’s 22 starters from last season’s College Football Playoff national championship game, 14 hailed from the state of Ohio. Of the projected 22 starters for the Buckeyes’ attempt to repeat, 12 are from the Buckeye State. In Ohio State's 25-man 2015 recruiting class, 12 came from the state of Ohio. You can read about some of those homegrown products here.
“Obviously, Ohio football is as good as any state in the country,” said Dave McFarland, the head coach at Lorain High School just outside of Cleveland. “You look at Ohio State and they focus on recruiting Ohio kids and they’re winning a national title so that says something for you right there.”
Dan Reardon, the new head football coach at the prestigious Canton McKinley High School had to come back to Ohio after spending a few seasons coaching in the state of Colorado. He missed his home state and the competition that came with being a high school coach here. But most notably, he missed the community involvement.
“I’ve been out of state for a couple years and it’s good to be back, let’s put it that way,” Reardon said. “Having experienced the state of Colorado, I’ll tell you the biggest difference: In the state of Colorado, there were good players, there were good coaches, there were good teams just like there are everywhere, but the importance within the community, the importance within the school building, the importance within the state boundaries it’s just not the same.”
It’s precisely why football means so much here: People care about their teams, from the high school level all the way to the pros. Because of that, the players want to perform. They want to represent their community, their city, their school.
For Meyer and his staff, keeping Ohio kids in-state not only brings the program talent, but it brings passion. And while not every talented kid from Ohio can go on to play for Ohio State — there are simply too many — the ones who do wind up in Columbus know there are lofty expectations.
“I hear from the college recruiters that come through and they tell us that they’re proud of how passionate Ohio people are,” said Jeff Fox, head football coach at Nordonia High School. “Kids come out of these programs, they’ve been coached and they understand that preparation is needed and they’re going to be committed to being the best football players they can when they get to college. They kind of know they’re getting kids that are passionate and care about football.”
Passionate because football comes first in Ohio. Everything else is secondary.
