Brick City Pirate Wrote:I've always thought Cincy was a solid program that was a little under appreciated. The advantage Cincy has over Louisville, and some other Big East programs, is that it is located in an area with pretty good high school football.
Here's the way I see Louisvile-Cincinnati:
Cincinnati Advantages
- Abundant local high school talent
- Abundant in-state high school talent
- Large student population (36K - more than Nippert seats)
- Large alumni base
- More corporations (i.e. more sponsorship opportunities)
Cincinnati Disadvantages
- Heavy competition from pro sports (Bengals and Reds)
- Heavy competition from other college programs (OSU, ND, and UK)
- Media has largely ignored them
- Facilities
Louisville Advantages
- Facilities
- Decent sized metro area with much less competition.
- Louisville follows college sports more than Cincinnati does IMO
- UofL gets pretty $$$ from every major sponsor in town
Louisville Disadvantages
- Not as much local talent as in Cincinnati
- Nowhere near the level of in-state talent
- Smaller student body (22K)
- Smaller alumni base
- Smaller potential market than Cincinnati.
The biggest difference IMO between UC and UofL is that UofL has to rely on out-of-state talent to be competitive in the Big East while UC could probably field a good team off local/in-state talent alone. Each has its own benefits and challenges. For UC, the biggest challenge is beating big football programs like OSU and ND for local recruits. For UofL, the biggest challenge is locking down as much local talent as possible and then hitting football states like florida, Texas, Ohio, etc for other recruits.
If I had my choice, I'd rather be UC because I think it is easier to stay competitive / bounce back when you have a local pipeline than it is to stay competitive and bounce back when you rely 90% on other states to provide talent for you.
