True that Peden may not be a show piece but certainly adequate for MAC games, etc. Also, I believe, others can verify, that OU built and opened an indoor practice facility before we opened the Cline facility. As for other athletic facilities, well Herd fans have no reason to talk. They have a quality on campus baseball facility versus, uh, the Kennedy Center? Get real. And the real kicker is their 13,000 seat Convocation Center, built in late 60s for around 10 million $$$, which still is LIGHT YEARS ahead of the monstrosity we call the Henderson Center built over a decade later at around 20-22 million! Its called having a quality plan and quality administration to implement said plan versus the half assed, do-it-on-the fly way that MU has traditionally done things!!
In the 20 seasons prior to Solich arriving in 2005 Ohio had a total of 61 wins. That's 3.05 wins/yr for 20 yrs ('85-'04). And 6 of those years ('95-'00) were with Grobe going 33-33-1. Remove his wins and you've got 28 wins in 14 seasons. Dark days for Bobcat football.
It's true that Ohio had some of the worst football facilities in the country 10 years ago, but that's not the case today. Frank accepted the job on the condition that Ohio would invest in their facilities, since then Ohio has extensively remodeled Peden Tower to provide updated and expanded offices and team meeting rooms, built a new locker room, updated the weight room, built an indoor facility, and are currently fundraising for an academic center that will be built into the north endzone. A new, and much larger scoreboard will replace the one on the south hill next year. These investments don't give the football program elite facilities but they do get them out of being the worst in the country and are on pace with most G5 programs. Also worth mentioning is that a small, but charitable group of Nebraska donors have been contributors to man of these projects in support of Solich.
Peden itself is a problem and will always be unless they knock it down and start from scratch (not happening). Ohio's fanbase is now big enough that selling out the Saturday home games is becoming routine but 24K is still 24K. I think realistically Athens would never need something bigger than 32K, 35K tops, but I don't see an expansion happening any time soon.
As for Ohio's bball facilities, the Convo is old, but it has spririt. 13K new seats were installed this summer and rumor is that a center hung scoreboard is finally on its way. Ohio has top 100 attendance in bball, much different situation than fball.
Home
Help
Members
View the memberlist
Search For Members
Login
Register