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Ohio's Shame: Michigan Football’s Recruitment in Ohio

+5 HS
Toledo87's picture
March 31, 2024 at 11:01pm
35 Comments

I did some research as result of a post by BeatMeechigun, stating that most of the Michigan fans in NW Ohio were fans as result of families knowing someone who played there at some point. I still disagree with that opinion. In my opinion it's a combination of bandwagonism and contrarianism in NW Ohio. In my research they had way more players coming from NE Ohio than NW Ohio. But you don't have anywhere near percentage wise the number of Michigan fans all over NE Ohio and doesn't explain all these small towns in NW Ohio, who never had anybody play for Michigan having a sizable contingent of Michigan fans.

But in any case, in my research I found a University of Michigan site that has their rosters going back to 1879 as one database. You can search it and filter it by a whole host of variables. A total of about 570 Ohioans have had freshmen eligibility with the Wolverines since 1898. There probably are a few more Ohioans who played for them who transferred there from other schools and others whose eligibility is unknown, but you can't break it down and filter it that easily.

These cities are the leaders in providing "traitors" to the state of Ohio. I only included cities that provided at least 10 people. This is based on the number of people who have had at least freshman eligibility since 1898. The surprising thing is which city has provided the most Wolverines in the Buckeye State.

Cincinnati=60
Toledo=59
Cleveland=39
Youngstown=24
Akron=19
Canton=16
Dayton=15
Lakewood=16
Columbus=14
Fremont=10
Barberton=10

This is the website
https://bentley.umich.edu/athdept/rosters/football.php

I wish Ohio State had a database like this

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