I spent 7 years at OSU. (Only 4 as an undergrad!). I like football. As an undergrad, I went to OSU games. Though from a northern land where Michigan was the most frequent TV team of my youth (and who can resist those snazzy Maize and Blue unis, no?), I got into the spirit and cheered for the Bucks. (Even back then, though, a favorite pasttime of 21-year-old AlienLanes82 was dressing all in black, adorned with black nail polish and foot-long hair, and walking down High Street on Fall Saturday mornings counting how many sneers and rude comments I would get).
Eight years later, I cannot stand the OSU Buckeyes. What drives me up the wall is that I perceive Columbus as an exciting, dynamic, modern, cultured city, with a lot of intelligent people, great events and stores, art, music, sports, etc.. Yet, the most important thing to many people continues to be the bloody OSU Buckeyes, and so the OSU Buckeyes have to take precedence over anything else cool that is going on. It keeps us a one-horse town, in perception, if not reality. I understand why rural states and small towns adore their college football teams - the Oklahoma Sooners are probably the biggest thing in Oklahoma. But I cannot think of a city as large, modern, and with-it as Columbus, that continues to obsess about college football to the exclusion of all else. It drives me nuts!
