Before the plunger insertion begins, let's discuss Fredo's whole
"public ivy" obsession. Let's break down the basis of their claim to be "Ohio's Public Ivy." And have no doubt that claim is every bit as much of a "fuck you" directed at us as was the Juggalos' "Ohio's BCS School" nonsense.
- That book had no methodology. It was simply the opinion of one man.
- Fredo and Vermont were only included to mix things up, gin up some controversy and sell books.
- The only reason Fredo even had a chance to be included was because of their treachery in colluding with Jim Rhodes to force the state's flagship to maintain open admissions long after the rest of the Big Ten had moved to selective admissions models, while backdooring their own way into selective admissions by not building enough dorm space for the baby boom enrollment bubble (they were always as technically "open admissions" under state law as we were).
In other words, the whole thing is based on a sham, and the fact that Fredo so dearly clings to this yellowed, musty thirty-five year old book just proves that they have nothing else upon which to hang their hat. Does anyone think that Cal or UNC even mention it anymore? Have a ridiculous web page like the one that I just linked? Literally make it the defining event in their entire existence? Of course not. Does anyone now or then really think that Fredo and Vermont are or were better universities than schools like Washington, Wisconsin, Illinois or Minnesota that were left off the list? Of course not.
And the proof is in the history. Fredo wasn't stepped over in the late 1980s. They were stepped over in the 1870s. Ohio State was literally founded to be the state's flagship university, and everything from placing the university in Columbus (away from the ag interests), to the immediate vote to expand the curriculum to an arts & sciences university to the name change, to the Eagleson Bill, to the law, med and dental schools, to our early admission into the AAU, and culminating in 1921 with the state establishing a permanent annual higher education funding model that would have two bills: one for THE Ohio State university and a separate one for Fredo, Beavis, Kent and BG. The proof is in the 1909 letter from the chair of the Carnegie Endowment's higher education division to the Ohio Governor. Ohio had applied to have its university (at the time only THE, Fredo and Beavis) professors covered by the Endowment's pension plan. It's application was rejected, and the Carnegie Endowment Chair told the Governor to get rid of Fredo and Beavis who provide no value so that Ohio might have a university system similar to the one being built in Wisconsin. That's what people thought of Fredo. So let the Fredo administration indoctrinate their students into a fraudulent history that never was. It means nothing because....
.....the proof is on the ground. After Rhodes finally left office, The Ohio State University's inherent superiority was evidenced in how quickly THE Ohio State University recovered (Godspeed Ed Jennings, hope you're enjoying a nice tumbler of bourbon somewhere). Despite the Governor and the Chair of the Board Of Regents shitting on the state's flagship for two decades in order to favor a little, preppy finishing school in the middle of a cornfield, THE Ohio State University has spent the last thirty years literally wiping its ass with Fredo in a manner no less brutal than the beatdown they're going to take in Ohio Stadium this afternoon. The proof is in Fredo literally running away from the state and the Ohio taxpayers who built and continue to fund that godforsaken shithole in order to be a safety school for preppy kids from the Chicago suburbs who can't get into Big Ten universities.
GO BUCKS!
