The University of Cincinnati is one of the schools near the top of most Big 12 expansion lists and they recently got an endorsement from Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer.

The competition amongst Group of Five schools to get an invite to the Big 12 and a seat at the Power Five table is heating up and we’re not even sure when or if the Big 12 will actually expand.  At last check, there were 18 (!!!) teams that could be on the conference’s not-so-short shortlist for potential expansion.

The Bearcats seem to make a ton of sense though considering they were one of the last teams left out of conference realignment musical chairs a few years ago.  And with college football power brokers like Meyer (who is a former Cincinnati grad) throwing their hat into the realignment ring, it certainly can’t hurt Cincinnati’s chances.

Via Cincinnati.com:

With a decision on Big 12 Conference expansion expected by this fall, the University of Cincinnati has received an endorsement from one of college football’s most powerful figures.

“I’m a graduate and a fan,” Ohio State coach Urban Meyer told reporters on Sunday. “I think they should be in the Big 12.”

Meyer, who has won three national championships coaching Ohio State and Florida, played defensive back for the Bearcats in the 1980s and received a degree in psychology from UC in 1986.

The dynamic between Ohio State and Cincinnati has always been an interesting one, which makes Meyer’s public endorsement intriguing.  First, there’s the fact that Cincinnati as a city just doesn’t buy into the mass Ohio State football hysteria like the rest of the state does.  The two in-state competitors have only met 16 times on the gridiron, including a 68 year gap between 1931 and 1999, with their last encounter coming in 2014.  And there are definitely strong feelings that exist, especially in Cincinnati, about the state of any current rivalry or would-be rivalry with the Buckeyes.  That’s the way it is with a lot of schools around Ohio when they look towards Columbus – Ohio State famously last lost against an in-state school in 1921 when they fell to… Oberlin and didn’t play any Ohio school from 1933-1991.

If any school in the state can at least try to argue they should be in the same weight class as the Buckeyes, though, it is Cincinnati.  The Bearcats have two recent BCS berths on their resume and have put together a consistent winning program.  But the situation facing Meyer and the Buckeyes is similar to what’s happening in Texas.  On one hand, it might be good for the state and college football as a whole to invite Houston into the Big 12, but you can bet that not everyone is equally as excited to build up another in-state competitor.

If UC joins the Big 12, does that give Ohio State someone else to worry about in battling for recruits?  Do they lose out on more top in-state prospects if Cincinnati makes the jump up to the Power Five?  Does their in-state monopoly start to recede just ever so slightly?  It’s a fascinating dynamic, especially considering nobody from Ohio State was really clamoring for the Bearcats to join the Big 10 back in the day.  Here’s what then Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee said about Ohio State blocking the Bearcats joining them in the same conference:

Even though we love Cincinnati as a city, we want it to be an Ohio State city. They’d have to take Gene [OSU AD Smith] out and shoot him to let Cincinnati into the Big Ten. There are some things that we just would not do. 

Urban Meyer giving a public endorsement to Cincinnati joining a Power Five conference is certainly a significant 180 from that sentiment.  But there is a big difference in the Big 10 and the Big 12 at the moment when it comes to money, revenue, and power in college football.  Having the Bearcats in the Big 12 could be just enough of a boost to the Cincinnati program to get it firmly entrenched on the national scene… but still be in a place where Ohio State can keep them at arm’s length when it comes to being the superior program in the Buckeye state.