I was more of a baseball fan growing up but was also a fan of UC. My first UC game at Nippert was as a young kid. The opponent was Temple. That would have been 10/29/77. Warm sunny day. Back then there was the 3 networks and a multi media station, locally here it was Channel 19. Some UC Football and Basketball were broadcast on that Channel.

Yes! as a kid in NE Ohio- Kent State had Jack Lambert and Don Nottingham playing in NFL/ Thurmon Munson playing for Yankees/ and a couple of guys named Nick Saban and Gary Pinkel playing football as well and would later go" coach football"....moved to Central Ohio and still went back and attended Kent State (just like my Dad). (25 years later- our son graduated from Kent- three generations of "G5" fans)..

As a kid I was a fan of Utah since my dad was an alum and we watched games all the time. I went to summer sports camps at both Utah and BYU since both were within a couple hours of home in SW Wyoming. Laramie was 5 hours east and held little draw for me so I wasn't really a Wyoming fan. When it came time to choose a school, Utah was an interest but I would have been paying out of state tuition. BYU worked out great as it had a better on-campus lifestyle and LDS tuition was very affordable compared to my other options--and my application was accepted (much harder to get in now than the late 80s when I applied). So I attended BYU and it has been my school ever since and will always be whatever structure changes happen. The P5 doesn't really hold my interest simply because I don't have personal connections to these schools so would rarely sit through a game.