Record Day In Athens! Road To CFB Visits An Ohio Game Day

Ohio University sits nestled in the Appalachian Hills of southeast Ohio. The Bobcats entered the 2025 football season off their first MAC Championship win since 1968 and support for the program has never been higher. On this fall Saturday, Ohio hosted the West Virginia Mountaineers in front of a record crowd, with nearly 27,000 fans in attendance. With Peden Stadium at its best, I decided to check out an Ohio University football game day.

The first weekend of the 2025 Road to CFB campaign takes us to Athens, Ohio, for a rare Big 12 at MAC matchup. Read on for recommendations on the best game day spots in Athens, where to discover local craft brews, and how to navigate Athens when the Bobcats are in town.

O-U OH-YEAH!

Game Day In Athens

Every successful Ohio football game day begins on Court Street in the area of Athens known as Uptown. It’s the heart of Athens with dozens of local shops, coffeehouses, restaurants, and–most famously–bars. Take your pick of places and you’re bound to be satisfied, especially with the local coffee shops. This day, we chose Brenen’s (a personal favorite), though Court Street is a strong option too. Both places serve breakfast, but Bagel Street Deli (just across the street from Brenen’s) is the place to go for outstanding breakfast bagel sandwiches.

For lunch, be sure to check out Courtside Pizza at the end of the street. Every place offers a robust selection of local taps (of which Ohio is famous for). If you’re looking for the place in Athens, though, that title belongs to Jackie O’s Brewery. Their food menu is terrific, but if you’re just looking for a couple craft brews, the adjacent BrewPub is the move, as Jackie O’s main restaurant can get on a wait list at doors open. That was our experience this day as droves of WVU fans packed the place – we skipped the line and went next door.

Uptown is your home base on fall Saturdays and, honestly, there’s not much reason to move on to stadium grounds until you’re ready to head inside the gates. Bobcat Boulevard has a few options, including food trucks, but the entertainment is pretty limited and tailgating is nearly nonexistent. That’s chiefly due to the heavy restrictions on it, so students and experienced fans stay put at one of the dozens of bars along Court Street. Ohio U is known for its bars and fests, so you can’t go wrong.

The walk from Uptown to Peden should be done through the middle of campus. Ohio has one of the state’s best campuses, usually in competition with Miami (OH) and Kenyon College. Take it slow to really enjoy the tree-laden walkways littered with ponds, fountains, and hills. (Just be sure to avoid walking the wrong direction and going up Jeff Hill – your calves and lungs will thank me later.) Cut through Baker University Center for one of the campus’ premier buildings.

Parking around Athens is scarce on game days. Your best bet is to pre-purchase parking at the Athens County Fairgrounds, usually priced at $10 per car. It’s a reasonable 15-minute walk from Uptown with sidewalks the entire way. Egress isn’t too bad, either.

There’s free street parking throughout town, but nearly every space is occupied by students on the weekends. Save the hassle and park at the fairgrounds.

Roll Bobbies!

You can put Ohio University next to almost any school in the country and it’ll go toe-to-toe with tradition. After your campus walk and visit to Uptown, you’ll notice the abundance of bricks. Athens is famous for its brick buildings and roads–its biggest rivalry with Miami is even called “The Battle of the Bricks”–and it’s tradition for senior students to leave campus with a brick from around town. How that’s obtained is up to the student themselves.

What Ohio football might best be known for is their marching band, the Marching 110. This elite group is frequently named one of the top bands in the entire country, right up there with Ohio State, Texas A&M, and Tennessee (although HBCU-famed Grambling, Southern, and Florida A&M, among others, are in another league from that). The Marching 110 combine incredible precision with flamboyant dance moves and quick cuts. Everyone is in their seat 20 minutes before kickoff and nobody moves during halftime. Stick around after the final whistle for a postgame concert.

The Bobcats also have a few crowd traditions you’ll notice. O-U OH YEAH has made its way to t-shirts and banners and is a favorite call-and-response chant throughout the bleachers of Peden. During the recognizable fight song “Stand Up and Cheer,” fans spell out O-H-I-O multiple times. Earlier on, “C-A-T-S Cats, Cats, Cats” makes its way around the student section.

Victory Hill is another tradition that, for many other game days, might go unappreciated. But for this record-setting crowd, every inch of Victory Hill was occupied by students.

Jackie O’s has a tent that serves drought beer inside the stadium. Check it out in the north end zone concourse.

Ohio 17, West Virginia 10

Fall arrived early in Athens as Mother Nature must have gotten word about this game. It was a perfect 66º with overcast skies and a light, crisp breeze. Fans showed up in jackets and hoodies ready for a comfortable Saturday afternoon.

Ohio entered the game a short underdog for its first home game of the 2025 season under recently-promoted head coach Brian Smith. West Virginia was playing its second game in the second Rich Rodriguez era. Although the point spread favored WVU, Ohio was a popular upset pick for the week.

After a touchdown on WVU’s second drive of the game, it was all Bobcats. QB Parker Navarro danced his way around the field and threw a few long passes to go up 17-7 at halftime. An offense-lacking second half shut the door on the Mountaineers, who threw a game-breaking interception with three minutes left in the game. That pick ushered hundreds of WVU fans to the gates early. Although they missed the final desperation drive, Ohio never surrendered the lead and closed the door on a 17-10 upset win in front of Peden’s largest crowd ever (26,740 fans showed up!).

There was a brief minute of panic from OU faithful as three consecutive second-half drives ended in interceptions for Navarro and the Bobcats, but the defense came up big. On this day, the Bobcats rolled indeed.

Rushing the field after games has been a hot-button issue between the NCAA, individual schools, and fans. Hefty penalties haven’t stopped everyone from storming the field, but Ohio ensured no fans entered the field even after the visitors left the playing surface. It was an unfortunate finish to a dynamite game day experience and took just a little wind out of the sails of this program-historic win.

Of course, it didn’t ruin the experience, but it’d be disingenuous to say that missing out on that field storm didn’t dampen the end just a bit.

Ohio Football Game Day Picks

Best breakfast: Bagel Street Deli. Brenen’s for coffee.
Best pizza: Little Fish Brewing, just outside of town. If you like deep dish, this is your place. Courtside Pizza for a walkable joint.
For local beers: Jackie O’s Brewery. Visit early September for the Paw Paw beer (a regional fruit beer). Excellent selection of IPAs.
Postgame: Pigskin. It’s one of the best college bars in Athens and hand-selected by an alumnus for this article.
Under-the-radar: Little Fish Brewing. It’s not walkable from campus, but this brewery offers a ton and has a great vibe. A must-visit.

Ohio Football Game Day Grades

Stadium: B. Peden Stadium is the oldest venue in the MAC (opened in 1929). You can see the history in its walls but it’s also been updated and taken good care of. The setting on the Hocking River is gorgeous and there’s no bad seats in the house. You can navigate the entire stadium without missing a snap thanks to a spacious inner concourse and there’s ample concessions and restrooms throughout. Its only pitfall is a tiny scoreboard that serves almost no practical purpose.

Tradition: B+. Ohio football dates back to 1894 and it’s built several football traditions along the way. “O-U! OH YEAH” chants echo around campus, Peden, and the bars postgame. However, Ohio’s No. 1 tradition is the Marching 110 (a.k.a., the most exciting band in the land). The Marching 110 combines flamboyant dance moves with quick, military-esque formations and moves. The fight song, “Stand Up and Cheer” is instantly recognizable and the crowd spells out “O-H-I-O” many times throughout. It’s a surprising tradition-dense game day.

Atmosphere: A. It’s hard to beat a record crowd. The WVU representation added to the noise and explosiveness. The student turnout was so good that it bled into two additional sections, including the entirety of Victory Hill. The crowd was big and loud. Both bands were excellent and could be heard throughout the game. Truly a stadium at its best.

Tailgating: D. There’s not much to speak of, likely due to the ample and convenient bar locations near Peden. Student tailgating is practically nonexistent. Even with tailgate-heavy WVU in town, there just weren’t many tents. The other issue is the school’s strict tailgating restrictions making it difficult for those to do so in parking lots (and the lack of convenient parking lots in general).

Fans: C+. Ohio fans have the Midwest kindness and those that were there were very devoted to the Bobcats. However, Ohio is one of those schools where almost everyone involved has another team (usually Ohio State, but in this case we found many disguised as WVU fans). The other bone I have to pick is the number of season ticket holders that sold their tickets to visiting WVU fans. There was a strong Mountaineer presence here that could have been avoided with headier fans.

Extracurriculars: A. Athens is one of the great individual college towns in the country. Court Street is where you’ll find all of the bars, local restaurants, coffee shops, and stores. It sits just steps from Alumni Gateway and campus itself. If you head down there after the sun sets, you’re bound to be among seas of people and there’s no shortage of places to visit. Outside Athens sits Hocking Hills State Park and Wayne National Forest. It’s also just over an hour from Columbus.

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