The Crosstown Shootout heading off campus may not be as done a deal as we had been led to believe.
Statement from Presidents Gregory H. Williams and Michael J. Graham, S.J.:
The University of Cincinnati and Xavier University were both surprised to see today’s announcement concerning the future of the Crosstown Shootout. While both schools are committed to the future of the Crosstown rivalry, specific discussions are ongoing and no details have been finalized. We look forward to sharing our plans with the community at an appropriate time in the coming weeks.
The above was just released from the office of Assistant AD Tom Eiser, who generally is in charge of keeping the media updated on such things. Obviously, neither school could have possibly missed the fact that few people - including a mere ten percent of the early responders on our poll - were happy with the idea of the Shootout moving off campus.
As Brad has already pointed out on Twitter, it's hard to tell what exactly this release means. If the Shootout is staying on campus, it would be seemingly pretty easy to put out a release saying that. If it's not, the cat is out of the bag and there's no point in throwing up a smoke screen at this point. Instead, we get this.
It's clear that something beyond just the usual "see you at your/our place next year!" is going on with the scheduling of the annual game. I don't think there's anything to do except take the statement at literal face value and wait until the schools decide it's time to share their plans with the community. As usual, we'll let you know when they do. Stay tuned, I guess.