It's going to take awhile to click in. USC has terrific fans. I live in Charlotte and I don't know how they do it, until I look at our bball fans and know how we support a bball team that hasn't been where it needs to be for most of the last 30 years.
From afar, I can't imagine leaving early as the shirtless section and the players coming over to thank the fans after the game look like a ton of fun. Cig and some of the podcasters/media guys need to keep calling it out when they notice, and the school and AD needs to keep working to make the end of games fun, even in blowouts. If we keep winning, the support will keep improving. We're learning to be a football school and think how far we've come in (not even!) 2 short years.
I think the Colts are a good example of how change happens. That first 13-3 season in ‘99 was the big on field change, but the home playoff game that season vs the Titans was 20-25K Titans fans.
By 2003 the big fan bases in the NFL like the Steelers, Packers, and Broncos weren’t really taking over the RCA Dome anymore because the fan base was more built up.
IUFB is in the middle of year 2 of building the football fanbase. We are making good progress and I think the progress is going to continue for sometime. People here love college football so we’ve got plenty more upside and the change with IU can happen faster than it did with the Colts.
Cig and some of the podcasters/media guys need to keep calling it out when they notice, and the school and AD needs to keep working to make the end of games fun, even in blowouts.
Respectfully, why?
What benefit is there in calling people out for leaving blowouts early?
What benefit is there to keeping people in the stands during a blowout win?
Get people to the games and involved from before kickoff? 100%.
Stay and be loud during a competitive game? Absolutely.
But once a game is 'decided', if someone wants to leave for the thousands of reasons they might want to leave, I see no harm, myself.
@gros-louis Agreed. Fan support this year is better than it has been in my lifetime. It was never the fans' fault that we have sucked as a program. The administration never demanded any better. In any case, why are we trying to fix the blame for a "problem" when we are undefeated? Maybe, just maybe, enjoy the ride and let it play out. Also, it's funny to hear people talk about the fans based on what they see on television. You know, not in person.
Traffic after the game was more disastrous than normal. If they don't get that fixed, people will keep leaving early to beat traffic. We stayed, and in hindsight, I regret it. It took more 5han 2 hours to make the 55 minute trip to midtown indy.
Yeah, I would agree with this statement. We normally wait a bit before before walking out to our car but when we did, the cars in Lot 12 were stacked up way more than usual and they didn't move at all. We had some food so we just sat and ate for a while. I don't think they have a very good exit strategy for after the game. And what they are doing is very inconsistent.
I'm surprised they don't do more street closures to two way traffic and make those one way for before and after game traffic for a few hours. Granted, up until last year it wasn't an every game issue but still, of the gameday experience, the traffic flow and moving people around isn't very good.
Traffic after the game was more disastrous than normal. If they don't get that fixed, people will keep leaving early to beat traffic. We stayed, and in hindsight, I regret it. It took more 5han 2 hours to make the 55 minute trip to midtown indy.
Yeah, I would agree with this statement. We normally wait a bit before before walking out to our car but when we did, the cars in Lot 12 were stacked up way more than usual and they didn't move at all. We had some food so we just sat and ate for a while. I don't think they have a very good exit strategy for after the game. And what they are doing is very inconsistent.
I'm surprised they don't do more street closures to two way traffic and make those one way for before and after game traffic for a few hours. Granted, up until last year it wasn't an every game issue but still, of the gameday experience, the traffic flow and moving people around isn't very good.
It's extra annoying when someone gets the white glove secret service treatment and make thousands of people sit still while the cops hurry that person past in a blacked out limo on the shoulder. That happened last weekend too.
I'm surprised they don't do more street closures to two way traffic and make those one way for before and after game traffic for a few hours. Granted, up until last year it wasn't an every game issue but still, of the gameday experience, the traffic flow and moving people around isn't very good.
Same. I think it really works to be aggressive with converting roads to one-ways to just get people away from the stadium gridlock.
Maybe there is a good reason why this isn't done, but I'm surprised they don't send more people south to the 3rd street on-ramp to relieve the 45/46 bottleneck. That's my route and it works great at least for me -- it's barely out of the way and traffic isn't bad.
I think we've got too many traffic issues for what is a 45-47K crowd after subtracting for students who walk to the game. But, to be clear, big picture it's not a big deal.
I do have a question for the group;
Does anybody here think we could pull off a “stripe out” if they ever attempted it?
I’ve seen several schools do it and it’s pretty cool but I have serious doubts we could do it at this stage. When you see it at some of these places, fans (particularly student sections) are all wearing identical shirts. Not sire if they are handing those out prior to the game but it’s pretty coordinated. We’re still in the early stages of “coordinated stuff” when it comes to game day but I’ll admit it is getting better. When Hoosier The Bison has each side of the stands yelling “I” and then “U,” it’s the first time in my lifetime I’ve ever seen that accomplished in Memorisl Stadium.
We do it for basketball games. No shirt hand outs (at least for non-students).
With enough communication it could be done at Memorial -- the IU AD isn't always great with communication so they would need to step that up and make it clear for months in advance that XYZ game is a stripe out. That's what other schools do.
Almost all other football schools don't do shirt handouts for stripe outs, etc.
It's probably easier to do when it's warmer out, because while almost everyone has red and white shirts, not all fans have red and white jackets. Personally, on a cold day if I were in a white section I'd have to put a white shirt over my jacket -- that's fine and I guess that's what everyone learns to do to make it work.
It would look really cool if we did it. I think we could have done this for the Illinois game this year and the fans would have made it a success. I was just looking and Kansas recently pulled it off, so there is no reason we can't.
Cig is not a fan of the stripe out stuff. Now, should we do ourselves up at Purdue this year? Absolutely.I do have a question for the group;
Does anybody here think we could pull off a “stripe out” if they ever attempted it?
I’ve seen several schools do it and it’s pretty cool but I have serious doubts we could do it at this stage. When you see it at some of these places, fans (particularly student sections) are all wearing identical shirts. Not sire if they are handing those out prior to the game but it’s pretty coordinated. We’re still in the early stages of “coordinated stuff” when it comes to game day but I’ll admit it is getting better. When Hoosier The Bison has each side of the stands yelling “I” and then “U,” it’s the first time in my lifetime I’ve ever seen that accomplished in Memorisl Stadium.
@big-red-cb-v-2-0 I think Cig wants to bludgeon opponents with no fuss. I don't see him giving two shits about uniformed fan apparel.