Why did we get lights?

[TG1996]

Think we might need to put a big box of Kotex out in the tailgate area.

If the rainfall is as big of an issue as it sounds, that might not be a bad idea!

[Oldballcoach61]

This site is becoming nothing more than a BITCH site. How pathetic. How about we just s**t can everything BGSU does as a sports program, and then we can all set back and be happy.

[BGorDeath]

I thought another reason the lights were put in was to host high school games...which has occurred.

[bgsufalcon24]

These are two completely relevant points. Let's face it, most students are not getting their asses out of bed for a noon start. I hate to be the bearer of bad news on that one, but I was one of the weird ones that was usually up by 930 or 10am on Saturday and Sunday, and even within the honors student-laden dormitory of Harshman Dunbar there weren't many folks stirring at that hour. Walking or running across campus there were weekend mornings where I could go across the main path from Harshman to Offenhauer and not see a soul. So if you want to depress student attendance, yup, by all means have a noon start.

And then to have a noon start on homecoming is RIDICULOUS. Absolutely, flat-out stupid. The whole day is built on various campus organizations and groups inviting their members back, putting on events, etc. Usually they have the whole morning and much of the afternoon to do that before either a late afternoon or nighttime start for the football game, which is obviously the marquee event. But now you've forced most of our campus orgs into a difficult situation, where they might have to put on their events on Friday night (up against the parade perhaps?) or very early on Saturday, where they likely won't get much attendance. This is ugly, and it shocks me that our athletic department could be this insensitive to everything else that goes on homecoming weekend.

What about the band? Have fun telling them they have to be together and practicing by 8am on homecoming morning. Yuck.

The ONLY conceivable reason I could see them even thinking about having Toledo vs Bowling Green on homecoming, at noon, is if the game was going to be nationally broadcast on ESPN or ESPN2. Unless somebody can confirm that for me, then this makes no sense whatsoever. Maybe both teams will be unbeaten (mwahahahahaha) by that date and save GC's bacon.

Students that want to attend the football game will attend the football game whether it is at 12:00 Noon, 3:30 PM, or at 7:00 PM. Quit making EXCUSES up. Students seem to have no problem showing up well before noon for a game in Columbus. Students seem to have no problem showing up for a 3:30 game in Ann Arbor and I'm guessing they won't have a problem showing up for an 8:00 PM game this Saturday night in Ann Arbor either.

To compare our fans, especially our student fans to those at Ohio State or Michigan, and to insinuate that BG's are as passionate about their team as OSU's or Michigan's is a bad take. Come on. The students fans at OSU and Michigan WANT to be there every game. They are people that wouldn't even think of missing a game, short of one of their family members dying, ending up in the hospital, or them being seriously ill, etc. As Hammb said, they would likely show up on Tuesday morning at 2am if they have to.

That's not to say that BG doesn't have a select few that share this undying loyalty and passion, but you'd have a hard time scraping up 1k of them. The remainder are either casual fans of our team that need to be endlessly coddled in order to get them to the Doyt/Stroh/Ice Arena, or they are primarily fans of another school first. It hurts. There was nothing that annoyed me more than people that liked sports but wouldn't support our teams because they rooted for OSU/UM/etc, but BG is filled with them.

There's 3 main ways to get casual fans on your side:
1.WIN, the most obvious. Wins vary from year to year though.
2.Promotional events/giveaways. These help, but won't provide cover for an unresponsive athletic department or a losing program.
3.Community outreach/marketing. Which anybody on this board will tell you hasn't been our strong suit.

At the end of the day, when you're struggling to get fans involved, struggling to put a winning product on the field, you can't shoot yourself in the foot by scheduling games at bad times that don't allow for tailgating, don't allow for folks from out of town to travel at decent times to get to BG for kickoff, and interfere with people's lives in general. Our final home game of the season in 2008 was against Buffalo. The athletic department, for reasons unknown to the universe, scheduled the game for 6pm on a Friday, when students would be leaving town, when out of town folks would have no chance to attend, and when townies wouldn't be able to make in time for kickoff after work. Result? Probably 4k in the stands for the biggest game of the season, with the MAC East Division Championship on the line. That game also ended up being memorable for other reasons but I'd rather not rehash that fateful day.

[footballguy51]

For those of you that think scheduling matters to the students that support OSU or UM over us, you are insane. If OSU plays at noon and we schedule our game for 3:30, the OSU students won't show up because OSU is just finishing. They may come out to the BG game at halftime if you're lucky. If you schedule the game for 7:00, the vast majority of students are already drinking while either celebrating an OSU/UM win or drinking away the sorrow of an OSU/UM loss, so they won't be coming to the game. Of course, if the game starts at 7:00 or later, the students leave at halftime to get back to the dorms to change clothes so they can get to the clubs. If we play at noon to avoid the big schools, the kids aren't coming because they're pre-gaming for the OSU/UM game. The noon start for Wyoming makes perfect football sense. As for Toledo, why can't the student organizations have their homecoming festivities AFTER the football game instead of before???

[Rightupinthere]

I think we got the lights to show the FAA who's the boss...

That's hilarious. I completely forgot about that.

I was at the first night game at the doyt when we trucked in the lights. Great time in front of 32K fans. I believe we played Akron when they were still IAA.

[jg4242]

As far as the band goes, you have absolutely no idea as to what you are talking about. Because if you did, you would know that showing up at 8AM on homecoming morning for rehearsal means Quigleys! (Do they still call it that?) Practice starts at 6:30 AM on Homecoming morning (according to Dr. Heyward this past Monday night at Frickers).

When I was in college, living in BG, that was normal and cool. But I'm a high school band director now. I live 4 hours away, and I have a football game Friday night. How am I supposed to get to BG in time for an 8AM rehearsal? I don't even get to leave school to head home till 11PM (if I'm lucky)! I know it's part of the deal when you're IN FMB, but it's a pain in the azz now that I'm an alumni. I probably won't be able to participate this year, and several of the people I marched with are in the same boat. Noon starts for homecoming are a Bad Idea.

[Falconfreak90]

I think we got the lights to show the FAA who's the boss...

That's hilarious. I completely forgot about that.

I was at the first night game at the doyt when we trucked in the lights. Great time in front of 32K fans. I believe we played Akron when they were still IAA.

I was at that game as well, fall of my SR year...Sept '89 and we lost 38-24. I sat in the north end zone bleachers at the top with a flask full of Southern Comfort in my jacket. The place was packed...

[Bubba Bo Bob Brain]

This site is becoming nothing more than a BITCH site. How pathetic. How about we just s**t can everything BGSU does as a sports program, and then we can all set back and be happy.

We love our team, but not necessarily the way various members of the administration run things. Some may say "ruin" things while others might think that's a typo. Some may say "run things into the ground."
We love our sports programs, but not necessarily the way they are run.
We are students, alumni, ticket holders, and / or tax payers in Ohio.

Whatever the reasons, though, in this case we really ought to offer plausible suggestions, and quickly, before the university hires an outside consulting firm to make suggestions. This then, is our challenge: How DO we get people to show up to games in a world where going to the Saturday afternoon football game is no longer the only option open to people? How do we get people to show up to games when the concepts of showing school spirit and coming out to support your team as we know it in America are associated with the era that gave us sock hops and raccoon coats by today's student population?


YAY FALCONS!

[AyZiggy97]

Since when did noon become a crazy start time?

Ugh! noon is a horrible start time! They want people to come to games but put the games at noon...really? Parents have to take their kids to their sporting events in the morning so an afternoon or evening game is perfect. Not to mention the students, how many of them will even be up and sober by noon?

And then homecoming! Stupid! Even before we had lights homecoming start time was always 3:30. They want alumni to come and participate in activities. How can you possibly have activities when game time is noon? I'm not marching in Alumni band for that very reason. Alumni have jobs and families, of course the schedule can't be adjusted to our schedules but they could make it a little bit easier for it to realistically fit into our lives if they tried. I've hardly missed a game since I graduated but the schedule gets crappier every year and discourages game attendance. We'll be lucky to have 6,000 people at the 2 home games in Nov.

Ohio State drew 105,016 against Toledo. Their game started at 12 noon.

People will complain no matter what time BG is scheduled to kick off. If it gives the Falcons players an advantage to start at 10 a.m. MT, then so be it.

[Flipper]

Depending onthe time of the month...that Kotex thing could be a winner. Can you imagine the home field advantage we'd have with 15-20,000 women getting a visit from "cousin Flo"? It could end college football as we know it...

[Falcon30]

I don't have a problem with the complaining as much as I have a problem with the rude SOBs who pop up whenever anyone has even a legitimate complaint.

Let people vent. The whining about the complaining is also complaining. Duh. It's like shouting that everything is too loud.

Homecoming that early for BG is a mistake. I am too old to get up before dawn to drive to BG, and too underemployed to afford a hotel room in BG (which I wouldn't be able to get to until about 1:30 AM at the earliest.)

No band again for me. If the goal is to lower numbers at homecoming, noon is a great time compared to 3:30.

[VDub26Falcon]

I had to do some serious adjusting of schedules to make sure I can get to the game this weekend and also on Homecoming...I do plan on arriving in BG around 8 a.m. for both of those games...the wife will be sleeping for the 90 minute drive. I will be downing 5 Hour Energy. Sucks that the game starts to early but I'm in the group that will be there as soon as I can!!!

[AyZiggy97]

I don't have a problem with the complaining as much as I have a problem with the rude SOBs who pop up whenever anyone has even a legitimate complaint.

Let people vent. The whining about the complaining is also complaining. Duh. It's like shouting that everything is too loud.

Homecoming that early for BG is a mistake. I am too old to get up before dawn to drive to BG, and too underemployed to afford a hotel room in BG (which I wouldn't be able to get to until about 1:30 AM at the earliest.)

No band again for me. If the goal is to lower numbers at homecoming, noon is a great time compared to 3:30.

I have no problems with legitimate complaints, but the start time for homecoming isn't one. It's a MAC TV game. Complaining about television's control over sports is like complaining about the sky being blue. Maybe there's a gripe about next Saturday's game time because it was set by BG. But the previously noted early wake up for Wyoming is a compelling factor.


http://www.mac-sports.com/News/tabid/96 ... ckage.aspx

[JohnnySwoop '85]

Personally, I think late afternoon games would always be best. Especially, if you aren't worried about being televised, anything even in the 4-6pm start window would work. If like last Saturday, the start time is 7pm, then so be it, we can bite the bullet and get back home at 1:30 AM because its worth it.

I dislike noon starts as much as the next guy, especially since we like to arrive at least 2 hours in advance and that's after a 2 hour drive. But these days with my son's X-C schedule, I might not make it back until...get this...the saving grace of a weeknight game kicks in. Who cares, clock out for 2 hours of vacation, make the drive... get there. And he's unhappy too, he's a gamer and a 3 bowl trip veteran...so for a lot of the fan base that are family-raising alumni keeping starts out of the window of typical youth sports should at the very least be a small consideration.

But the key ingredient to attendence will always be weather errr temperature regardless of start time. Why do you think my daughter chose to take her skills to Georgia? She sat through a handful of late October/early November games and this wasn't her scene....oh that and the fact that she never got a recruiting call from either of two coaches that have offices at Cooper pool but that should be a different thread in a different section.

Please move homecoming to 5pm!!!