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Well done!! Haven't seen that many students at a game in a VERY, VERY, VERY long time!! And they stuck around for most of the game too!

JUST OUTSTANDING!!!

Hope this is a good sign for attendance this year!!!

And the team gave them every reason in the world to keep coming back. The student section rocked!!

Falconfreak90 wrote:And the team gave them every reason in the world to keep coming back. The student section rocked!!

+1

If the team can keep winning and be in contention, playing good football like it did against Tulsa, I don't know what more you can do to get the students to the stadium. Either they're going to follow a winning team or they simply aren't interested.

I find this weird because when I was in school (granted a long time ago...early 1970s) BG always had strong student support and the home side was always full (unless the weather was really, really crappy). But then, BG had some good years back then, even though they fell just short of winning the MAC (sounds familiar, doesn't it?)

Of course, certain games (UT and Miami, especially) always sold out or nearly did. I would expect if the winning continues, they should have some huge crowds for UT and Ohio.

We've had pretty good student turnouts for the last several home openers. It never seems to carry over into the rest of the season. I think it's because it took the stadium staff until the start of the second quarter to get all the students in. 2 ID scanners and one gate can't handle 6,000 students in 20 minutes. This seems to happen every time there's a large student turnout, and I suspect it turns off a lot of students who would otherwise come to more games. Anyone else notice this?

Student attendance is usually really good for the home opener but they did seem to hang around longer this year than most.

jg4242 wrote:We've had pretty good student turnouts for the last several home openers. It never seems to carry over into the rest of the season. I think it's because it took the stadium staff until the start of the second quarter to get all the students in. 2 ID scanners and one gate can't handle 6,000 students in 20 minutes. This seems to happen every time there's a large student turnout, and I suspect it turns off a lot of students who would otherwise come to more games. Anyone else notice this?

If this is really the problem, then it's a dumb one. I would think a new athletic director should be able to resolve this issue fairly easily. I guess there was an advantage to having students actually buy tickets way back when. You could go in any gate and just give your ticket as you entered. I don't recall any logjams entering the stadium, even for big games.

How hard is it to add another gate or two for students?

Falcon Fanatics ... you guys rock!

jg4242 wrote:We've had pretty good student turnouts for the last several home openers. It never seems to carry over into the rest of the season. I think it's because it took the stadium staff until the start of the second quarter to get all the students in. 2 ID scanners and one gate can't handle 6,000 students in 20 minutes. This seems to happen every time there's a large student turnout, and I suspect it turns off a lot of students who would otherwise come to more games. Anyone else notice this?

Not sure if it took them until 2nd Q or not, but the line of students trying to get in as we were able to get past them into our ticket line was stretched out down the walkways to the ice arena... did the kids all decide to leave their tailgates at the same time, or, as you say, 2 ID scanners were only available to check them in...IF so, this needs to be fixed and NOW! It's ridiculous to get kids all fired up for a game, then not be able to handle getting them into the stadium... I've said it before,I'll say it again.... (and I DO love my alma mater)....BG wants to become "big time" but never seems to figure out HOW to do it.

jg4242 wrote:We've had pretty good student turnouts for the last several home openers. It never seems to carry over into the rest of the season. I think it's because it took the stadium staff until the start of the second quarter to get all the students in. 2 ID scanners and one gate can't handle 6,000 students in 20 minutes. This seems to happen every time there's a large student turnout, and I suspect it turns off a lot of students who would otherwise come to more games. Anyone else notice this?

I think you should email this to Kingston. He mentioned that he has a background in facilities and their management. I'm sure he wouldn't be pleased to see these kinds of game day issues. He can't do anything about it if he doesn't realize it's a problem.

I was under the impression the gates were going to be open 90 minutes before kick-off.

transfer2BGSU wrote:I was under the impression the gates were going to be open 90 minutes before kick-off.

The gates do open 90 minutes prior to kickoff. But, the population doesn't show up that early. I always did when I was an undergrad, but I'm a rarity.

The section was packed, which was definitely nice to see. I certainly hope we didn't turn any away, like in past years, due to lack of student seating. When this happened in previous years, that, more than anything, turned students off to coming to more games.

Heard from a well placed source that as soon as the athletic department heard about it, they had the ushers let the students in at multiple locations speed up getting them inside. Kudos to them!!

This is a good sign that things are definitely improving in the "Game Day Experience" for the students and fans!

If there is some sort of "incentive" to having the BG-ID card swiped for Ziggy Points or what not, they should have that set up and allow students to swipe at ANY time not just when they enter.

Show the ID at the gate and get right in, then make their way to the Student Services desk or Guest Services to have their ID scanned/swiped at a later point- halftime, when they go to get a hot dog, or even when they are leaving.

Concession stand service is terrible. People working there move like they are low rate employees not interested it efficiency. Very annoying.
As far as student attendance goes: Of those hundreds of them that came probably 50 or 60 will show up for basketball games by mid January.