Let me start off by saying great win for us. The defense showed a lot of energy today, and I loved seeing them get hyped after every big play, that was huge. The crowd was great and it's really hard to argue with 41 unanswered points. I love blaming O'Cainspring as much as the next guy, but they've called a couple good games in a row plus JC Coleman looks like he's the next great VT running back.
With all of that said, I saw one of the most unfathomable things ever during that game. Down 20-0, when your team needs you more than ever, I saw people leaving.... IN THE FIRST QUARTER! Look, I was as pissed as anyone about being down 20-0, we looked awful, but are you serious? One bad quarter and you're leaving? All I can say is good riddance, I'm glad you missed the biggest comeback in Beamer's career. We're louder without you and we don't want fans like that. Get the hell out. For everyone who stayed, glad to know we have real fans.
Now let's go beat Clemson! Payback's a bitch!
Comments
Just as bad
Is when a large portion of the student section left after the homecoming court was announced. Literally, had some people sit in front of us the entire first half, stood up for the announcement of the court, yelled more for their candidate than any single defensive down, then left after their hearts were broken by the result at halftime.
That's embarrassing for us... What is wrong with the student section???
sorostitutes
plain and simple. if the ticket office is going to give them a fair chance for student tickets then at least put them way up high in the east stands. too many of them are the ones that leave at half/1st qtr/etc.
but they give
excellent analysis. without homecoming i would never know how hot Danny Coale or any of our other players were
Seriously??
I just don't get it! What's going on with some of Hokie Nation (not that they're really part of it)? We should be ecstatic to be allowed to go to a VT game. There are other people who would love to go, so if they aren't into it why go? VT games were the best things about weekends when I was there. We really felt like we were part of the game. Get loud!! cause false starts, timeouts, and mess up the audibles!
To me
It seems as if many people no longer go to the game to watch the game, but rather go because its the thing to do...
Fuck em' hopefully they feel like shit when they hear about us having 41 unanswered points to completely dominate Duke for three quarters. I feel like its even worse for the people that left at half. Those are people that truly dont care about Tech football. How can you leave when we have come back 17 points and have huge momentum. I'm guessing the majority of the people that did this were sorostitutes but thats still ridiculous.
Obviously the negativity left with them and the team performed better with out em. I say stay home next time.
RIGHT ON, DEATHROW!!!!!
Deathrow,
I'm in.....70% of these 'tech fans' only know what they read in the roanoke times.( Godforbid) Plenty of good schools (Southern Miss, Memphis, Tulane, Cinn, Arizona, ect) had the same chance Tech did in making their school into a 'not to be taken lightly' team. Tech, historically, comes to play, and if it weren't for the media hype, would be 'sittin' purdy' in the said football pecking order. To have a serious 'national contender' once every ...ten years..?? ....is such an accomplishment for Tech, Beamer, Tech football, and the state is an accomplishment to be envied by a lotta schools. Thing is, Tech 'fans' get sucked in...every year....by the hype. Trust me, REAL Tech fans will know when we have a 'national contender'. They have seen good defense...goal line stands, running backs waiting on a bone crushing block.
To the 'others', the 'fans' who love you while you're winning 10+ a season, well, we'll see ya.
Or maybe, we will not.
and I dont mean to take anything from Mr. Bitter of 'the Times'....he's good! But tech will always be 'Tech'. Hopefully. And if Techs empty 'trophy cabinet' ever gets filled, it'll be Beamers doing, regardless of if he's on the sideline or not.
Now....kick the shit outta Clemson. Stand up, Gayle.
P the B
I'll be honest...
I contemplated turning off the TV after that defensive TD by Duke. But I didn't, and I was overjoyed by the end of the game. No matter how bad (or good) it looks, you NEVER LEAVE.
Agreed... The game of football always leaves openings for comebacks, no matter how minor they are. If one opening can be exploited, it opens more opportunities.
I was in the stands, and have never left a game early, but after that defensive TD I had to tell myself, out loud; "No, I am not leaving."
Also, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the students in my section. I have come to expect not a whole lot from the students nowadays, but almost no one left after the first quarter. A few left during halftime, but most stayed until at least the beginning of the 4th when the game was more or less over, with us up 21.
Why you never leave or change the channel
What do people do anyway?
I'm with you folks I don't know whats wrong with these people, and the worst part is that VT only has what like 6 home games a year? I gurantee whatever these crazies are doing when they leave the game early they can do any day of the week of any month of the year.
Students (not fans)
I'm probably gonna catch a lot of flack for this but what I've noticed over the years is the worst fans are the students enrolled. 99% of the passion is coming from either Alumns from back in the day late 90s early 2000s or just the good ole people from the Area. Lynchburg over to Bristol. These new students are what I like to call 4 year fans. Never even watched a Tech game until they started their freshman year and the games became a place to go party and not watch football. That's the problem is you ask me. And that's really sad.
I'd say maybe closer to 90%
And part of the 10% that do care significantly are on this site, so I do believe that you have a point.
I'm Guilty
I'm guilty of not being a Tech fan before I started my freshman year. I actually disliked college football in general growing up. The closest FBS school to me was Rutgers, only good with Ray Rice. No one cared about it, way too many professional sports teams in the area.
I don't see the "problem" getting any better. Tech needs the out of state tuition and have a goal of 30% out of state students I think. This is the reason I got admitted. My GPA and SAT scores were pretty bad, I didn't belong.
Admissions Requirements
I attended VT from 1998 to 2001. I held student guest season tickets (mostly north end zone) after that through 2010. Sadly, my younger friends in vet school finally graduated. I would say around 2005 I started to notice a difference in the level of noise and student participation at Lane Stadium. I have always considered the lack of emotion to be partly a function of entrance requirements to the university. Entrance requirements went up sharply after the 1999 National Championship run and have continued to increase.
Most notably, I remember sitting in the south end zone for the first time for the UNC Thursday night loss in 2009. I never heard the stadium so quiet on defense in a big night game environment. I was really disappointed. And nobody around was screaming with me. I was just getting dirty looks.
What makes a student section?
I remember when Kirk Herbstreit said PSU had the best student section back in 2005, had me thinking, what makes a good student section? Honestly I was in the VTCC so I never was in the VT student section, I haven't really been to other student sections around the country, so I'm not very knowledgeable on the subject, any ideas though?
Students have become horrible at the games.
I sit in section 31/33 for the home games. Students are up behind me and to the right. They are not loud. Key shaking at 3rd down has greatly decreased. (I will admit I am not always doing this myself..) They sit for a good portion of the game. Thy start yell as the ball is being snapped - not while the other team is in the huddle. I have seen more alumni, casual fans get crazy during the game.
Maybe us "old folk" need to teach the younger ones how it should be and bring back the atmosphere. Quiet while we are on offense, so loud those shopping for cars at Shelor can hear us while we are on defense.
You can party after the game, before the game - It can wait the 3-4 hours while you are at Lane. Let's bring back the atmosphere Vegas line setters give points for, the atmosphere that other teams are scared of to enter and play. Even if we are down 20-0 still cheer as if we are up 20-0 in a bowl game. Bring back the 12th man.
I expect to see a lot more energy for Thursday night - We need to crush FSU in prime-time and the Hokies need us in the stands at our best.
My wife fell asleep during the 2nd quarter right before things started turning around. I started cheering quietly after each big play to keep her asleep.
I'll slip her some NyQuil for the Clemson game.
Fuck em. You only get X amount of home games to be apart of your college career and if they want to leave in the first quarter fuck em. Sounds like they arent cheering anyway so they are just taking up space.
If i worked security at these things id prolly get fired for kick'n people out of the games left and right for not getting into the game.
As a current senior,
stop lumping us all together. I have not had a morning after a home game in the past three years in which my throat was not painfully sore (I missed one game freshman year because I couldn't get a ticket and had no money to buy one.) There are people in the student sections who are useless, bandwagon, leave-at-halftime fans, but they are at worst half and the rest of us are as disappointed in them as you are. I'm not saying don't complain about the non-fans, I'm just asking you to be careful about how generalized your complaints are.
Dmet, i don't think anyone here is trying to insult the current student body. Just amazed at the apparent drop off in the enthusiasm. You say "but they are at worst half", I'd say that number is HUGE. Not exaggerating, but I'd say maybe 10% would've done that 10 years ago. That's why this talk is happening bro.
I'm not trying to put everyone together. I agree that there are a lot of students that love being at the games. I'm a student right now too and love going to every game. Even watching our backups play is fun. I've been a VT fan my whole life and was pumped the first time I walked into Lane (Freshman year, final preseason scrimmage) but I'm not saying I expect everyone to be like that. All I'm asking is that the students at the game actually care about the game, don't throw f-ing paper airplanes. Watch the game, cheer, and be as loud as you can. But most importantly, never give up!
Paper Airplane story...
A kid that has a guest ticket in our friend group (brother of one of my friends) was set on making a paper airplane during the Duke game this past week. For 5 minutes I hounded on him that he better not fucking throw it. He finally threw it, and was immediately escorted to the bottom of the stands by security. The best part was that he wasn't kicked out of the stadium. But because he no longer had his ticket, he couldn't get back to his seats. Karma's a bitch.
Different time
Well I was there from '97 to '02 so I had a different experience. It sounds like it is almost reverse from what I saw as a student. The students were ALWAYS the loudest and most active. We were rarely sitting down (maybe during tv timeouts and others). We knew the cheers led by the band, had our keys out, never left early. The alumni, however, seemed to be just fine sitting down and just observing like it was a performance for then to watch (they were students when we weren't really that good at football). I always felt like I was part of it though, and I think THAT is what makes a good fan base.
I only graduated a few years ago and my experience was similar to yours.
Students: standing, yelling, dancing/cheering with the band, keys, all of that
Alumni: sitting, only yell on important 3rd downs, only loud when something good happened
I will say this though, students leaving early during out of conference blow outs wasn't a huge surprise. I never left early but a noticeable amount of north stands often left early during blow outs vs lesser competition. My era would have never left in the first quarter though, that's unacceptable.
times change i guess
Ive been part of the student body since our first year in the acc, and it seems like its been steady downhill fan interaction wise for the last 2 years. Its seems to be turning into more of a event for the frats and girls. if you noticed all the colored shirts for homecoming were gone by the start of the 2nd half. I looked over at the once proud north endzone to barely half full in the 2nd half.
I brought a friend to a game last year from SEC country and told me we resemble ole miss, i was disgusted to say the least. hell with winning a party, i want a W at the end of the day. hopefully things will turn around soon and we can go back to being LANE stadium
We need to go back to what made us the Toughest Place to Play in 2005.
http://www.rivals.com/content.asp?SID=1014&CID=444097
It's possible that we resemble ole miss in his opinion because he's used to sec stadiums that fit 80k+ (tenn 102k, bama 101k, lsu & georgia 92k, florida 88k, auburn 87k, so carolina 80k) whereas ole miss (and LANE) are in the 60k's. I've watched ole miss games and I know we're louder than them. And what game was it? Even lsu and bama fans aren't as crazy when they're playing lesser competition.
Also, there's a direct correlation between offensive scores and stadium noise during defense. Offensive scores, mainly touchdowns, tend to make fans more pumped when their defense gets on the field. This year there hasn't been much scoring. The georgia tech game for example: We were crazy loud in the first quarter and it started to drift off in the second because the offense didn't motivate the crowd. Then 4th qtr and overtime we were crazy loud again and I'm sure those late scores (and the intensity of the situation) helped with crowd noise. I was yelling the whole game regardless and I always do so I'm not making excuses for people because we should be loud regardless, but there's a lot of factors that go into it.
I bet we're pumped and crazy loud for the fsu game, and I'm willing to bet money that if the offense sustains drives and gets points, LANE will be rocking for most of the game but if the offense constantly goes 3 and out, then LANE will be comparable to ole miss.
But don't get me wrong. I think there is a noticeable dropoff this season, but I think it can largely be attributed to the disappointing season. LANE will be LANE once again in the near future and the Hokies will be the Hokes once again.
Also, everybody on this site, whether you comment regularly or just read, are die-hard Hokies fans that don't leave early and yell their hearts out every game, so all of these LANE bashing comments are kind of like preaching to the choir.