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Correct, the 2011 Miami game-winner was on 4th and 1 from the 19-yard line.
27-17 VT
30-21 VT
John Madden?
First post, so I apologize for being late to the party...
VT (Sure, why the hell not?)
LSU (I like what I see from the offense so far)
OU (Didn't ND have trouble with Purdue, oh yeah that's right)
Ole Miss (way too many points here)
Washington (see how well they play before I join the wagon)
OSU (Meyer wants to show the country how good OSU is)
Im about to rant a little bit, so feel free to skip over my comment. However
I recently graduated from Auburn, and am a lifelong Virginia Tech fan (born in Blacksburg, dad got his masters degree there). I went to every Auburn home game for 3 straight years, plus various home games for the couple years following that. We had good teams and bad teams in that time period (2008-2011). I have to say that articles like this arent surprising in the least. There are a few reasons that the current student sections arent working (in my mind anyway).
1)There is no assigned seating. I would pay double what a student ticket costs to get a paper ticket and have an assigned seat. Why you ask? I love the atmosphere of the student section, dont get me wrong. But being packed like a sardine in a student section rubbing up against whoever is next to me constantly isnt a pleasant experience. This issue also brings up my next point.
2)I DONT WANT TO WAIT IN LINE FOR SEATS. Ive done the waiting in line for foerever to get seats. For the LSU vs. Auburn game in 2010, I was at the stadium 8.5 hours BEFORE KICKOFF. I was waiting in line to get decent seats. And I wasnt even in the first 200 people there. The gates open 2 2.5 hours before kickoff, depending on the game. So I sat in the stadium (routinely, not just the LSU game or the championship year) for around 6 hours. The time spent at the stadium easily feeds into my next point:
3)Concessions are too damn high for college students. I know that traditionally concessions are much more expensive inside stadiums than outside, but come ON. I like to think I lived comfortably through college. Thanks to scholarships, I didnt have to work a full time job and worked a part time job primarily for beer money. College student dont want to pay (and some are unable to pay) $5 for a bottle of water and $6 for a hamburger that tastes like shoe leather. I realize concessions at Lane Stadium are somewhat different, but the student section concessions always suck and consistently lag behind other areas of the stadium.
4)I know this is true for Auburn and other SEC schools, but dont know if its true for VT or other schools, but SEC schools consistently oversell the student section. In reference to UGA having ~15600 student in their student section for USCar: DUH! When you oversell you student section by 2-3K seats, dont expect the section to be filled according to tickets used vs. tickets bought. Come on, this is common sense.
Asking students to wait in line (or even just to get to the stadium two hours before game time) and then spend 4 hours packed in like sardines and pay exorbitant amounts for concessions isnt going to improve student attendance, never mind if your team is having a down year (Auburn and VT come to mind as down last year, with Auburn being rock-bottom).
Starting in 2011, my friends and I set up a tailgate about 300 yards from the stadium on some green space with a gorgeous view of the stadium. We would come and setup the tailgate at 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning and stay all day through the night games, no matter what time Auburn played. This afforded me the opportunity to relish the gameday atmosphere (which I love), eat whatever I want or run across the street and get BBQ or whatever without a stadium mark-up (which I like), and to drink beer of my own choosing while paying store prices and no mark-ups just for being in a stadium (which I double love). I got to watch the game with a much better eye on replays and such from the comfort of a tailgate chair without having to stand balls-to-butt with some rando who may or may not be a sweaty, smelly 300-lb man who just bought a student ticket off the street at the age of 50. I dont have anything against the guy personally, but I dont want to be forced to rub shoulders and whatever else with you because you chose to sit next to me in a section without assigned seats thats oversold.
I peruse several Hokies websites, and its depressing to watch grown men dump piles of excrement on students not attending football games. I understand that back in the 80s and 90s the student sections were more filled than they are now. I even read multiple things stating that it is a privilege to be able to sit in the student section after having built up a winning football program and investing money into the football program for many years (Lane Stadium improvements, practice facilities, etc.). You know what? How about you do something to actually make it a privilege? You say I should come to support the players, and I agree with that sentiment to an extent. However, what part of me paying stadium mark-ups and what not is supporting the players? You can argue that you dont have to buy anything. Well, I guess I wont eat for 6 hours and sweat my balls off in the heat or get soaked in the rain, or just be damn cold for 6 hours so that these guys know I support them.
I love football. I love Auburn Tiger football, and I love Virginia Tech football, both of which have history in similar principles (defense, running the football). I don't love people dumping heaps and heaps of crap on students for not coming to games, as not coming to games is the ONLY way for any of the circumstances in the student section to change.
Rant over.
TL;DR: As a recent college graduate, I agree with the sentiment that student attendance is down across the nation, and that there are several ways to go about fixing this problem that are completely doable.
That was beautiful
So is Michael Smith, kissing the helmet there? I know i might be in the minority but I am really digging those, especially with the pylons on there. I think they should look pretty damn good on TV, and it would be great to have those bad boys with a 1-0 helmet record.
I always hated going to the homecoming game. Stadium gets super packed with a bunch of sorority girls/fratty guys who are showing up for their first football game... and then all leave after half time.
He put that photo on his Facebook today as a throwback Thursday photo.
The Drillfield is sunken because Sam Rogers jumped off the Pylons
I've heard that his commentary is so bad that turning off the volume doesn't even help.
That wasn't the only time I talked to him, he hung up on my twice later in the week.
Also, he didn't really say "pain in the tail", if I quoted him exactly I might get fired. And I'm not 100% sure I was using it in the proper context....
Agree there seems to be something about Caleb. Has a little shake to him along with power would love to see what he can do with more reps. Unfortunately do not see that happening in the ACC opener. Would also like to finally see all this Charlie Meyer potential we heard about but afraid he "injuried" himself out of an honest chance this year. We'll see. Also impatiently waiting the first "DON'T DENY ME my PUSSY TOUCHDOWNS" TOUCHDOWN!
Is it possible, too, that identity with students is being lost?
I know I never felt more connected to VT or at VT, than when I was cheering on VT sports (football primarily but also soccer, baseball, volleyball, lacrosse, softball, etc) with my friends. I think if I never got that connection, I wouldn't be as into the sports as I was and still am. Is there a disconnect happening where incoming students don't identify with the programs? Anyone currently go to school there can see if this is happening on campus?
http://espn.go.com/blog/acc/post/_/id/60662/video-virginia-tech-at-georg...
Glad to see she "spoke" with Foster about the game and prepping for it... That's an interesting take on listening to a voicemail message.
Not to be the token Logan hater, but what about his play up to this point makes anyone think that he or Loef are holding anything back? They don't appear able to run the various schemes that we have seen with any level of effectiveness or consistency, so the thought of adding more offense to what seems like a cluster F scares me at this point.
Thinking out loud is what this is for. This is all about money. Without the teams, the TV's don't make money. So if the coaches and teams want longer TV delays during games, they will get them. In addition, more tv advertising means more money for the networks. Ultimately we viewers probably don't matter much :/
Heart! Can't measure that but I know we got it after last week. Hokies for the win.
"booboo lips"? Not sure what they look like, but I wanna see 'em too. Turkey leg for breaking new literary ground.
Yes I think it's an interesting idea that ultimately benefits the viewers. But the TV timeouts are free timeouts for the teams to rest players and game plan. I don't think coaches or players would be big fans of reducing TV timeouts and replacing them with adds during game play. I don't know if the networks would benefit from it either. I don't know how it's structured but I imagine they aim for viewing minutes and game times would be reduced by taking out tv timeouts. I'm not certain if it would free up enough space for the networks to pick up another game to offset potential losses from shorter game times. Just thinkin out loud here...
WE BLITZ. ALL. NIGHT.
That's not too bad of an idea. Reducing the amount of TV timeouts is a "live by the sword, die by the sword" kind of thing. If the Hokies are rocking with momentum, the reduction will help keep that going. But if it is the other way, it makes it harder for the Hokies to regain momentum.
24-21 VT is my prediction. This one's gonna be close.