[Note: Sorry for the week delay on this, reaching 100 points takes some time apparently…]

I’ll be trying to provide these write-ups as often as I can for home games. If you are familiar with the recent changes in student season ticket seating, skip to the next paragraph. For those who missed all the drama last season (and who could blame you), the athletic department decided inexplicably that none of the following contributed to the inability of students to show up to games on time:

• Crappy scheduling,
• Crappy timing,
• Poor performance,
• Rising prices,
• Things being expensive in the stadium and thus eating before arriving, and
• An athletic department that just seems to not give even a Norfleet-sized care about the student experience.

Instead they figured that students were not sufficiently motivated and that they wanted better cell service in the stadium. They thus switched to general admission, which I took as a semester long course in game theory. Things went about as expected with the stadium empty at kickoff against Akron and there being a footrace where it’s a small miracle no one was injured for UTLII. Enter Michael Proppe and the student government who turned a year of haranguing the misguided policy of the athletic department into a seating policy change that actually makes sense. 

Did it work?

Well I’d say so (disclaimer on the opener), but I’m biased just slightly by my location.

It is worth noting (per the play-by-play offered by @mikeproppe) that at MSU’s opener, their student section looked significantly emptier at kick off. This is likely both that it was in fact emptier, and that with equal attendance percentages (<100%) GA will always look emptier.

Pre-Game

With the new seating policy here is a list of things that I did not do for the opener:

• Wake up at 7am for a middling opponent.
• Wake up more than 12 hours before kickoff (Ok that was for the ND game but still).
• Get sunburned before kickoff.
• Roast hotdogs over a makeshift grill made of a can of sterno.
• Light said grill on fire.
• Have to donate my tailgating supplies to actual tailgaters.
• Be uncharacteristically tired by halftime.
• Spend 15 minutes furiously arguing with fellow fans about their behavior during a veritable stampede (Again the ND game)
• End up sitting in the wrong section without recourse because queues are hard, man.
• End up next to an obnoxious opposing fan, just because she was willing to show up early (seriously whoever you were from Nebraska, the Ohio guy was more tolerable. Significantly)

And the list of things I did do for the opener:

• Go to a pre-game brunch
• Watch about half of the PSU/UCF game before trekking over to the stadium
• Show up in time for warm-ups
• Enjoy game, being loud and energized
• Leave game with enough energy (and soul) left to want to watch all of the interesting matchups still on TV

During the Game

The student section seemed much more in order throughout the game. People seemed more cordial with each other (probably a combination of not having our souls sucked out of us through a straw, and the fact that we weren’t competing with each other for seats). People seemed louder and more engaged. And the wave was executed significantly better (it wasn’t the slowed, split wave from a few years back but hey, progress). Hell, some students near me even lifted the one App State fan for ASU's second touchdown because he was pretty drunk and they felt bad.

I won’t go too in-depth on my take on on-the-field analysis, as it seems that that has been handled pretty thoroughly, but my one hot take comes from the ASU drive early on where they faced a 3rd and 25. I could feel the anticipation welling up. The sense beaten into me by the last 6 years that this was the moment we’d get gashed. They’d find the seam, get a guy wide open 30 yards out and it’d be off to the races. Instead we shut it down handily. I was floored. Even against an overmatched, undersized opponent I had gotten used to the secondary getting torched like that, time and time again. So maybe this year has something different in store. We’ll find out tonight.

Yes, Yes, but about the cell service

While I wasn’t actively paying attention to the cell coverage/wifi. I will say it is significantly better. Was it the deciding missing piece in the fan experience? Absolutely not. It did help with the following game related activities: 

• Checking in on H.A.I.L.: I could do it, progress made.
• Getting “WE SAW YOU ON TV #rowA” texts: phone lit up like a Christmas tree a few times. Not complaining
• Checking other scores during TV timeouts…well actually the new score board design is much improved and the ticker of the scores was a nice touch, so that wasn’t actually that important.
• Coordinating post-game meet-up plans with out of town relatives: Possible.

Deal maker/breaker? No. But it was just that a nice touch that, assuming we address the actual problems, will eventually help improve the fan experience.

So is it better?

Honestly, it’s hard to say. I appreciate the superfan/seniority based seating. I appreciate it a lot. But in the long list of ways the AD is finding to make things more difficult and less enjoyable for fans (especially student fans), I’m just not sure how big of an impact this change will have. With the schedule still being what it is, and prices still being what they are, and games taking more and more time. I just don’t know. I’ll be curious to see how this holds up when the semester gets going, people need to be studying more, the weather gets colder, etc. The one thing I want to seriously point out though, is that the student section is approximately 60% of what it is last year. While I fully expect things to bounce back with a better schedule next year, that type of drop-off, regardless of schedule, is inexcusable. Yes non-students pay more for their tickets, yes they make up 75% of the attendees, yes they’ve been doing this a lot longer, etc. But the fan experience is significantly improved by having a loud and energetic and engaged student section (and a large one at that). It seems like we have a seating policy that motivates students to show up on time. Now let’s work on pricing and scheduling that get them to show up at all.