Purdue's pathetic game day attendance.
Man Purdue, what the hell is up with your fanbase?
You are the declared favorite to win the Leaders Division, it's the Big Ten opener at home, it's a beautiful football weather day, you are 3-1 having played Notre Dame toe-to-toe, and you've got big bad Michigan rolling into town. It does not get any better than that for a B1G team.
And yet your stadium is only three quarters full throughout the entire game. Do you even want to be in the Big Ten? Why not just switch places with some MAC team that does.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:01 PM ^
While it doesn't explain all of it (or even most of it), but Purdue students were/are on there Fall Break.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:09 PM ^
Yikes, it's not worth it for some of them to leave a little later or come back a little early? They sure do earn their mediocrity.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:19 PM ^
Missed "The New Math" because they were on fall break. Glass houses, etc.
/I was there, it was awesome.
October 8th, 2012 at 10:54 PM ^
I had 6 student tickets to the 2005 Penn State game we won with no time left and couldn't give them away because it was fall break. So glad I stuck around that weekend but sad to see that many tickets go to waste for a great game.
So it's not just Purdue...but yeah, still embarrassing.
EDIT: Took me a sec to realize what the new math was. I'm slow tonight.
October 8th, 2012 at 2:45 PM ^
their*
October 8th, 2012 at 3:51 PM ^
I think what people also miss is that the Co-op program is very popular at Purdue. Similar to a University of Cincinnati or a Kettering University, the engineering students alternate work and class rotations.
So a not insignificant portion of the student body isn't in town at any given time.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:03 PM ^
October 8th, 2012 at 2:44 PM ^
It's "it's," not "its."
October 8th, 2012 at 3:08 PM ^
October 8th, 2012 at 3:16 PM ^
what you are saying but Purdue turned into a pretty difficult place to play for a while. I remember a couple of impressive, raucous crowds there. 2004 comes to mind.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:05 PM ^
I realize the games later this year are going to be colder, but it was cold in the stadium, and the week before it was forecasted to rain so maybe that was a factor.
October 8th, 2012 at 2:45 PM ^
sissies
October 8th, 2012 at 1:05 PM ^
This was taken 6 minutes before kickoff. Regardless of students being gone, that is pretty pathetic. They even had discounted tickets for the north endzone.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:11 PM ^
That's an insult to Michigan, if not Purdue.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:19 PM ^
October 8th, 2012 at 2:30 PM ^
That picture is a little misleading though. The place was nearly packed besides the partly empty endzone displayed in the photo.
I think the real problem us Michigan fans should address is why there was only one concession stand behind the black endzone bleachers, along with a whopping 8 porta potties.
October 8th, 2012 at 2:46 PM ^
It's "we Michigan fans," not "us Michigan fans."
October 8th, 2012 at 2:31 PM ^
Best Michigan hat that I have found on that guy in front of you. Mine is covered in sweat stains and faded to almost a grey color.
October 8th, 2012 at 5:13 PM ^
I have that same hat as well. Got it just before the Air Force game and instantly fell in love.
We're planning a May wedding.
October 8th, 2012 at 4:42 PM ^
That big empty area on the right corner is mostly student section. There's still the empty part in the end zone, but their fall break accounts for the biggest of the empty spaces.
Also, Purdue's homecoming game is this week, and may as well be the division championship game this season (Illinois and Indiana are pretty terrible, OSU and PSU ineligible). If you can't just go to every game, or you're only going to one game this year as a Purdue fan, you're probably not picking the Michigan game over this week's game against Wisconsin.
And furthermore, as people have noted, it's Purdue. They don't really sell out against anyone except maybe Notre Dame.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:07 PM ^
Their fans were cool at least...Since no one goes there, you can leave and re-enter...
As a result, some Purdue fans smuggled a bunch of beers in during the 4th quarter and gave us some... Realized a lot of people were doing the same... At least where we were.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:47 PM ^
The reason fans are allowed to come and go as often as they like is because the best thing about attending a game at Ross-Ade Stadium is leaving Ross-Ade Stadium.
October 8th, 2012 at 4:35 PM ^
I left four times, only to come back just so that I could leave again. So refreshing.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:11 PM ^
We did at least rouse their curiosity to a certain extent. Granted, a great deal of the stadium appeared to be decked out in mazie and blue actually, but the recorded attendance was 50,501, which is 80.8% of the capacity of Ross Ade. That's the highest attendance all year so far in West Lafayette actually, and only 5,030 more than the official attendance at their shootout with Marshall.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:17 PM ^
...is only three quarters full throughout the entire game." I see what you did there.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:19 PM ^
Purdue hasn't amounted to anything since Drew Brees. They can talk about all of that Cradle of Quarterbacks stuff, but at the end of the day, Purdue is not a football school. The culture just isn't there. I'm sure they're like Indiana in that football is a way to pass the time until basketball season.
October 8th, 2012 at 2:57 PM ^
Danny Hopeless is a clown, he is the new Zooker.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:35 PM ^
To put it in perspective, in the darkest days of 2008 (the Northwestern game comes to mind) when our team was playing terribly, when we were out of the running for a bowl game, playing against a team nobody truly cares about much in God awful weather, we had more of our stadium filled and twice as many people in the stands.
October 9th, 2012 at 10:18 AM ^
I don't know how Purdue calculates attendance, but at Michigan attendance is based on tickets sold if I'm not mistaken. I was at that Northwestern game and I can't imagine there was anywhere near 100,000 people actually in the stadium with how thin the crowd looked.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:21 PM ^
October 8th, 2012 at 1:23 PM ^
Made my first trip to Purdue this weekend, and I have to say it was one of the most pathetic atmospheres I've ever seen at any football game. Aside from the empty seats (and there were plenty), the cheers were just sad. My personal favorite was when they played the ripped off "Go Purdue" version of "Let's Go Blue" with the band sitting right next to the Michigan section. Michigan fans took it over since it is our song and they never played it again.
The funniest thing of all was at the end of the game, some student was running up and down in front of the student section with a flag that literally said "WAVE" on it. He was trying to get them to do the wave. It failed.
Seemed more like a MAC program than Big Ten.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:33 PM ^
That "Boiler Up" chant is right up there with "Go Green, Go White" as the worst/most annoying I've heard.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:37 PM ^
You missed the MOST annoying one of all.
We are.......
Penn State!
I sat next to a bunch of PSU fans a few years ago and asked them if they needed to say that a few thousand times a game to remind themselves of who they were or did they think we were confused as to the opponent this week.
October 8th, 2012 at 5:25 PM ^
October 8th, 2012 at 8:48 PM ^
We hijacked it good during the 1997 game at Happy Valley. It was the third quarter and they had yet to score a single point:
"Where is . . . Penn State?!!" "Where is . . . Penn State?!!"
October 8th, 2012 at 2:39 PM ^
that the "Let's Go Blue" song/chant is as ancient as the hills, right? It wasn't invented at Michigan or anything. High schools around the country on Friday night chant, "Let's go <mascot>"
October 8th, 2012 at 3:13 PM ^
My high school marching band and pep band played Let's Go _______ also.
October 8th, 2012 at 3:25 PM ^
It actually WAS written at UM. If I had more time, I'd find some articles that talk about it from an MMB perspective....
October 8th, 2012 at 3:35 PM ^
Let's Go Blue was written by Joe Carl and Albert Ahronheim for the UM Hockey Band and then arranged for the Michigan Marching Band around 1975. Joe was a tuba player and Albert was the MMB drum major (the one in the 70s who did backflips down the field in place of the back bend).
They still get royalties for it when it is played on TV. Because the Purdue band was on TV they made money. Cha Ching!
October 8th, 2012 at 3:42 PM ^
"It wasn't invented at Michigan or anything."
Uh, yes, yes it was: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1122081/inde…
October 8th, 2012 at 3:58 PM ^
for the 1975 Stanford game at which the Let's Go Blue ditty was supposedly introduced. The official UM football historical archive says attendance that day was 92K, not the 100K+ that the SI article states.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:25 PM ^
Why are you addressing Purdue fans on something all Michigan fans already know?
October 8th, 2012 at 1:39 PM ^
"Do you even want to be in the Big Ten?"
Uhhh... yes?
/TheB1GIsHorribleRightNow
October 8th, 2012 at 1:40 PM ^
I think they have the same problem Sparty does. Nobody who didn't actually go there wants to go to the games. Sadly for Purdue, it appears that their alums don't care, either, which makes it even worse.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:50 PM ^
No sane Purdue alum sticks around West Lafayette after graduation, especially given their massive engineering population. Ever been there? Middle of Bum-Fuck Egypt.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:54 PM ^
Purdue was considered Big Ten title contenders for one week. And I doubt even their own fans were convinced of that coming off a shootout with Marshall. (Why that never figured into Herbstreit's thinking, I'll never know.)
What it really boils down to is that in the last 8 years, Purdue has put up the following season records: 7-6, 4-8, 5-7, 4-8, 8-5, 8-6, 5-6 and 7-5. That's 53 losses since 2004. Purdue is back to looking like the Purdue I saw growing up. Look no further than that as to why the attendance wasn't sold out. Even when we were sending top 5 and top 10 teams into that stadium under Bo, Moeller and Lloyd, rarely was it sold out.
October 8th, 2012 at 1:58 PM ^
October 8th, 2012 at 2:38 PM ^
Its Purdue.
October 8th, 2012 at 2:40 PM ^
Michigan fans hardly know what it means to have a losing season. Purdue has had three in the last four years, and their "best season ever" in 2000 saw them end ranked lower than Michigan in a down year. You gotta respect fans that still show up after all of that.
October 8th, 2012 at 2:41 PM ^
From the TV angles, it seemed like a lot of the crowd left at half-time and never came back.