Straight truths about your school

[CrunchGriz]

Most of us on this board are staunch fans of one school or another (or a couple), and defend our schools to the death, on any and all issues. We are all, at times, homers for our chosen school. Lord knows Griz fans have been accused of (and sometimes committed) indefensible hyperbole at times, perhaps myself included.

What I'm going to do in this post, and hopefully others will follow about their own school/team, is to list the areas in which their school/team is lacking, or at least less than the best.

Montana has:

1. Far less than perfect weight/training facilities, from everything I've read/seen. Other schools, like JMU, have much better weight rooms, for instance.

2. Poor (for this day and age) press facilities in the stadium [this, supposedly, will be addressed in the next round of building, coming soon].

3. Good, sometimes great tailgating, but not the best in I-AA. McNeese or GSU, or one of the HBCUs like Southern probably have us beat on this score.

4. Not the best record of graduating football players (as noted on other posts on this board), although it is still considered respectable by the NCAA (anything over 50% is considered okay, and Montana was at 68% for 1995-1998).

5. Not the most polite fans at home games, especially to archrival MSU, or to teams who they feel have slighted them somehow (Like UNI after the "Tapegate" fiasco in 2001). On the other hand, from my experience this is primarily caused by the student section (a problem in most college stadia), and fans from other teams often report on this board that they had a great time on their trip to Montana.

6. Many spoiled fans, as evidenced by the recent spate of booing of play calls (which, unfortunately, sometimes gets interpreted by the players to be boos toward them) and unreasonable expectations and endless kvetching about anything under the sun on egriz.com, UM"s primary message board.

7. Weather that is wholly unpredictable, and in late season and the playoffs, downright nasty. This late season weather, and sometimes early season forest fires in the area around Missoula, make the location inhospitable to those from more temperate climes (this, however, cuts both ways).

These are a few that come to mind about the Griz. I've probably missed a couple of others.

What are your team's/school's shortcomings?

[colgate13]

1 - Location. It's tough to get here, especially late in the season.
2 - Spotty attendance. Some games are great, some not so great. Visiting teams don't travel well to Hamilton, and students operate on their own time.
3 - Weather. See Montana. You need to prepare for games past mid-October.
4 - Lack of great tailgaiting. People up here just don't get it!

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of!

[bluehenbillk]

#1 - Our stadium needs an increase in seating capacity, the press box gets ripped on all the time for being too small & HVAC lacking, and fans have clamored for a video board for a few years, and there was something about our field this year.

#2 - Our training areas are nice, but probably not the most state of the art in 1-AA.

#3 - I don't mind it & in fact do it myself, but some people will tell you that our fans can be too rough on our own team - booing.

#4 - Some opposing fans, usually from Lehigh, complain about our fans being drunken, abusive, etc. I've yet to see many problems in that vein in my 36 years of going to games.

Otherwise, 22,000 fans come every week because it's a great time, with great tailgating & a great atmosphere for college football (and we win a lot).

[VictorG]

3. Good, sometimes great tailgating, but not the best in I-AA. McNeese or GSU, or one of the HBCUs like Southern probably have us beat on this score.

4. Not the best record of graduating football players (as noted on other posts on this board), although it is still considered respectable by the NCAA (anything over 50% is considered okay, and Montana was at 68% for 1995-1998).



Tailgating would improve if our "ethnic" food was a little different. But hey, we're in Montana! There is only so many ways you can grill a cow!!! But we DO make up some points here for having a wide assortment of micro beers!

Also, most young college girls start bundeling up because of cooler temps after September. Unlike GSU!

And finially, last I heard, all the seniors from last years football team are on track to graduate as scheduled. ALL of them!!! Now that's an improvement!

[ucdtim17]

1. 30,000 students and maybe 2,000 come out for games
2. high school stadium - new one coming, slowly
3. no tailgating
4. it's hot as hell in september and early october

[SoCon Din]

Local Crowd. Used to get a little better back in the 80's - in terms of Greenville community support - and while it is slowly getting better with the last 5 or 6 years, I'd still like to see more people take ownership in Furman than that craphole of a school up the road in Clemson.

Grass. Are we the only school that has a beautiful green Bermuda field early in the season only to have it die, with chunks all over it - and then paint it green in the end of the season? Our white home pants used to turn a slight shade of neon green in the washer. Throw some hybrid stuff in there that stays a little greener or at least take care of it some.

[eagle1]

1. Stadium - We need to complete our planned stadium renovations that have seemed to come to a halt. We need to build up seating to 12,000.

2. Attendance - We are an hour away from Washington State and only average about 7,500 in attendance. I think that this can be improved with marketing and producing a better game day atmosphere.

3. Location - Cheney is a really small town (12,000) and is located only 15 miles from Spokane. Cheney is becoming more and more a college town and a neat place to live but it still has as a ways to go.

4. Game Day Atmosphere - We are slowly improving our tailgating and game day events but this is what we eventually help our attendance.

5. Shared Weight Room - Athletics shares a weight room with the general student body but this will eventually change with the new student recreation center going in in 2007.

6. Tradition - EWU is slowly building this but this is only built over time.

7. Budget - This should actaully be closer to #1 but the Athletic Department has the smallest budget in the Big Sky. It is hard when you don't make a lot of money from games but something has got to change within the University and they need to throw the Atheltic Department a bone if they want them to ever be able to get over the hump.

I am sure there are more but I will stop there. Go Eagles!!!

[SoCon48]

1. Parking for non donors
2. $$ per alumus in donations
3. Basketball and baseball
4. Brrrrrrrrr.

[NDSU_grad]

1. Average training facilities. Better than what they were 7 or 8 years ago but definitely not as good as some I've seen on this site.

2. Notoriously obnoxious fans. I think we're a little more humble in I-AA, but Bison fans had a terrible reputation when we were DII.

3. Fargodome atmoshpere. Can be kind of quiet at times, but still a pretty good environment for I-AA.

[UNH 40]

1. Stadium is poor at best.

2. The visitors locker room probably only fits about thirty people comfortably

3. Our crowd is quieter than a golf crowd.

4. No lights on game field, but state of the art lighting on practice field.

5. It is getting better but we lack great students support.

[Go...gate]

I'm with Colgate 13, and would add that hotel accomodations are insufficient in or near Hamilton, NY (though a "Super 8" motel has recently been constructed on Hamilton's outskirts). If you want to stay overnight, you realistically have to stay in Syracuse or Binghamton and drive over on Saturday morning.

[SoCon48]

Just an aside. The new Super 8's are just fine. It's the old seedy recycled name brands that S-8 converted that gave them a bad name.
I stayed in a new Super 8 in upstate NY (finger lakes area) a couple years ago and it was fine.
I wouldn't hesitate to go ahead and make reservations for next season's games.

[Go...gate]

Thanks, sounds good. I'm getting a little old for the one-day road trips.

[nlwwln]

wagner college has a beautiful campus, you can see the whole manhattan skyline from the dorms but otherwise that is the only cool thing. staten island is dirty, very crowded and as far as the football program is concerned its no better than a mediocre D3 school

[TexasTerror]

Sam Houston...

1. Easy access from Houston and Dallas (as SHSU is along I-45).
2. Improving tailgating atmosphere that will be better and better if SHSU develops a consistent program with tailgating taking off thanks to great contributions by various programs that help fuel it.
3. We're getting a video board for football and a new scoreboard for the coming year that will enchance the stadium and the game atmosphere.
4. Couch Potatoes that let students sit behind the end zones and get rowdy with the players after scores.

The Bad
1. Not the most intelligent football crowd (nor cheerleaders) when it comes to cheering
2. We have old "yard dogs" who yell at people who are loud and stand up (you'd think we were at a symphony performance).
3. Umbrellas are not banned and while on the visitor side, you will see panchos galore from visiting opponents, home side is filled with umbrellas.
4. We're not in the SWAC and according to the 'Book of SWAC' and certain individuals on this board, that apparently is a bad thing and we're all probably going to hell.

[blackfordpu]

Sam Houston...

1. Easy access from Houston and Dallas (as SHSU is along I-45).
2. Improving tailgating atmosphere that will be better and better if SHSU develops a consistent program with tailgating taking off thanks to great contributions by various programs that help fuel it.
3. We're getting a video board for football and a new scoreboard for the coming year that will enchance the stadium and the game atmosphere.
4. Couch Potatoes that let students sit behind the end zones and get rowdy with the players after scores.

The Bad
1. Not the most intelligent football crowd (nor cheerleaders) when it comes to cheering
2. We have old "yard dogs" who yell at people who are loud and stand up (you'd think we were at a symphony performance).
3. Umbrellas are not banned and while on the visitor side, you will see panchos galore from visiting opponents, home side is filled with umbrellas.
4. We're not in the SWAC and according to the 'Book of SWAC' and certain individuals on this board, that apparently is a bad thing and we're all probably going to hell.

The bad continued (you forgot a few) :) :
5. A coach who does nothing but degrade the players and their efforts.
6. A coach with the inability to adjust to teams schemes.
7. A coach who has no idea when to take a knee.
8. A very inconsistent fan base who while being unintelligent with cheering, doesn't get loud anyway.

[catamount man]

Our bad:

1-general apathy amongst students who will miss half of the first quarter while drinking in the parking lot. They will then enter the game, but leave usually at halftime or early 3rd quarter.

2-our PA guy. Loves to mention too many ACC and SEC scores and then announces the SoCon scores. One thing, hell the ONLY thing, I loved at Boone this past season, was the fact that ASU's PA guy announced I-AA TOP 25 scores, then SoCon, and then went over the ACC scores. At WCU, we should adopt the same thing. I could care LESS what NC State and UNC are doing.

3-the lack of the university to keep in touch with alumni and former athletes, but hopefully this is changing and very soon.

I used to say location, but not anymore. Hell, Cullowhee is not THAT hard to find. GO CATAMOUNTS!!!

[colgate13]

Thanks, sounds good. I'm getting a little old for the one-day road trips.

It's a super 8 type place, but not an actual one. It's actually quite nice!

[jmuroller]

1. Low % of season ticket holders show up for games.

2. Students leave at halftime unless game is close.

3. Below average pressbox.

4. Tailgating is average. Getting better every year though.

5. Alumni have inflated egos of school. (I have this problem myself sometimes)

6. Fair weather fans.

[Reed Rothchild]

Bad
1. Shared weight room thats no better than the local high school's: Soon to be resolved
2. Game day atmosphere or lack there of: Department of Public safety needs to lighten up, big time
3. Iowa City being only 70 minutes away.
4. College of Education not having classes on Fridays: Kids go home

[kalm]

You want the straight truth? A thousand or so Montana State fans were as loud as 6000 EWU fans at the '05 Governor's Cup. They were vocal and on their feet almost the whole game, and we beat them 31-14! Most Eagle fans have no voice nor concept of providing 12th man support. Hell, I always know my tailgate fare is great cause it's quiet enough to hear my pals fart on most plays. We need some louder fans!

[CoastalFan2005]

CCU's Bad:

1) Subpar athletic facilities (basketball "arena" is a 1,000 seat gym; no real locker rooms/weight rooms for footbal; football stadium only holds somewhere around 6,500...the list goes on)

2) Did I mention subpar athletic facilities?

3) Student athletic apathy (especially when it's nice out...students equate nice to "Oooooh, beach time!")

4) Subpar...you get the idea.

The good: no shortage of hotel space in Myrtle Beach! LoL

[rokamortis]

CCU's Bad:

1) Subpar athletic facilities (basketball "arena" is a 1,000 seat gym; no real locker rooms/weight rooms for footbal; football stadium only holds somewhere around 6,500...the list goes on)

2) Did I mention subpar athletic facilities?

3) Student athletic apathy (especially when it's nice out...students equate nice to "Oooooh, beach time!")

4) Subpar...you get the idea.

The good: no shortage of hotel space in Myrtle Beach! LoL

But the good news is that these subpar facilities have plans to be improved. A new arena and football stadium expansion are the top priorities and both should happen in the next year with an improved baseball stadium right behind those. I think our track may have some plans for improvement in the near future as well.

[CoastalFan2005]

But the good news is that these subpar facilities have plans to be improved. A new arena and football stadium expansion are the top priorities and both should happen in the next year with an improved baseball stadium right behind those. I think our track may have some plans for improvement in the near future as well.

Yeah, I did neglect to mention that. I guess I figured it'd already been hashed out. My bad, :o

[Freightliner]

Here's a few for Texas State...but I think some other Bobcat Fans will have more.

1. Being 35 minutes from The University of Texas. (if you wanna go further try an hour and a half from Texas A&M)

2. Watching most of the businesses in San Marcos support UT BEFORE supporting Texas State.

3. Bobcat Stadium Sound System needs work. This after already spending $120,000 to renovate it in 2003.

[Rabbit3467]

The good:

[SoCon Din]

Coastal fans, something tells me that one good (beach) will help outweigh all the bads when it comes to effects on recruiting!

[Mr. C]

Here's a few for Texas State...but I think some other Bobcat Fans will have more.

1. Being 35 minutes from The University of Texas. (if you wanna go further try an hour and a half from Texas A&M)

2. Watching most of the businesses in San Marcos support UT BEFORE supporting Texas State.

3. Bobcat Stadium Sound System needs work. This after already spending $120,000 to renovate it in 2003.
Never have understood folks that don't support the hometown team. It drives me nuts the number of people in Boone who are Tar Heel fans, or Duka fans and have no clue about Appalachian State, or never attend games. I grew up as a fan of my hometown team and later my alma mater in Fresno, California (Fresno State) and couldn't imagine rooting for USC, UCLA, Cal or Stanford. If you are an alum, it's one thing. But most of those folks are just front-runners, trying to gain any advantage they can from the association with a big school.

[Rabbit3467]

The good:

http://www3.sdstate.edu/ClassLibrary/Page/Images/Data/9263.jpg

The pride of the dakotas, the best band not in the SWAC!! Nearly 400 members of the band, marched in the 1981 and 1997 presidential inaugurations.

Good and Bad:

http://www3.sdstate.edu/ClassLibrary/Page/Images/Data/8214.jpg

Good: You can see the white section in the middle of the stands, that is the pride. The largest capacity ever at SDSU was 16,193 so it holds a good sized crowd.

The Bad: The press box on the top of the stadium, it really looks like a trailer house that is sitting on top of the stands

The locker rooms are also not good. The home team has a very old small locker room, while the visiting team has to go a few hundred yards to get to the main athletic complex for their locker room. The halftime is actually longer at SDSU because of the distance to the visitor locker room.

Need more permanent restrooms, and other facilities such as concessions. It also gets very cold and can be miserable to watch a game in late October early november. This can also greatly affect the attendance.

The best part:

http://www3.sdstate.edu/ClassLibrary/Page/Images/Data/9390.jpg

This scoreboard was just put up at the beginning of last season. It is built by Daktronics which supplies most of the major staduim scoreboards and is located in Brookings SD, home of SDSU. I have not personnaly seen it, but was told the whole scoreboard is about 6 feet shorter than the width of the football field.

[JMU2004]

The good:

http://www3.sdstate.edu/ClassLibrary/Page/Images/Data/9263.jpg

The pride of the dakotas, the best band not in the SWAC!! Nearly 400 members of the band, marched in the 1981 and 1997 presidential inaugurations.

Good and Bad:

http://www3.sdstate.edu/ClassLibrary/Page/Images/Data/8214.jpg

Good: You can see the white section in the middle of the stands, that is the pride. The largest capacity ever at SDSU was 16,193 so it holds a good sized crowd.

The Bad: The press box on the top of the stadium, it really looks like a trailer house that is sitting on top of the stands

The locker rooms are also not good. The home team has a very old small locker room, while the visiting team has to go a few hundred yards to get to the main athletic complex for their locker room. The halftime is actually longer at SDSU because of the distance to the visitor locker room.

Need more permanent restrooms, and other facilities such as concessions. It also gets very cold and can be miserable to watch a game in late October early november. This can also greatly affect the attendance.

The best part:

http://www3.sdstate.edu/ClassLibrary/Page/Images/Data/9390.jpg

This scoreboard was just put up at the beginning of last season. It is built by Daktronics which supplies most of the major staduim scoreboards and is located in Brookings SD, home of SDSU. I have not personnaly seen it, but was told the whole scoreboard is about 6 feet shorter than the width of the football field.

sorry to be ignorant, but there is NO way that your stadium holds anything over 12K, based on those pics. JMU has a two sided stadium that seats 12,500 and is WAY bigger than what I can see in the pics

[Rabbit3467]

No problem being ignorant. Thats the best pic I can find. There are two sides to the stadium but the other side is not as big. For games that are expected to draw large crowds they also bring in stands to the north end zone below the scoreboard, and also have quite large standing and lawn chair seated stands in the south end zone. During big games there are also a lot of people that stand all around the field. The largest game that I attended was in 2004 against D-II Augustana with 13,116 ( there was definitely at least that many). They dont embelish, the largest crowd was against then in-state rival University of South Dakota which draws HUGE crowds and had a reported 16,193 ( I dont doubt it one bit)

Here's a link to SDSU website about it all.
http://www3.sdstate.edu/Athletics/VarsitySports/Football/CoughlinAlumniStadium/Index.cfm

[kats89]

Here's a few for Texas State...but I think some other Bobcat Fans will have more.

1. Being 35 minutes from The University of Texas. (if you wanna go further try an hour and a half from Texas A&M)

2. Watching most of the businesses in San Marcos support UT BEFORE supporting Texas State.

3. Bobcat Stadium Sound System needs work. This after already spending $120,000 to renovate it in 2003.


-The Bowers Stadium sound system is a joke. And what cracks me up is if you look into the south endzone, you see all these speakers hanging on the wall and you would think that the sound would be awesome? nope

-Like ya'll are close to Austin, we are a 50 minute drive from College Station. Not to mention 45 minutes from Houston. SHSU is still a suitcase school after all these years. I almost wish we played our games on Thursdays like in the 80's. Students would pack the stands for the games.

[Go...gate]

Nice photo. I understand Colgate is getting something from Daktronics for the coming FB season.

[DaGriz]

Another bad you can add to Montana football:

Open entry during half time. With about 3 mins. left in the first half the stadium empties so everybody can go out and tailgate. That part isn't bad, it's bad when the second half has started, the stadium is still half empty and the other team has the ball.

Also, flying in and out of Missoula can be tough. Especially in bad weather years. Missoula's airport is not exactly huge. You really have to plan your trip out in advance some times.

[Cocky]

1. Basketball Coach
2. Baseball Stadium
3. Scoreboard at Football Stadium
4. No Suites at Football Stadium
5. No sewage at RV tailgating
6. Easy to get into college (Either good or bad)
7. We should be avg. 15,000 - 20,000 for football
8. No real good rival since Troy moved up

[The Gadfly]

Only 25% is actually from South Carolina.

[blackfordpu]

-The Bowers Stadium sound system is a joke. And what cracks me up is if you look into the south endzone, you see all these speakers hanging on the wall and you would think that the sound would be awesome? nope

-Like ya'll are close to Austin, we are a 50 minute drive from College Station. Not to mention 45 minutes from Houston. SHSU is still a suitcase school after all these years. I almost wish we played our games on Thursdays like in the 80's. Students would pack the stands for the games.

With a good showing in our two I-A games next seaon we may see a huge jump in attendance.

[kats89]

With a good showing in our two I-A games next seaon we may see a huge jump in attendance.


we need to win at SMU or at least go 2-2 on that road trip which will be a brutal one.

SMU, Texas, Missouri St, Northwestern St, all consecutive games on the road. :bang:

[gsuwinsudont]

Local Crowd. Used to get a little better back in the 80's - in terms of Greenville community support - and while it is slowly getting better with the last 5 or 6 years, I'd still like to see more people take ownership in Furman than that craphole of a school up the road in Clemson.

Grass. Are we the only school that has a beautiful green Bermuda field early in the season only to have it die, with chunks all over it - and then paint it green in the end of the season? Our white home pants used to turn a slight shade of neon green in the washer. Throw some hybrid stuff in there that stays a little greener or at least take care of it some.


Dont feel bad about your grass Din. Woffy's turf was painted green when we played them in early september. :eyebrow:

[blackfordpu]

we need to win at SMU or at least go 2-2 on that road trip which will be a brutal one.

SMU, Texas, Missouri St, Northwestern St, all consecutive games on the road. :bang:

All the road games are going to kill attendence numbers this season. The fair-weather fans will not get the chance to know the team like the die-hard fans do. Therefore they won't keep up with the team while they are on the road and even if we are doing well they won't know so the won't show.

[Pard4Life]

Ah the self-confessional.. love it... no doubt Lafayette's problems are well publicized and we Lafayetters vent about them all the time, no secrets to hide on our side..

1. Fisher Field is horrible.. each season, one's pants are christened with the infamous brown stain if you don't bring a cushion, and you can kill yourself if you slip and fall while walking on the benches.

2. We get small crowds and even the larger non-Lehigh crowds sound like polo matches when it's not the end of the game... new stadium might fix this

3. Students don't really care although this seems to be changing with some new blood in the underclassmen.

4. Press box is awful, even games vs. Columbia its impossible to navigate.

Good thing is all of these issues are correctable and will be once (if) the field is renovated.

PS Where is the Lehigh confessional??

[HiHiYikas]

Never have understood folks that don't support the hometown team. It drives me nuts the number of people in Boone who are Tar Heel fans, or Duka fans and have no clue about Appalachian State, or never attend games. I grew up as a fan of my hometown team and later my alma mater in Fresno, California (Fresno State) and couldn't imagine rooting for USC, UCLA, Cal or Stanford. If you are an alum, it's one thing. But most of those folks are just front-runners, trying to gain any advantage they can from the association with a big school.
Being from just down the mountain from Boone, I would say that Boone is pretty much the only black and gold town in a sea of Carolina and Duke Blue. It gets to be overwhelming and frustrating.

[catbob]

Truths about MSU:

1. Location : Most all I-AA teams are to the east of us. I would love to schedule some home and home deals with teams like App, Furman, Delaware, etc. But it isn't real easy getting into Bozeman, especially in the winter.

2. Obnoxious fans : Mostly drunken students, but there are also adults who can cross the line. Vandalizing the NDSU Battle Wagon was a horrible example of this type of behaviour. Some fans tend to hate other teams as much/more than they love the Cats.

3. Location : Beautiful surrounding area! Bozeman is beautiful all times of the year. Plus the town of Bozeman has quite a bit of culture to offer.

4. Stadium : Not a great stadium but not a horrible one by IAA standards either. Pretty quality press boxes I believe, I can't verify this. We need to get that southern endzone bowled!

5. Subpar training facilities.

6. Recruit as much CA kids as we do MT kids. I don't find this too disheartening but get tired of hearing about it from Griz fans.

7. Had every game except Ok State televised last year. Great coverage across the state.

8. Top 15 attendance in IAA at about 14k last year. More people at the games than we have students is always a plus.

9. Fun tailgating that sometimes gets out of hand. Wish more people came into the game than tailgating the whole day, but as long as we sell out every game like we did last year (even though some empty seats were still around).

10. 1 of 2 biggest shows in the state - no IA to compete with, or pro sports.

11. Enjoy one of the best rivalries in IAA. :)

Bout all I can think of right now.

[FCS_pwns_FBS]

No GSU fans have posted here yet, so I'll be the first.

The biggest problem is alumni support. We have far more living alumni today then we did in the Erk years because of the explosive growth the university has had in the last 20 years, yet you can look at our attendance numbers and see that they.

I think there is a definite advantage to have a name like The University of Montana, The University of New Hampshire, and The University of Georgia.

Other than that, not too many big complaints from Southern fans.