2017 Season

[jdub27]

16 minutes ago, UND-FB-FAN said:

All around the country, college football plays primetime at late afternoon or evening. 

I think that's a stretch. Games start at 11am and run through the evening. There are plenty of big time games that start between 11am and 2:30 pm.

[MoSiouxFan]

28 minutes ago, UND-FB-FAN said:

All around the country, college football plays primetime at late afternoon or evening. UND hockey interferes with UND football playing late afternoon/evening games; therefore, UND may actually need to do something unique such as attendance vouchers. UND hockey naturally soaks up the crowd due to the REA and their game times which isn't fair to Bubba and the UND football program.  

The weekends with both football and hockey are a big plus for some of us out-of-staters.  I plan my fall trips around the combination weekends.  This fall, I plan on coming for the Gopher/Sacramento St. weekend and the EWU/Miami weekend.  The plan is to bring two or three friends with.  Getting the Gopher tickets will probably be a challenge, though.

[fightingsioux4life]

41 minutes ago, UND-FB-FAN said:

All around the country, college football plays primetime at late afternoon or evening. UND hockey interferes with UND football playing late afternoon/evening games; therefore, UND may actually need to do something unique such as attendance vouchers. UND hockey naturally soaks up the crowd due to the REA and their game times which isn't fair to Bubba and the UND football program.  

We could have evening games in August and September, but the coaches don't like night games. We did them in 2001 when the Alerus Center opened and they were a blast.

[Siouxperfan7]

4 minutes ago, MoSiouxFan said:

The weekends with both football and hockey are a big plus for some of us out-of-staters.  I plan my fall trips around the combination weekends.  This fall, I plan on coming for the Gopher/Sacramento St. weekend and the EWU/Miami weekend.  The plan is to bring two or three friends with.  Getting the Gopher tickets will probably be a challenge, though.

Yep.  That is what I do as well.  Since moving to the Twin Cities 2 years ago, I have looked every year for a weekend that hockey and football are both at home.  Typically there is at least one weekend where that is the case.  EWU football game has potential to be a huge game, but I decided to come up for the Sac St/Gopher weekend.  Saturday is going to be a long day with tailgating starting early due to the early start, but it will be totally worth it.

(Note to jdub27....get the jello and pudding shots ready!!)

[SWSiouxMN]

9 minutes ago, MoSiouxFan said:

The weekends with both football and hockey are a big plus for some of us out-of-staters.  I plan my fall trips around the combination weekends.  This fall, I plan on coming for the Gopher/Sacramento St. weekend and the EWU/Miami weekend.  The plan is to bring two or three friends with.  Getting the Gopher tickets will probably be a challenge, though.

Don't forget that in both weekend there is volleyball too.  Those are loaded weekends for sure. 

[siouxfan512]

Have to imagine that the more UND see success in Football the more start times will be dictated by tv/broadcast availability. Not sure how that all works, but would have to imagine that will factor into it.

[UNDColorado]

12 minutes ago, MoSiouxFan said:

The weekends with both football and hockey are a big plus for some of us out-of-staters.  I plan my fall trips around the combination weekends.  This fall, I plan on coming for the Gopher/Sacramento St. weekend and the EWU/Miami weekend.  The plan is to bring two or three friends with.  Getting the Gopher tickets will probably be a challenge, though.

Same here. I try to make my annual hunting week coincide with a football / hockey day. This makes an already fun trip a blast!

[siouxfan512]

I'm planning my weekends up from the cities too.

Really wanted to do Montana St game, but kid has an event.

Not sure I want to spend the money on tickets for a Gopher series but hoping to get up there for the football game.

Definitely want to make it for the E Wash/Miami games. Hope the E Wash game is a meaningful one. Though just beating E Wash is meaningful in itself.

[MoSiouxFan]

Just now, SWSiouxMN said:

Don't forget that in both weekend there is volleyball too.  Those are loaded weekends for sure. 

Hadn't realized that.  Thanks.  The most loaded weekend I've ever experienced, and I've been doing this for several years now, was last Nov. when we got to see men's BB and women's BB Friday afternoon, Denver hockey Fri. night, No. Arizona football Sat. afternoon (boy, was that a game!), and a DU hockey game Sat. night.  Interrupted only by several trips to the Red Pepper.  That's a weekend that'll be tough to beat going forward.

[northernraider]

How does Duke/Kentucky handle late November FB games? Do they avoid butting up against basketball or there enough fans to go around?

[Teeder11]

1 hour ago, northernraider said:

How does Duke/Kentucky handle late November FB games? Do they avoid butting up against basketball or there enough fans to go around?

Just spit balling a theory here so don't shoot me for thinking out loud, but IMHO it's a weird dynamic here at UND compared to our regional and national peers who have America's traditional popular sports (football and MBB) as their top programs.  Most schools' fan bases are just as excited for football as they are for their MBB programs and vice versa, and the overlap is not as dragged out as it is with UND FB/UND MBB and UND Hockey. There's that, and then there's the huge popularity that has exploded across the state and region for UND Hockey since circa 2000 -- brought about by the consistent success of the Hockey program and the opening of the area's social-scene mecca that is the palatial Ralph.  All this coincided with the doldrums of a D2 to D1 transition that was relatively lackluster compared to some of our regional peers and an extremely divisive nickname controversy, specifically a nickname revered more and worn more prominently by the hockey program than any other UND program. This time frame has been juxtaposed against unprecedented athletic success by our chief intra-state rival.  The amalgamation of all these factors has created enough of a split fan base that it is not unfathomable to consider that there are enough folks who attend UND hockey games and could not care less about UND FB/MBB.  Some of this comprises folks, in general, who go to the Ralph to be seen and not necessarily watch a hockey game as well as people across the region who are UND hockey only fans (yes,I'm including those who are generally Bison Athletics supporters from Fargo and elsewhere who also like themselves some North Dakota hockey). It's kind of a regional version of me being an Arizona Wildcats MBB fan, recognizing that I could not care less about the Wildcats otherwise.

Sorry that was so long. I could be way off but it is an interesting thing to think about!

[shep]

The gist is that some UND hockey fans do not care about UND FB and I think you're right.

 

 

 

[SWSiouxMN]

4 hours ago, Teeder11 said:

Just spit balling a theory here so don't shoot me for thinking out loud, but IMHO it's a weird dynamic here at UND compared to our regional and national peers who have America's traditional popular sports (football and MBB) as their top programs.  Most schools' fan bases are just as excited for football as they are for their MBB programs and vice versa, and the overlap is not as dragged out as it is with UND FB/UND MBB and UND Hockey. There's that, and then there's the huge popularity that has exploded across the state and region for UND Hockey since circa 2000 -- brought about by the consistent success of the Hockey program and the opening of the area's social-scene mecca that is the palatial Ralph.  All this coincided with the doldrums of a D2 to D1 transition that was relatively lackluster compared to some of our regional peers and an extremely divisive nickname controversy, specifically a nickname revered more and worn more prominently by the hockey program than any other UND program. This time frame has been juxtaposed against unprecedented athletic success by our chief intra-state rival.  The amalgamation of all these factors has created enough of a split fan base that it is not unfathomable to consider that there are enough folks who attend UND hockey games and could not care less about UND FB/MBB.  Some of this comprises folks, in general, who go to the Ralph to be seen and not necessarily watch a hockey game as well as people across the region who are UND hockey only fans (yes,I'm including those who are generally Bison Athletics supporters from Fargo and elsewhere who also like themselves some North Dakota hockey). It's kind of a regional version of me being an Arizona Wildcats MBB fan, recognizing that I could not care less about the Wildcats otherwise.

Sorry that was so long. I could be way off but it is an interesting thing to think about!

Yeah, those were some dark times... unless you were a volleyball or to a lesser extend a women's basketball fan. Fortunately things aren't as dark now as they once were.

[UofUUtes]

5 hours ago, northernraider said:

How does Duke/Kentucky handle late November FB games? Do they avoid butting up against basketball or there enough fans to go around?

Usually they avoid each other. College hoops usually starts on the Friday before the last regular season games. Otherwise the football game is played early and hoops after. The real conflict usually comes with bowl games. 

2 years ago Utah hoops played Duke in NYC and the bowl game started an hour after it in Vegas. It wasn't that bad since neither were a home game, but it did make people choose. I know a lot of people that went to NYC and luckily we played out rival in the bowl game so there was a good turnout. 

If it would have been a home basketball game though, it would have been a very small hoops crowd

[siouxfan512]

7 hours ago, northernraider said:

How does Duke/Kentucky handle late November FB games? Do they avoid butting up against basketball or there enough fans to go around?

I think with a lot of those bigger schools, there are just more fans to go around.

[UND-FB-FAN]

21 hours ago, jdub27 said:

I think that's a stretch. Games start at 11am and run through the evening. There are plenty of big time games that start between 11am and 2:30 pm.

I think games around 2:30 pm or later are the norm for "primetime games". Additionally, those games would possibly be better attended in Grand Forks considering large groups of attendees struggle getting to the Alerus by noon for some reason. Blame it on the drinking "have a good time" crowd

[UND-FB-FAN]

20 hours ago, MoSiouxFan said:

The weekends with both football and hockey are a big plus for some of us out-of-staters.  I plan my fall trips around the combination weekends.  This fall, I plan on coming for the Gopher/Sacramento St. weekend and the EWU/Miami weekend.  The plan is to bring two or three friends with.  Getting the Gopher tickets will probably be a challenge, though.

I completely understand that and appreciate that. My point is an obvious one: UND *must* have early afternoon games during the second half of their schedule due to hockey. That makes things difficult for folks who don't want to attend two games and thus opt for hockey and/or can't get to Grand Forks by noon/1 pm for football. 

Hockey will always be penciled in for late evening start times. UND football has to work around that. Not a big deal but a fact of reality that may affect attendance a bit on "double-header Saturdays".

[darell1976]

19 minutes ago, UND-FB-FAN said:

I think games around 2:30 pm or later are the norm for "primetime games". Additionally, those games would possibly be better attended in Grand Forks considering large groups of attendees struggle getting to the Alerus by noon for some reason. Blame it on the drinking "have a good time" crowd

Don't forget about the "it's halftime time to go home" crowd. That is the biggest problem rather than start times. How to keep people in their seats unless it's 50-0. Just think of all those people who missed the second half of the USD game, a double OT thriller. Also have they ever thought about swapping start times with hockey for a weekend? Instead of 7pm for hockey have it at 2pm, and move football to 7pm. No women's hockey to interfere with ice times. 

[siouxfan512]

23 minutes ago, darell1976 said:

Don't forget about the "it's halftime time to go home" crowd. That is the biggest problem rather than start times. How to keep people in their seats unless it's 50-0. Just think of all those people who missed the second half of the USD game, a double OT thriller. Also have they ever thought about swapping start times with hockey for a weekend? Instead of 7pm for hockey have it at 2pm, and move football to 7pm. No women's hockey to interfere with ice times. 

I never understood that though process. What is the point of going to a game, if you aren't going to watch the whole thing to see what happens. People don't generally leave a hockey game after 2 periods. Heck, even if UND football is leaving, we have all see comebacks happen, particularly last year. I just don't get it.

[Bison06]

27 minutes ago, siouxfan512 said:

I never understood that though process. What is the point of going to a game, if you aren't going to watch the whole thing to see what happens. People don't generally leave a hockey game after 2 periods. Heck, even if UND football is leaving, we have all see comebacks happen, particularly last year. I just don't get it.

As sports "fanatics", I think we at times underestimate how many people go to sporting events for the social aspect of it. It happens everywhere. Went to Norman, OK last year when they played Ohio St and our section was packed at the beginning and at least 1/4 of those people left at the end of the 3rd quarter. 

[siouxfan512]

22 minutes ago, Bison06 said:

As sports "fanatics", I think we at times underestimate how many people go to sporting events for the social aspect of it. It happens everywhere. Went to Norman, OK last year when they played Ohio St and our section was packed at the beginning and at least 1/4 of those people left at the end of the 3rd quarter. 

Probably true, I'm also one of those where once I have spent money on a ticket, I'm going to stick it out. Though I guess with students that isn't always a factor.

True point though.

[Bison06]

9 minutes ago, siouxfan512 said:

Probably true, I'm also one of those where once I have spent money on a ticket, I'm going to stick it out. Though I guess with students that isn't always a factor.

True point though.

I'm the same way. Maybe it's just my frugal nature, but once I've payed for something I'm staying the whole time. I've sat through some pretty awful movies over the years because I refuse to leave early. Batman vs. Superman is the latest 2 hours of my life I'll never get back.

[geaux_sioux]

3 minutes ago, Bison06 said:

I'm the same way. Maybe it's just my frugal nature, but once I've payed for something I'm staying the whole time. I've sat through some pretty awful movies over the years because I refuse to leave early. Batman vs. Superman is the latest 2 hours of my life I'll never get back.

I walked out on only one game ever and that was our game against Montana St when our team was straight up pathetic. A 63-20 loss when the previous week was a 55-17 loss? Both at home? No thanks. Thank God for Bubba.

[Bison06]

10 minutes ago, geaux_sioux said:

I walked out on only one game ever and that was our game against Montana St when our team was straight up pathetic. A 63-20 loss when the previous week was a 55-17 loss? Both at home? No thanks. Thank God for Bubba.

That definitely would've challenged my personal rule to have to sit through that if I were in your shoes.

[geaux_sioux]

Just now, Bison06 said:

That definitely would've challenged my personal rule to have to sit through that if I were in your shoes.

43-7 at the half....