The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

I have been making this argument for years, back even before the shutdown. Most every video and photo of the games have come from the west side of the stadium, showing a mostly empty Legion Field. It didn't matter if there were 25K people on the other side of the stadium, it always appeared like the stadium was empty to those who didn't come to the games.

So, when the haters on Finebaum and the Opening Drive called in and said there weren't 2,000 people at UAB's game, the visuals sure seemed to fit their narrative. That's why they were so surprised that we came out of the woodwork to support #TheReturn, because they were convinced that there were no more than a couple of thousand of us total.

Those of us who were at the games know differently, but in this case perception is reality for those we are trying to entice to come to games and support UAB football. As someone mentioned earlier, people are sheep, and they tend to go where the other sheep go. People who don't already have an interest in the program don't want to go to an empty stadium, and support a program that no one else cares about.

Even after one of our biggest moments as a program on Saturday, our detractors immediately noticed in the highlights that no one was there, even with the loud crowd noise coming from behind the camera. Of course, some suggested that we were piping in crowd noise; if we are, the guy who is doing it has perfect timing, and he even made it sound like it was coming right from my section (12).

We are in a PR game here, and the deck is stacked against us here. I think we need to take whatever steps necessary to consider turning things around. The press box and sky boxes aren't moving, and it would be a great hassle (and inevitable PR nightmare) to move all of the fans to the other side. So, we need to do whatever it takes to make sure every photographer and videographer on the field is on the visitor side, and move the set camera positions for televised games to the other side.

That's my $.02.