Flew in from DC this morning for the game against ECU. In recuperation mode from the tailgate and just now getting a chance to share my thoughts. I have three...

1. I am saddened and embarrassed by our turnout. This is probably the worst attended homecoming game I've been to, and I'm really disappointed by what I saw. We're still fighting the UT gorilla. We simply don't draw well when the Vols are playing at the same time. It's sad but unfortunately it's still true.

2. Be glad you got Ruffin instead of Stock. I thought both teams played pretty evenly. We simply got out coached today. You won and we lost because of the guys calling the shots on the sidelines.

3. I thought ECU would bring a few more folks, but that's only because I'm just so impressed with your fan base so perhaps my exceptions were a little too high. You guys had as many if not more than almost any other school has brought to town and that includes Minnesota, Georgia Tech, UVA, and Maryland. The only exceptions are maybe Miss State and Memphis. Close.

Thanks for the Pirate fans that made it. Hope you had a good trip. Lastly, we had our chances and blew it, so not much else to say but congrats on the win Pirates!

(10-05-2013 08:29 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  Flew in from DC this morning for the game against ECU. In recuperation mode from the tailgate and just now getting a chance to share my thoughts. I have three...

1. I am saddened and embarrassed by our turnout. This is probably the worst attended homecoming game I've been to, and I'm really disappointed by what I saw. We're still fighting the UT gorilla. We simply don't draw well when the Vols are playing at the same time. It's sad but unfortunately it's still true.

2. Be glad you got Ruffin instead of Stock. I thought both teams played pretty evenly. We simply got out coached today. You won and we lost because of the guys calling the shots on the sidelines.

3. I thought ECU would bring a few more folks, but that's only because I'm just so impressed with your fan base so perhaps my exceptions were a little too high. You guys had as many if not more than almost any other school has brought to town and that includes Minnesota, Georgia Tech, UVA, and Maryland. The only exceptions are maybe Miss State and Memphis. Close.

Thanks for the Pirate fans that made it. Hope you had a good trip. Lastly, we had our chances and blew it, so not much else to say but congrats on the win Pirates!

It was great seeing you after the game, my friend. Had been far too long.

(10-05-2013 08:29 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  Flew in from DC this morning for the game against ECU. In recuperation mode from the tailgate and just now getting a chance to share my thoughts. I have three...

1. I am saddened and embarrassed by our turnout. This is probably the worst attended homecoming game I've been to, and I'm really disappointed by what I saw. We're still fighting the UT gorilla. We simply don't draw well when the Vols are playing at the same time. It's sad but unfortunately it's still true.

2. Be glad you got Ruffin instead of Stock. I thought both teams played pretty evenly. We simply got out coached today. You won and we lost because of the guys calling the shots on the sidelines.

3. I thought ECU would bring a few more folks, but that's only because I'm just so impressed with your fan base so perhaps my exceptions were a little too high. You guys had as many if not more than almost any other school has brought to town and that includes Minnesota, Georgia Tech, UVA, and Maryland. The only exceptions are maybe Miss State and Memphis. Close.

Thanks for the Pirate fans that made it. Hope you had a good trip. Lastly, we had our chances and blew it, so not much else to say but congrats on the win Pirates!

Good luck the rest of the way. As far as coaching goes our staff had their own issues today for sure, especially right before the half. Impressed with the effort and energy of your defense. They were on the field a ton and played 98 plays but never quit. Not sure what the deal was with our offense today, just a little off in several areas but I will take a road win anyway it comes.

Over 500 yards offense and 17 out of 23 on third down. We're lucky to have been in the game at all.

The defense forced you guys to drive the field, so there weren't as many possessions as you guys usually get. But you got a crap load of plays off because of all the 3rd down conversion. It's just part of our tradition to to be one of the best defenses in the nation on first and second downs and then one of the worst on third. That's just how we roll yo!

Good to see you too Dave!

I think your staff came in with a great gameplan focused around being physical and knocking us off our rhythm. I was very impressed with MT, and they will be a great addition to C-USA.

Mtsu needs to work on game day atmosphere. The fans are totally uninvolved. They don't play music during breaks or have any cheers...just a flat atmosphere

Exactly what ECUdave said. I get sick of seeing presentations at every timeout on the field. That gets so old. Music choices that are played are awful and old. Just no involvement. Our attendance was also bad due to Vandys Homecoming and UT vs. Georgia game. This was the worst attended homecoming I have ever seen. I am disappointed. But most of all, you have to win. Simple as that.

(10-05-2013 08:50 PM)ecudave198 Wrote:  Mtsu needs to work on game day atmosphere. The fans are totally uninvolved. They don't play music during breaks or have any cheers...just a flat atmosphere

I think I will forward that to the admin. Can't say that I disagree.

Of course the atmosphere is made better by a full stadium. Is this a chicken and egg thing or are there actually things they can do to make people more interested in coming?

Again, that's one of the weaker homecoming crowds we had, and I was very surprised by what I saw. I didn't expect that at all so while a bit abnormal it was still disconcerting.

I think the UNC game kind of killed ECU attendance. I wanted to go to the MTSU game but had a road trip planned I could not miss. I know a lot of ECU fans who went to the UNC game instead of MTSU game. Wish I could have made the game but will now start working on making the Marshall game.

(10-05-2013 08:44 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  It's just part of our tradition to to be one of the best defenses in the nation on first and second downs and then one of the worst on third. That's just how we roll yo!

Yeah, once again our third down defense was atrocious. Why do I trick myself into believing that one game we'll actually stop a team on third downs?

I know several going to both the Marshall and FIU games. Many picked FIU because of the location. That probably didn't help visiting attendance.

I think this was tough for a lot of ECU fans to make because we are coming off 3 straight home games and a lot of people made the trip to UNC as well. I didn't go to the game but I like the look of Middle TN stadiums. I thought we gave away a lot of chances to pull away, IE horrible clock management to end the half. But that said Middle TN has a solid front 7 on D and good skill on offense.

ECU fans have been looked at as uppity on this board quite a bit. But I'm sorry, we just do not belong in a league where everytime we go on the road the stadiums look like ghost towns. It effects recruiting, atmosphere, and the TV presentation. I know that will be far from eliminated in the AAC (Tulane), but I am ready to play other programs that have passionate fanbases on a regular basis.

Was just talking about this on our board. It's not that we don't have a passionate base, but I think we have some underlying problems that contribute to less than what we would like to see. It's not like we don't have the ability fill the place up as you can see from the images below, but there are some things that are hurting our ability to foster growth in a sustained way...

1. We've laid too many eggs at home. And it's not just that we lost games at home. We lost in epic ways to really bad teams where the home team simply never showed up against I-AA SEMO or losing to transitional FAU on one of the worst 62 yard plays you've ever seen in your life as time expires kind of losses. Poor effort games litter our top 10 attended games. Stockstill has fixed a lot of things that Andy McCollum ran into the ground before he was fired but he also helped contribute to this one. Follow up those epically bad losses with the worst season the program experienced in over 30 years and we have managed to run off a lot of people who really wanted to support the program. You can't have a team that acts like they would rather be at home playing Xbox and expect people to support that garbage. Stockstill appears to have finally be getting those problems corrected but the issue now is it too late for him? Are we going to require a coaching change to energize the program again and make people care?? Our highest average in Stockstill's seven years was his first back in '06.

2. We have a media problem. The media portrays that if you're not a Tennessee or Bama or SEC fan in general you are otherwise subhuman, sucking up everyone else's oxygen, and more worthy of life because they got their GED and can chant SEC, SEC.

3. Poor engagement by the university. They've actually started a new initiative to work on this, but for those of you who came in you probably didn't see many marquee's with Go MT or Beat ECU or something like that on it. Better community engagement will translate into the football attendance.

I wish our game with MT wasn't a Thursday game. I am still going to try and make it but it will severely cut down on our traveling fans. Two vacation days for a game is just too much for a lot of folks.

(10-05-2013 08:55 PM)MTalum09 Wrote:  Exactly what ECUdave said. I get sick of seeing presentations at every timeout on the field. That gets so old. Music choices that are played are awful and old. Just no involvement. Our attendance was also bad due to Vandys Homecoming and UT vs. Georgia game. This was the worst attended homecoming I have ever seen. I am disappointed. But most of all, you have to win. Simple as that.

I bet you 15% of our crowd are fans because of our game atmosphere. Half our crowd is inside our Stadium 30 min before kickoff.

ECU's FB team had an interesting flight home. Got all the way to KPGV, Pitt-Greeneville Airport and the computer cuts out, the one that helps with short field landings. They then started toward RDU, then flew over Seymour Johnson AFB, then finally landed in Kinston.

ECU had to call in extra bus drivers, only had two busses at KPGV, but now that the needed 4 since the Coaches, and other staff had their cars at KPGV.

Check out the flight tracker,

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/JBU8846

(10-05-2013 08:57 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(10-05-2013 08:50 PM)ecudave198 Wrote:  Mtsu needs to work on game day atmosphere. The fans are totally uninvolved. They don't play music during breaks or have any cheers...just a flat atmosphere

I think I will forward that to the admin. Can't say that I disagree.

Of course the atmosphere is made better by a full stadium. Is this a chicken and egg thing or are there actually things they can do to make people more interested in coming?

Again, that's one of the weaker homecoming crowds we had, and I was very surprised by what I saw. I didn't expect that at all so while a bit abnormal it was still disconcerting.

Then forward this please. During our JT years we won 3 games but averaged 33K a game and I wondered why all of us showed up knowing we were going to lose. It was so simple, it was our tailgating friendly atmosphere. Trust me it was a party of friends, foe & us. ECU did something I thought was genius. Before those years many stayed outside and partied. Then ECU said the tailgating area had to be cleared by 1st Q so everyone went inside. The ones that were outside would here our crowd scream (Purple/Gold, Where it's a 1st Down Pirates or our canon after a TD) made the crowd outside want to come in. Then ECU turned the first 15 mins before game into an entertainment production. Now LOL everyone is in before game. What's so unique about good tailgating, it's a family atmosphere because all ages are welcomed. Work on your tailgating & you'll have new fans from Nashville that can't afford a Titan's game. Crap buy 50 Cornhole games an spread them outside the stadium.

I was surprised by the low looking attendance for a homecoming game.... do those other games mentioned above really effect your attendance THAT MUCH? I mean, UNC, Duke, and NCSU are 70-115 minutes away and even if they all had home games it wouldn't affect OUR attendance.

First, hats off to the MTSU fan base that sticks with their team and goes to the games. I was, however, shocked at the low turn out yesterday. I know that MT received a great deal of press about entering Conf USA, and I think I remember MT fans believing that entry into this conference would help with attendance , so it's a shame for the loyalist of the fan base for MT what happened yesterday.

This conference is going to be in real trouble if it can not promote attendance better.
MTSU fields a quality team with good athletes. It seems unfair to them if the MT admin cannot create a strategy to get more people to the games. Home games are essentially a paid 3 hour infomercial for a school. At the very least, this should motivate the MT admin to rethink their home field marketing strategy.

It's one thing if MT is traditionally a bad team, which it isn't. I think their football players, coach's and fans deserve better.

2. We have a media problem. The media portrays that if you're not a Tennessee or Bama or SEC fan in general you are otherwise subhuman, sucking up everyone else's oxygen, and more worthy of life because they got their GED and can chant SEC, SEC.
-------------------------------

ECU has suffered for decades with the same issue, except here its the ACC syndrome. While I would like to tell you it will someday change, I'm afraid it will not. Every year, I send emails to media moguls chastising them for giving ECU little to no coverage compared to the almighty ACC, even in those years where ECU is obviously the best team within NC.

As Pirate fans, we have a saying that "it's tough being a Pirate". I would suggest you guys adopt a similar stance. You guys have a good team, but its gonna be a long, uphill battle to gain any semblance of respect against the SEC.