(12-04-2016 10:37 AM)wkuhilltopperfan Wrote: WKU only avg 7-9k before the move to FBS. it's a very divided fan base between WKU / UK and Louisville. Louisville and Kentucky both traditional top10 basketball schools and Louisville being a top 20 football school. UK fans stay loyal to UK even tough they're football usually sucks, but they got bowl eligible this year and many people jumped back onto they're hopeless bandwagon. It's amazing how many people I talk to that ask me if WKU is a FBS program and say it couldn't be possible for WKU to compete with teams like UK and just chuckle at me. Most uk fans care about one team only and are not regular sports fans and have no clue about WKU recent success .... They are UK fans and don't think other programs have the right to be here other than to be they're beaten child. I had some people bind me that had come down for the high school games from northern Kentucky, they knew nothing about WKU or La Tech and did not know we was a FBS program, they was pulling for La Tech. We don't have the population of other areas and have a big hurdle to take away fans from other programs, ever since we went on our 26 game losing streak we have had issues getting fans to commit to us
Reading all the comments from WKU fans, I feel you. Louisiana has 5 FBS teams, but the only one that "matters" is LSU. I guarantee most people don't even realize there are other FBS programs in the state. Shreveport (3rd largest city in LA) is an hour away and our largest alumni base. Shreveport is about as far away from LSU as you can get while still being in the state, and La Tech, ULM, and ULL are all closer. Yet Shreveport is 100% purple and gold. We occasionally have used Independence Stadium in Shreveport as an alternate home site (most recently against Texas A&M in 2012). I promise you if we hosted LSU there (which is a laughable proposition, they'd never travel to us), 75% of that stadium would be purple and gold, if not more. The Lady Techsters hosted LSU in our season opener (almost won, officiating was crap tho). After the game when the band of pride was playing the alma mater, one or two of the LSU fans that were there raised their index finger, which is the tradition at Tech when the Alma Mater is played. So they must have gone to Tech, but there they were wearing purple and gold (I'm really hoping they had a granddaughter playing for LSU, which I could accept, but who knows).
Even some of the students are iffy. When we played Texas Tech I started asking friends/fellow students if they wanted to watch the game together. One of them asked "can we watch the LSU game too?" (vs Miss St). I went to my first road game this year when we played UNT (nice stadium, btw). There weren't many students there, and those that were (besides us) were drunk frat boys and/or recent grads. In like the early 4th quarter or so, they were like "eh 20 point lead, let's go watch the LSU game" (granted, it was against Bama, but still). At least they came to the game, I guess.
The worst thing is there's a few students/alumni that I'm afraid will actually cheer for LSU when we play them in a couple of years. One guy I talked to had to think about it, another said he'd rep both teams. Some would rather watch LSU play on TV then leave their dorm to see our games, because they're "more exciting."
That said, there are a core of fans that are extremely loyal. An official organization representing students and the student section has been started, called Loyal Blue Nation. We had a decent crowd at the UNT game, and although I wasn't able to get down there, I think the crowd at USM wasn't bad, either.
I don't know what Bowling Green is like, but the city of Ruston seems to support Tech decently well. A few local businesses fly Tech flags. My favorite is the new DQ. They fly 2 Tech flags (and a Grambling flag, but we don't talk about that
). Inside they have a giant Tech logo on the wall. They also have 2 pictures, one of the Dawgs hoisting the 2014 HOD trophy, and the other is the line of scrimmage between Tech and LSU. But once you leave Ruston, there's not much support.
Hopefully if our respective programs continue to win, more fans will come. Louisiana is definitely a football state, so that's the game that matters. We play them in Tiger Stadium in 2018. We last played in 2009 and led at halftime, although we'd lose by I think 8. We weren't even good that year, so if we keep improving, maybe... just maybe...
At the end of the day, the casual fan is fickle. They only want to cheer for the best teams, which is one reason the best teams continue to stay that way. But if the media would give G5 programs their due coverage, it wouldn't be this bad.