RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
Taking a stab at my own question...
It's my perception that the Marshall fan base has plateaued, and palpably receded a bit. Not a lot, but a bit.
The diehard, passionate fans like I had been most of my life are not as intense as before and some of them have even settled down into what could better be described as a casual fan status.
The casual fans, as casual fans are naturally, may take interest for as long as the football team or the basketball team continue to win. Or, they might not take interest if there is something else going on that better fulfills their entertainment and/or social life needs/wants.
Who to blame?
The easy target that fans routinely call out are coaches.
Me, not at all, really. Revenue sports, overall, have enjoyed a level of success during the CUSA 3.0 years that is hardly the stuff of disenchantment.
It's not really "who" for me, but "what" to blame.
For whatever reason, Marshall fans once thought of their school as a legitimate threat to become one of "national prominence." A capital campaign even wore that phrase proudly at one time under, iirc, President Dan Angel. And where revenue sports was concerned, there was a lot of talk about the football program in particular serving to deliver Marshall to the limelight in a way similar to what we now know Boise experienced.
But whatever momentum there ever was in that way has been stymied since Marshall was one of the left-behinds, and since, with that, much of the fan base took the attitude that they were alright with being left behind.
There was a trust that either the AD had no other choice and shouldn't waste time pushing for AAC membership, or the AD was right to assert that it was better to not have to compete with the Houstons, ECUs and UCFs.
Regardless, what no one really seems to debate is that expectations were lowered so that winning in this new environment, was not all that stimulating. Satisfying, yes. Stimulating excitement? Not like it did before.
The narrative was supposed to be we dominated I-AA, and then dominated the MAC, and then we eventually were going to dominate CUSA 2.0... which, then, would propel Marshall into a stratosphere that few schools of its size have ever enjoyed, potentially even nudging into national championship conversations.
That didn't happen, of course, though some speak of it as-if we "couldn't compete," which is terribly absurd b/c we also were not a basement dweller. We competed, and were even a legit threat to win the East Division most Novembers. By most accounts, what actually held us back at the time was an inexperienced, over-his-head head coach.
Some of us thought it was entirely plausible that with the right head coach hired to replace Snyder, that era would only end up a mere hiccup in Marshall's march to national prominence.
Time has proven we were wrong. And it's not that we could have hired all that much better of a head coach than Holliday. It's that "expectations" thing. We've lost our enthusiasm for something better. Marshall fans ordinarily don't dream any more of anything approaching national prominence. There is no more aspiration. The prevailing feeling is that Marshall has risen as high as Marshall can rise, and should just be content.
No wonder then that that has resulted in some regression.
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