I gotta say I'm disappointed in the attendance tonight. In fact I'm furious. Every week I see threads on the Lair and Scout where fans are calling out the students. But how can us fans/alums expect the students to come to the games and/or stay after "Sweet Caroline" when you're not coming down to Heinz yourselves. I get that it rained, I get that it's somewhat cold... But this was pathetic. Y'all have 0 room to call our the students... none at all. Not blaming the Pitt fans on this board per say; however, I'll post a similar thread on the "Lair".
I have never called out anyone on attendance. My feeling has always been that people are free to spend their hard earned money and free time as they see fit and I'm not about to tell them how they should allocate those resources.
As for the rest of it, why on earth would you be surprised and/or furious by last night's sparse attendance? The game featured a mid-tier ACC team that is clearly going nowhere (this season at least) vs. an FCS team with which we have no history and was played in a steady rain and in temps that were in the 30s.
Seriously, does that sound like a good time to anyone? Look, I'm as big a Pitt fan as I know and even I was dragging myself out of my house to go to that game. And as the game was winding down, I couldn't help but wonder if I had made the right decision in coming as I was soaked and frozen and had just suffered through a truly awful and EXTREMELY LONG football game between two horrible teams.
Look, dude, we live in a top 25 US city with lots of things to do. Nine out of 10 times that is awesome for both students and regular residents. However, as is the case with everything else in life, there are tradeoffs in everything and one of the tradeoffs most people must make if they do choose to live and/or work in a major city, as compared to a small town, is they have to choose how much of a priority the local minor league football team is to them. Obviously, in my case, our minor league football team is quite important to me - which is why I went to last night's game. However, for the vast majority of the locals, the pro team is the priority and they always will be. I have a hard time faulting them for that mentality.
Had Pitt been undefeated going into last night's game, I'm not sure that the attendance would have been markedly different.
I'm not a fan of calling out people on how they spend their money. It's just frustrating that I'm investing more $ and time than the average grad of the school. I'm not asking for 65K at games against schools like Old Dominion or Youngstown State. A solid 45K is a fair expectation. It just burns my ass when I read all the threads about how much the students suck, but the fan base in general is even worse. It's also frustrating when I'm screaming and standing up and ushers tell me to sit down and not be so loud. It's a damn football game, not a ballet. I put my money where my mouth/fingers is... Had season tickets since 2007, attended two bowl games.
I understand the dynamics of Pittsburgh and the Steelers mentality.
Perhaps after Tyler Boyd, Webb, and Howard graduate I should become a fan of a different program and invest my time and money there.
I think that with Pitt you just have to accept it for what it is. Attendance has historically never been good for the Panthers. We do play in an off campus stadium and while I don't want to open up that debate on this thread, I think it definitely affects student attendance and vigor. The atmosphere at the stadium can be pretty good at times - ND games, etc. Against a team like OD, it's terrible. I've been at countless high school games with better atmosphere than Pitt gets against teams they should beat handily.
The trick, I think, is that you accept it. We can still see an excellent product on the field. Performance is not tied to atmosphere or attendance numbers. We just have to hope, as fans, that we see the best product on the field and that the games are exciting when we play the big boys in the conference.