Incredible season. I'm glad we got to experience the things we have in FCS, but man is it ever great to be where we belong now. Right out of the gate we left no doubt that we belong in FBS. The dumb transition rules suck, but we aren't the first school they've sucked for and may not be the last. Hopefully we are the last and our performance this year along with other NCAA changes gets real conversation going for getting rid of the bowl ineligible part of transition.
Getting in to game day experience things, definitely some growing pains in some areas that need to be addressed. Concessions have got to get better, you can forget getting anything once the game starts if you don't want to miss any of the game. On top of how bad it is in general, I don't know what was going on today but the line I got in didn't move for 15 minutes. They had paid workers instead of Mary Baldwin students and it seemed even worse. Hope they can find a way to add more lines somewhere. Louisville had a neat "grab and go" thing set up that seems like something we could kinda copy and tweak as needed.
Our DJ or whoever still has a bad habit of playing songs that can get people stomping and noisy on offense or leading up to an offensive possession. Cheerleaders too, they're very quick to jump all over any chants and cheers then lead them on regardless of who has the ball. Hell, at one point with the offense right near them I heard them loudly chanting and banging on the megaphones "First! And ten! First, first! And ten!" Holy crap! Just throw that whole cheer out!
Fourth quarter song has been discussed a lot and I think they're getting closer. I'd still love to find one song that gets everyone, students and players especially, super fired up and kinda becomes our thing but the kinda mashup they did today went pretty well and also was all in the right "pump up" mindset. I still don't love Livin On a Prayer or Don't Stop Believing because I think of those as a GMCC thing but no denying they get the crowd in to it so maybe I'm too focused on that part of it.
Things like students leaving early might always be an issue, it certainly is for plenty of others. Personally I think as they get more used to expecting a competitive game the problem will largely fix itself. I think attendance was pretty great this year, especially considering we had two very wet games and two games during Thanksgiving break. Demand for Marshall was through the roof, we can always expect the same for homecoming, FW, then probably App State, ODU, and others as the rivalries build. I don't think it'll be long before we feel expansion is a must.