Our home field advantage?

[awclayton]

While watching the Penn State game last night, I got a little frustrated. That was a home field advantage. I do have to say that the house that Rockne built has become a little more like a stadium than a library. Maybe it's because ND has some of the highest ticket prices in college football, I don't know. You don't have to be obnoxious to create a loud home field advantage. I just found our "green-out" and PSU "white-out" vastly different. Just wanted to complain about something this morning. Tried to copy pictures but I suck at computers.

 

[socaljim242]

While watching the Penn State game last night, I got a little frustrated. That was a home field advantage. I do have to say that the house that Rockne built has become a little more like a stadium than a library. Maybe it's because ND has some of the highest ticket prices in college football, I don't know. You don't have to be obnoxious to create a loud home field advantage. I just found our "green-out" and PSU "white-out" vastly different. Just wanted to complain about something this morning. Tried to copy pictures but I suck at computers.

I've been to ND stadium a few times now (only for SC games) and you have by far the oldest crowd of any school (of the ones I've been to). Obviously the student section is all young kids but when I look around it's mostly older people who don't like to stand and cheer on defensive third downs or when the other team is backed near their end zone.

 

[Nasty_Magician]

I was at the Washington game a few years back where they made made like 7 stops within the 5 (there was a PI call that started a new set of downs) at a crucial point in the game, we were 5th row in that end zone standing up and going nuts and some older gentleman behind us made a snarky comment about how we made better doors than windows. It took all of our patience and energy to not tear that guy apart.

 

[bbirish73]

There is no home field advantage at ND as far as I'm concerned.

1. Visiting team is jacked up because they are playing at ND
2. Most games are at 2:30. For whatever reason fans are more crazy at night........probably because have had a whole day of drinking...plus it would be old fogies bed time and they wouldn't be at the game.
3. Like you guys said; a lot of people that attend the games are old bastards in their sweater vests that want to sit the whole game
4. visiting team brings their conference refs.


There was a ton of loud ND fans at Cowboy stadium when we played ASU. It was far louder there than ND stadium.

The solution is have Saturday Night games. I don't see why they couldn't??? NBC should do whatever the hell Notre Dame wants

 

[idseer]

bb, i will assume your thinking is wrong only because nbc is all about one thing .... making money. i would be very surprised if they haven't looked at things from every way possible and determined that the way they're going about things is the best way to maximize their profits.

 

[bbirish73]

maybe your right but NBC isn't known for their smart decision making.

 

[purguy12]

No night games I hate night games.

 

[Irish7478]

No night games I hate night games.

So fess up, which one are you? An old fogie, and the night games are after your bedtime? Or do you just not like the way your sweater vest looks at night.

 

[ChicagoIrish]

This is simple, we have no home field advantage.

 

[craigk217]

As already stated ... WAYYYY TOOO MANNYYYYY old alums that want to watch a golf match rather than a fired up college football stadium cheering their team on. It didnt used to be that way back in the 70s/80s. For some reason the stadium crowds have just gotten tamer and tamer as the years went by. I blame the old folks that should just stay home and watch the game on TV. I find it atrocious that the ushers tell people to sit down/calm down, b/c others (old folks) want to sit and watch the tennis ball go back and forth! It actually pisses me off.

 

[Irish7478]

This is simple, we have no home field advantage.

All time, we have a 67.6% winning percentage on the road versus a 79.3% winning percentage at home.

 

[Irish7478]

As already stated ... WAYYYY TOOO MANNYYYYY old alums that want to watch a golf match rather than a fired up college football stadium cheering their team on. It didnt used to be that way back in the 70s/80s. For some reason the stadium crowds have just gotten tamer and tamer as the years went by. I blame the old folks that should just stay home and watch the game on TV. I find it atrocious that the ushers tell people to sit down/calm down, b/c others (old folks) want to sit and watch the tennis ball go back and forth! It actually pisses me off.

As long as ND gives preference in the lottery to contributing alumni, this will be an issue. And as long as they keep upping the amount to get preferential treatment, it will get worse. If we average just $2500 contribution for every seat available in the lottery or season ticket, the school pulls in more than $100 million per year. ND will not pass up $100 million to get a louder stadium.

 

[bbirish73]

well....we can do what Philadelphia fans do.....................throw batteries and other objects at opposing players.

 

[purguy12]

So fess up, which one are you? An old fogie, and the night games are after your bedtime? Or do you just not like the way your sweater vest looks at night.

I don't like Night games because I have a life and like to go out on Sat nights not stay home and watch football on a Sat night. Don't get me wrong I do watch it when they have a night game but if they had 8-9 night games I would miss a few. I do things on my sat nights. Also something about a 12:30 or 3:30 game is just fun. I wake up all fired up and ready for some football.

I just like Day games better with maybe 1-2 night games a year.

 

[Smart]

It has nothing to do with prices, and everything to do with the fact that most Notre Dame fans have to travel as far as opposing fans to go to home games. Most teams have a home market or state. Notre Dame may have big followings in Detroit, Chicago, and other heavily-Catholic suburbs within driving distance, but their fanbase is rarely from Northwest or North-Central Indiana.

When Notre Dame plays a team like Michigan or Purdue, they are playing a fanbase that is often closer to South Bend than they are. This leads to a heavy road team presence.

When they play an opponent like Oklahoma, it is rare for a tea like Oklahoma to play in the upper midwest. There is greater demand from that fanbase to see that one game, so their fans in the Midwest, and Oklahoma for that matter, invade the stadium.

Either way, ND is unique in the number of opposing fans that go to our stadium. It gives you a smaller home field advantage. But Notre Dame's national fan base also means that you have more fans at road games, diminishing opponents' home-field advantage. It balances out.

 

[Irish7478]

It has nothing to do with prices, and everything to do with the fact that most Notre Dame fans have to travel as far as opposing fans to go to home games. Most teams have a home market or state. Notre Dame may have big followings in Detroit, Chicago, and other heavily-Catholic suburbs within driving distance, but their fanbase is rarely from Northwest or North-Central Indiana.

When Notre Dame plays a team like Michigan or Purdue, they are playing a fanbase that is often closer to South Bend than they are. This leads to a heavy road team presence.

When they play an opponent like Oklahoma, it is rare for a tea like Oklahoma to play in the upper midwest. There is greater demand from that fanbase to see that one game, so their fans in the Midwest, and Oklahoma for that matter, invade the stadium.

Either way, ND is unique in the number of opposing fans that go to our stadium. It gives you a smaller home field advantage. But Notre Dame's national fan base also means that you have more fans at road games, diminishing opponents' home-field advantage. It balances out.

It is also a function of the size of the student body. There are about 8,500 undergraduate students at ND. Which means the student section makes up about 10% of the stadium. I doubt if there is another BCS school with a student body that is 10% of the stadium capacity.

In the Penn State whiteout, their coach stated that there were over 35,000 students there, which is almost one third of the total attendance (107,000). To be the same percentage at ND, the student section would have to be about 26,000 students, about three times the current number in our student section. I have no doubt that tripling the student section would have made for a much louder stadium. But I seriously doubt that ND is looking to triple their enrollment.

This situation was made worse in 1996 when we added 22,000 seats without increasing the enrollment.

 

[idseer]

All time, we have a 67.6% winning percentage on the road versus a 79.3% winning percentage at home.

not much help. obviously the teams that actually contend tend to split series with nd while nd plays most of the patsies at home.
break that down per team and maybe you'd have a point of some kind.

 

[Irish7478]

not much help. obviously the teams that actually contend tend to split series with nd while nd plays most of the patsies at home.
break that down per team and maybe you'd have a point of some kind.

Not trying to make a point, just stating a fact. Of course the last three one time patsies that we played at ND stadium were Connecticut, South Florida, and Tulsa.

 

[ChicagoIrish]

All time, we have a 67.6% winning percentage on the road versus a 79.3% winning percentage at home.

Well yeah, Notre Dame has had great teams in the past. But South Bend is not an intimidating place to play.

 

[awclayton]

The low enrollment compared to other universities and the additional seats added definitely makes a lot of sense, I didn't think of that. I remember watching a Michigan vs ND game, I believe it was in the early-mid 90s, and it was so loud in the stadium Michigan couldn't get a play off and was complaining about the noise......hopefully that will come back someday. I've been to many games when my wife, a penn state girl, was cheering and we got looks from grandma and grandpa sitting next to us. We went to the Pitt game last year and sat next to a group of great fans, which made the experience more enjoyable. Do you think the atmosphere, or lack there of, affect recruiting in today's bigger, more energetic stadiums across the country (Oregon and LSU come to mind)?