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Game Atmosphere

blacklab

By blacklab
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blacklab
blacklab

Holy crap what an improvement. We got to our seats at 6:30 and I don't remember seeing an ad till the end of the first quarter Band actually played during breaks. only 1 dude in the sta

blacklab
blacklab

oh yeah, forgot about the student sections. They were packed before the game, such a huge change. Also before the team came out they put smoke in the tunnel, and bevo led the team out.

Walden Ponderer
Walden Ponderer

My whole family used to be addicted to Zoo Tycoon. This was back in the early part of the millennium, when games came on CD-ROMs. Anyway, we'd build a great zoo, everyone loved it, the game was going

gmr548

gmr548 16459

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After a good showing for SC I expected a better crowd yesterday. Clearly the day game and weather reports during the week kept folks away. Lots of empty seats.

Crowd got pretty loud when it had something to cheer for. TCU definitely took the air out of the place at the end of the first half and into the third quarter, took a while to wake up after that.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

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thepop

thepop 4409

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1 hour ago, fuggled said:

The weather forecast probably had a lot to do with keeping people away. They were saying 90% chance of thunderstorms all week. We were surprised to wake up Saturday and see it had dropped to 0%.

It's true. I'm one of these people.

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ChickenSandwich

ChickenSandwich 9797

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8 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

Right wrong or otherwise the fanbase doesn't trust the team yet.  They go win in Manhattan this coming weekend and then lay it to the Sooners in the Cotton Bowl I imagine the stadium won't have a problem filling itself for Baylor, WVU ,etc.  

Agree with this. You know we have all of the crowd back when the long time season ticket holders start actually using their seats. ND game was the last time I recognized the majority of our section. It’s getting slightly better but not there

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Zavala

Zavala 1384

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On 9/16/2018 at 12:02 PM, TKthunder2 said:

What was with the “Don’t stop believing” song before pregame.  Apparently we cut out the giant Texas flag down to nothing to save time but we had 3 minutes to spare for a Journey song with crowd singing shots on the Godzillatron while the band just stood in the end zone the whole time?

Yeah that's the "go home annoying skanks" song downtown.

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TexMexBuddha

TexMexBuddha 987

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Yeah. It was a great game. And the weather has been fantastic - can't complain - level cooperative.

The defense definitely fed off the noise in DKR so fuck off with your through-the-tube assessment of empty spaces.

It was great seeing all those smug frogs slink off from our house. Fuck them too.

Fuck the people that didnt show. Cant believe the stadium was less than 80% full. 
 
One of the bigger home games recently, after a big win, with outstanding weather and a 3:30 kick, and alumni and students still cant get there
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TexasMan

TexasMan 10783

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How Texas Rebuilt Its Home Field Advantage From Scratch

By ANDY STAPLES 
September 24, 2018

It was the morning of a critical Big 12 opener against TCU, and Texas officials had a problem.

“Aloe Blacc’s flight has been canceled,” senior associate athletic director Drew Martin remembers a colleague frantically saying. The artist you probably remember as the one doing all the vocal work on Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” was due in Austin early Saturday afternoon to play Longhorn City Limits, one of a series of gameday initiatives Martin and first-year athletic director Chris Del Conte cooked up to help make Texas fans actually excited to attend Texas games. Martin, who arrived only two months ago from TCU—where he worked alongside Del Conte for five years—didn’t panic. Instead, he remembered he works at Texas now.

“We have three police escorts,” Martin remembers saying. “One for Bevo. One for the team. One for the opponent. So let’s get a fourth. Get Aloe Blacc at the airport and blaze him to campus.”

Aloe Blacc’s presence on what Texas officials call Bevo Blvd. didn’t help the Longhorns score a single point in their 31–16 win against the Horned Frogs on Saturday, but, along with several other changes Del Conte and Martin have made for this season, it did help create an atmosphere that has given Texas something it hasn’t had in years—an honest-to-goodness home field advantage.

 

Del Conte and Martin have reconfigured the seating to give Texas students a contiguous bloc of seats with the Texas band blasting from the middle. They have made that student seating first-come, first-serve to get those students in the stadium and yelling. They have cut down on ads on the video boards and forbidden on-field, thanks-for-writing-that-big-check presentations if those presentations bring down the energy level in the stadium. The newcomers are trying to remind Texas fans that football games are supposed to be fun. And it just so happens that for the past two Saturdays, the team has given fans a reason to keep partying in the stands.

I used to call the Darrel K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium crowd the quietest 100,000 people in America. Texas games in recent years felt more like golf tournaments—and not the U.S. Open or the one in Phoenix that’s sponsored by the garbage company. The gameday atmosphere was stuck in the 1980s, and the fans seemed as bored by the presentation as they did by the lackluster play on the field. Plus, Longhorns fans seemed to have a stuffiness about them that rivals often mocked. They acted as if all the yelling those Aggies did in College Station was terribly gauche. “I think they held themselves to a different standard, which is not necessarily bad,” says former Texas A&M employee Martin of Texas fans. “But they never really embraced the fact that your home field advantage is your weapon. Use it.”

People who have attended the Longhorns’ 37–14 win against USC on Sept. 15 and Saturday’s win against TCU have said the difference in the vibe is shocking. The energy feels more like a game at LSU or at Penn State. Here’s one attendee’s take. “Wow, was that really cool to see our students and our fans?” Texas coach Tom Herman said. “That was for two straight weeks and hats off to Chris Del Conte and Drew Martin for this new and improved gameday atmosphere. Our players really, really feed off that. And I can tell you this, when you go sing ‘The Eyes of Texas’ after a win against a Top 25 opponent in front of a student section that's as packed and as loud as that, that's special. That is a special, special feeling.”

So what did Texas do differently? Just about everything

The Bevo Blvd. project on San Jacinto Boulevard was designed to get fans out to campus earlier. Auburn fans don’t need to be trained to show up early and party. They’ve done it for generations. Texas fans needed a push, and Martin figured the best way to attract Austinites was with two things Austinites have proven their love for time and again: food trucks and live music. Vendors charge happy hour prices for craft beer. Advertisers are allowed to set up in the area, but their engagements must add value. “When we activate, the onus falls on them to create an experience for the fan,” Martin says. “It can’t just be where you walk up and grab a coupon.” Texas officials also got permission from the company that stages Austin City Limits to call their concert series Longhorn City Limits. Texas-based Reckless Kelly headlined the show before the USC game. Aloe Blacc was there Saturday. Texas hasn’t announced who will play the remaining three home games, but Pat Green had better play one of them.

Inside the stadium, the change in vibe begins in the student section. Texas controversially displaced some season-ticket holders to create a contiguous student section, but officials considered this a critical element. (Texas sought the advice of consultant Guido D’Elia, the man responsible for creating the gameday atmosphere at Penn State, which is home to one of the nation’s great student sections.

Martin and Del Conte eliminated a lottery-based student ticketing system that gave students assigned seats in favor of a first-come, best-served approach. “It’s like the difference between having a flight on Southwest Airlines versus a flight on United,” Martin says, referencing the Lone Star State-based airline that famously does not assign seats. “If you’re flying Southwest, you’re going to get your butt to the airport early.”

“Let them keep partying all the way until the next snap,” Martin says.

If Texas fans and players can recreate their performances from the past two weekends, they’ll be partying up all the way through “The Eyes of Texas”.

 

 

 

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Lhorn

Lhorn 4883

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Man this is fantastic to hear.  Amazing what can happen when you have a "get it done" attitude, passion for the project and the idea that the fan experience is paramount.  Instead, our fan experience has been ruled by $$$ for too long.  Build an exciting fan experience and the $$ will flow.  Kudos to Herman as well.  Far more than his predecessors he gets the importance of fan enthusiasm.  Looking forward to coming down for the Baylor game.

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Roofle

Roofle 266

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The initial band march in is still super abbreviated and it’s fucking bullshit. They literally run from the N tunnel and just fucking start marching immediately. Also, fuck the little herd of kids running down the field for no GD reason. It’s just looks like that regarded shit they do at Baylor. Tonight was significantly more commercialized than USC. Band was nearly non existent. We get a sound effect out of the screen with that lame ass “make noise” caption, instead of the band being mic’d up and playing. Still feels like a AAA baseball game to me. 

This shit pisses me off. Better this week and last week than the Tulsa game, but still ass.
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ClubWhatever

ClubWhatever 12085

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13 hours ago, QuesoEspecial said:

“Africa” by Toto was the first song I heard after entering DKR about 30 min before kickoff and it was hilarious and awesome to see the students dance to it while the Hellraisers had barely finished their face paint

I really like the Weezer version better.  Angry tweet to CDC incoming.

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NorthLoop

NorthLoop 14066

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5 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

I really like the Weezer version better.  Angry tweet to CDC incoming.

Is that the one that's getting played nonstop on the radio now? The one that sounds EXACTLY like the original? Which, by the way, is not how you're supposed to do a cover song. 

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TexasMan

TexasMan 10783

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On 9/23/2018 at 5:54 PM, QuesoEspecial said:

“Africa” by Toto was the first song I heard after entering DKR about 30 min before kickoff and it was hilarious and awesome to see the students dance to it while the Hellraisers had barely finished their face paint

They should have played this version 

 

 

 

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