Foppa
All-American
Every game in college football is important, and especially conference games. This day and age, you really can't downplay anyone, or you lose. It's that simple. You'd be welcome here, and hopefully enjoy the experience.
Big Ten Fan Bases
- Thread starter Bradr
- Start date
Foppa
All-American
BigRedPowerWagon
Banned
Hummm spending a bit of time over at the Hawkeye board. Mostly full of smartasses.
sd'sker
Banned
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Caven
Special Teams Player
JTrain
All-Conference
For the younger "fans" in Iowa City, football is mostly an excuse for getting up at 5 am to get b******* drunk and sometimes pass out by halftime. They call this "tailgating", although unlike at most schools, it rarely involves a tailgate or a grill. Of course, drinking is present everywhere on football Saturdays in college towns, but in football-passionate towns it's more of a side activity surrounding the actual game, whereas at Iowa, it's the main event.
Most of the younger Iowans couldn't have cared less about Iowa football until Ferentz and Banks took them to the Orange Bowl. They are a pretty solid example of a bandwagon fan base. The town was in a frenzy when they were 9-0 and on the cover of SI last year, but had you tried catching a football conversation on campus during the fall of '06 or '07, you'd have had a tough time.
When a young Ferentz came over the from the NFL in '99, the fans supported him by not showing up to many of the games. I don't think I'll ever forget a local newscast from around that time advertising a family fun pack which included four hot dogs, four drinks and four game tickets for 40 dollars! Considering a hot dog and pop will run you around $8 at the average sporting event, well... you can do the math.
Now this isn't to say Iowa doesn't have its share of good, longtime supporters, because of course it does. But I think unfortunately (for them), they've been breeding a less-than-passionate brand of fan for a decade or more now.
Most of the younger Iowans couldn't have cared less about Iowa football until Ferentz and Banks took them to the Orange Bowl. They are a pretty solid example of a bandwagon fan base. The town was in a frenzy when they were 9-0 and on the cover of SI last year, but had you tried catching a football conversation on campus during the fall of '06 or '07, you'd have had a tough time.
When a young Ferentz came over the from the NFL in '99, the fans supported him by not showing up to many of the games. I don't think I'll ever forget a local newscast from around that time advertising a family fun pack which included four hot dogs, four drinks and four game tickets for 40 dollars! Considering a hot dog and pop will run you around $8 at the average sporting event, well... you can do the math.
Now this isn't to say Iowa doesn't have its share of good, longtime supporters, because of course it does. But I think unfortunately (for them), they've been breeding a less-than-passionate brand of fan for a decade or more now.
Caven
Special Teams Player
Man I don't know what rock you live under - but that is FAR from the experience I have had and seen over the past 20+ years. Fry pretty much turned Iowa football into what it is today back in the early 80s and with the exception of a few down years here and there tickets haven't been exactly easy to come by. Is it as hard to get tickets as it is to Nebraska games? Not at all. If you order them early enough you can get single game tickets to pretty much any game on the schedule. But to say it is a bunch of bandwagon fans is way off base. There were exactly 2 years where fan apathy had set in and that was the first 2 years of the Ferentz era because of how the Fry era ended and the fact that the fanbase had wanted to bring Stoops back home since he is an Iowa boy. It was the same type of fan apathy that I saw from the Nebraska fans here in Lincoln for a couple of years during the coaching turnover and they were giving away the last few thousand tickets to each game in order to maintain their sell out streak.
As far as tailgating - well I will just leave that alone since I have seen tailgating at both locations. Hopefully when Nebraska join the Big 10 we can get some Nebraska fans over to Iowa City and show them some good tailgating.
Notre Dame Joe
All-Conference
Avoiding Nebraska in 97 saved Michigan from 50 years of underachieving. It was a necessary evil.
As for the fan bases, the most interesting is the UM vs eastOSU. OSU's rabid fans are all from Ohio whereas M is scattered around the country. It's the Gentry vs the Provinces. For that reason the fans in Columbus try to make outsiders feel as intimidated as possible [invest in fake license plates]
Playing in South Bend, the Big# fanbases weren't too much trouble. MSU was the most annoying because they were very blue collar; as in loud and drunk.
People still remember the nicest fans in 2000 were the visiting Nebraskans. Especially because most of us sat within a row or two of Red shirts in the stadium.
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VA Husker Fan
All-Conference
Pretty good people from Big 10 schools here though. Good to see!
BigRedPowerWagon
Banned
Caven look at my name, im at hawkeyenation. At least you arent 2 faced. For the most part people have been cival over there. The occasional smart a$$ comment i guess can be expected, but im sensitive.
knapplc
International Man of Mystery
That may be an understatement. I forget what was going on in South Bend at the time, but you guys had less fans clamoring for seats around then than you traditionally do, and we packed your stadium like crazy:
I'm glad to hear that you remember our fans fondly, because we take pride in not being those typical asshat visitors (with the inevitable few asshats thrown in here and there). From what I recall in 2001 you guys were wonderful visitors and I daresay Nebraska would be ecstatic to be in the same conference as Notre Dame. I know that's a remote possibility, but one can always dream.
Welcome to HuskerBoard, NDJ. Make yourself at home, and any insight you have into the Irish this year - we'd love to hear it.
VA Husker Fan
All-Conference
Going to South Bend was the nicest experience I've had at a visiting stadium.
hack
All-Conference
considering that is was for all intents and purposes a home game, yeah.
dunno if nebraska could get away with that now, but it'd be neat as hell to try.