Big Ten Fan Bases

[JTrain]

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.

 

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.

 

No rock, sir. I've lived in the IC area for 23 years now and have been in the thick of the younger fan scene. There are a ton of Hawkeye fans in their 20s who couldn't name one player (outside of maybe Tim Dwight) that played before 2002. Many of the fans who took part in the Greene Out against Penn St. in '08 or wore the 8-0 T-shirts last year are the same ones that couldn't recall a game from '06 or '07 if their lives depended on it. And there is no doubt in my mind that the culture being embraced by the incoming undergrads for years now has put binge drinking as a top priority on football Saturdays more so than similar FBS towns in the midwest.

 

Of course Iowa has a lot of great fans and most of my comments were regarding students and younger Iowa Citians. If you're on a football forum in May (aka anyone reading this), it's highly unlikely you fall into the brand of fan I'm discussing.

[knapplc]

Of course Iowa has a lot of great fans and most of my comments were regarding students and younger Iowa Citians. If you're on a football forum in May (aka anyone reading this), it's highly unlikely you fall into the brand of fan I'm discussing.

I would agree. It seems pretty clear Caven is good people.

[Notre Dame Joe]

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.

 

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.

 

There were a large number of ticket holders whose loyalty stopped at 50$. The student section was mostly green but the senior area had a number of red groups.

 

That being said it actually was quite not as bad as it looked because; that upper decks in that shot are the visiting team section, and it was sunny and hot that day so most of the adult domers were wearing white shirts. Still I doubt any of those issues were a problem in the return game in 2001.

[knapplc]

I know there were about as many Irish there as most anyone can get into our stadium. I have no idea on actual numbers and I'll guarantee there was more red than green and gold, but you guys represented really well.