Madison Experience

[Nebula]

Isn't it about time for these badger fans to be moving on? I don't think an NU football forum is really the place to be promoting their little unfriendly party school. Oh God! That ones probably good for another 2 pages of meaningless stats on the Wisconsin backwoods.

I don't agree with this sentiment. I've been impressed with the Badger fan base that has chosen to join us on HB. We've seen a lot worse around here. I'd like to see the Wisconsin fans stick around. We're brand new in this conference, so there is insight Badger fans can offer us that they have accumulated over the years as members of the B1G. (Where is U Dub, btw? He was totally awesome.)

 

dang...i think Badgerfan is angry.

 

Yea but not at anyone here, I'm trying to quit smoking. It's been a rough week

Me too. Super irritated for no reason. I feel like a four year old throwing a perpetual temper tantrum. I've quit before though, and if you can make it a couple weeks it gets WAY easier.

[knapplc]

Isn't it about time for these badger fans to be moving on? I don't think an NU football forum is really the place to be promoting their little unfriendly party school. Oh God! That ones probably good for another 2 pages of meaningless stats on the Wisconsin backwoods.

 

Time to be moving on? Absolutely NOT! There are going to be philosophical and cultural differences between Bucky and Huskers, but just because our game is over doesn't mean I'm done wanting to get acquainted with Wisconsin. Same goes for the Buckeyes, Penn State, Minnesota, etc. I grew up knowing all about our Big 8 brethren, but comparatively I know next to nothing about the Big Ten folks.

 

I really hope you guys (Badger fans) stick around. The education process of Husker fans to acclimatize to the Big Ten is just beginning.

[JJ Husker]

You're right knapplc, they don't need to be moving on. I was just getting a little irritated with the "our sh%t don't stink" attitude. The discussion started out with them acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, their students gameday behavior might find some disfavor with visiting fans. After reading about said behavior I simply made the comment that they were off the list of possible schools for my son and then the fit hit the shan. Seems some cannot accept the fact that there are other fine schools and a person does not have to attend UW to be successful. I got rubbed the wrong way when badgerfan insisted that my son was not good enough for them anyway. Of course he knows nothing about my son and assumes he is from the midwest, or Nebraska, which is not the case.

 

One of the stats badgerfan left off his list about academics, in a sports forum no less-

Academic All-Americans;

All time, all sports combined Nebraska 291 (#1 in the country) Wisconsin 99 (tied for 21st) BTW-Penn St is #2 with 172.

Football only Nebraska 99 (#1 in the country) Wisconsin 23

This year Nebraska 14 (#1 in the Big Ten) Wisconsin 3 (tied for 7th in the B1G with Purdue, behind Penn St, Ohio St, Mich, Mich St, & Minn)

[hopittome]

Unrelated to anything: is your basketball team any good? If you guys are awful, I would love to see a "toilet bowl" type rivalry between UNL and Iowa. You guys would have me rooting for you every singly time.

[Excel]

I'll drop it. You guys have a good board and I'll continue to visit. I've been lurking since the expansion was announced last year and was impressed with you all then and still am today. After this week's games the UW-NU game will have lost much of its effect and on that note..beat the buckeyes...please.

[Notre Dame Joe]

Agreed that UW - Nebraska will probably become a rivalry (especially if they meet in the Big Ten-CG) you guys should reserve judgement until you run into Ohio State and Michigan fans before picking your "hated rivals", there are plenty of teams to hate, just wait.

 

Okay but no spoilers until they come back from Columbus.

[Commish78]

Hello Husker fans

 

First let me say that everyone I know was impressed by how many NU fans made the trip, and how knowledgeable they were. I was sitting behind 6 Nebraska fans in the South endzone and enjoyed conversing with them. I didn't see any fan behavior that was even remotely abusive, but don't doubt anybody's account (except China gopher). I think 95%+ of the problem can be explained with two words: drunk students. Night games exasperate the problem, and Gameday doesn't help either. I'd like to see our AD enhance their publicity campaign to discourage this behavior. The drinking and foul language is pretty rooted in our culture, that isn't going to change appreciably.

 

I think there were way more than 10,000 Nebraska fans in Camp Randall, but our seating policy (like most conference teams) effectively disperses the visitors into remote areas of the stadium, and about half are in the upper corners of the upper deck. Since it was dark and you guys wore black, you couldn't see how many NU fans were up there.

 

Like most Wisconsin fans, I'm disappointed that we aren't in the same division and can't play every year. Ditto Iowa who is arguably our biggest rival.

Good luck the rest of the way (especially this week!), maybe we can meet again in Indianapolis. Can't wait to visit Lincoln.

[hopittome]

So (sorry to keep this going)...one of the Nebraska assistant coaches had a different perspective than some of you guys:

Spoke to a Nebraska assistant football coach who couldn't stop gushing about the Wisconsin crowd on Saturday night, how alive it was, how they chanted and sang songs in unison. He wondered what it would take to get a Nebraska crowd that worked up. For one thing, get the students closer and in better seats. That's a high-wire act because of priority seating prices. But you need to take care of the future. I got the feeling the Husker coaches would like to see their fans and students have some of the Wisconsin traditions. It will be interesting to see NU officials and fans make their tour of the Big Ten stadiums. Be interesting to see if changes are made in Memorial Stadium.

 

http://www.omaha.com/article/20111003/BIGRED/710039818/-1#shatel-pelini-has-the-right-posture-for-the-press

[Caven]

How did I miss this thread the past few days?!?!?! Talk about a great popcorn thread! I am just glad that Nebraska doesn't come to Iowa until the end of next year.

[Bromontana]

You're right knapplc, they don't need to be moving on. I was just getting a little irritated with the "our sh%t don't stink" attitude. The discussion started out with them acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, their students gameday behavior might find some disfavor with visiting fans. After reading about said behavior I simply made the comment that they were off the list of possible schools for my son and then the fit hit the shan. Seems some cannot accept the fact that there are other fine schools and a person does not have to attend UW to be successful. I got rubbed the wrong way when badgerfan insisted that my son was not good enough for them anyway. Of course he knows nothing about my son and assumes he is from the midwest, or Nebraska, which is not the case.

 

One of the stats badgerfan left off his list about academics, in a sports forum no less-

Academic All-Americans;

All time, all sports combined Nebraska 291 (#1 in the country) Wisconsin 99 (tied for 21st) BTW-Penn St is #2 with 172.

Football only Nebraska 99 (#1 in the country) Wisconsin 23

This year Nebraska 14 (#1 in the Big Ten) Wisconsin 3 (tied for 7th in the B1G with Purdue, behind Penn St, Ohio St, Mich, Mich St, & Minn)

Yeah but this is a bit flawed because it does not indicate the correlation between the academic standards of the institution and subsequent number of academic all americans. To become an academic all-american you merely must achieve a GPA beyond an arbitrary threshold. So say the threshold is a 3.0, it would then be much easier to obtain a 3.0 at NU than it would to obtain a 3.0 at UW. This is why, not until recently, Stanford has had some terrible years as a football program because they had to recruit players who could perform up to standard in both academics and athletics. The same could be said for Northwestern and why they have not been able to sign top tier talent.

 

I'm not trying to diminish the achievements of Nebraska's all-americans, it's a great achievement, I'm just trying to illuminate that having a cache of academic all-americans does not necessarily reflect the level of intellect of the university as a whole.

[Excel]

I recently attended a High School graduation in which the school determined Valedictorian without weighting grades and as result the young man selected, though having a very high GPA, had not taken any honors or AP classes. It's very easy to succeed when you aren't challenged...and to be honest who the frick brags about their atheletes' academics.... What a joke! Browse rosters from both teams, very few kids branch out of the "sociology, criminology, exercise science" majors that they're guaranteed to do well in...so yes be happy your athletes get more winks and atta boys from professors than the kids get at UW. I for one don't give two sh...

[Coqui]

Oh! I do have a question for Huskers fans: What the hell is up with your ultra-creepy mascot? That thing is frightening.

 

Yea, I was wondering that too, he gives me the "uuh ooh" feeling.

 

If you're not under seven years old it's not geared toward you. Simple as that.

 

 

And while we're talking about creepy mascots, how do you guys explain this?

 

Welcome to another Big Ten tradition. Questionable mascots. Ohio State's is downright weird.

 

Dare I say......even a bit nutty?

[Bradr]

Necroing up this old thread with some new info.

 

Went to the game this Saturday with one of my old friends. Hadn't seen him or talked to him in a few weeks, but he was one of the guys in our group who went up to the Wisconsin game.

 

He pretty much reitterated what was already said about many of the fans (especially the older crowd) being cordial, if not hospitable. And the younger fans being terrible, especially when the booze started flowing.

 

The young fans were so terrible, that the Madison DA - that's the District Attorney - called my friend a couple days ago. Apparently the DA made 7 other of these phone calls too. The reason for the call was to assure my friend that his medical bills would be paid. You see, a badger fan sucker punched my friend in the face. The guy put his hand on my friend's shoulder, my friend turned around, and then got a face full of fist. This resulted in stitches and a chipped tooth.

 

This came from walking down the street, while passing a group of badger fans lined up to get into a bar. My friend had gotten separated from the main group, and was on the phone, walking to catch back up to them when this happened. I've know him the better part of 15 years, and he is not one to pick fights, jaw off, or start trouble. At the time, none of the many witnesses attempted to do much of anything. One guy came up to my friend, who was bleeding and staggered, and apologized, and offered to help find medical attention.

 

This is total bush league, and I can't believe that anyone would allow that crap to happen. If a Nebraska fan pulled that kind of crap in downtown Lincoln, the Nebraska fan would likely get a beating himself. I'm sure the DA is trying their best to sweep all of this under the rug, but this kind of thing needs to be told.

[Excel]

I doubt many of you read Buckyville so I'll pull this straight from that forum with due regard to the original poster. It's kind of an outside look at Lincoln from a Badger fan so and tangentially related to this thread...

 

 

 

"My visit to Memorial Stadium"

"On Friday night, as the Brewers were celebrating thier NLDS win over the Snakes, I decided to head down the road to Lincoln for the Brutus/Herbie game the following evening, since I'm currently in Omaha participating in a conference.

 

As I'm waiting for my flight to O'Hare and sipping an overpriced Miller Lite (the beer selections at Eppley are atrocious), I figured I'd kill some time and jot down some thoughts about what was a pretty damn fun trip.

 

1. I (and my friend Scott who was at the same conference and accomponied me to Lincoln) wore Bucky gear. We got a lot less crap than one would expect, only one angry "go back home" and some odd looks. Had a bunch of Husker fans ask "what are you guys doing here--are you at the wrong game." To which my standard reply was: "no. Bucky has an off week, and I sure wasn't going to freaking Evanston to watch college football" That got a laugh every time I used it. And a "we'll meet again in Indy." Husker fans I talked to who went to Camp Randall could be split into two groups: younger (and by that I mean less than 60 years old or so) fans who had a great time and expected to get some ribbing, but took it all in stride and more seasoned fans who hated it, but their biggest complaints centered on ES/FU and the fact Bucky fans use the "f-word." Meh. It's college football, not croquet. No stories of stoning grandma, raping the graddaughter, etc. Those came from a couple douchy OSU fans I ran into Friday night.

2. The traffic. Be prepared to sit in your car. We rolled into Lincoln around 4pm, and it took a good 25 minutes to get from the stadium to a parking spot on 18th & M. Not a far distance at all. I really don't want to think about how traffic would be for an 11 am or even 2:30 kickoff, since people had all day to arrive for a 7 pm kickoff, and it was a relative clusterf#@k nonetheless. Traffic back to Omaha was worse. 54 mile drive, but the first half we averaged about 25 mph on I-80. Ugh. Finally got back to the Old Market about 1:30.

3. Stadium. It's okay. Renovations have been done to the interior, exterior, and the area around the stadium, and they do a geat job of highlighting the history of the program, and the staff is helpful and friendly. A couple of significant problems: traffic flow is a disaster. We sat in the North end zone (newly renovated w/ luxury boxes at the top), and although we had our tickets scanned @ 6:40, we missed the first three minutes of the game. As an aside, I don't really care that you just ran into your f'ing elementary school teacher from Norfolk and you wanted to tell her that yes, Jimmy is doing well at UN-Kearney. Get to your f'ing seat and stop blocking traffic. Okay, had to get that off my chest. Be prepared to wait in line. A lot. It sucks, and the worst part is people just seemed to accept it. The bottlenecks in the upper deck at the Camp are nothing compared to this--and it is a consistent issue, as the people I talked to told me.

4. The game experience. This was easily the best part of the trip. The people sitting around us were quite knowledgeable and good to talk to, and there were a smattering of OSU fans in our section who were pretty decent. The negatives first: no student singing. They attempted to sing "Hey Baby", got through the chorus, and when it seemed the students were trying to sign the second verse, the band (which seems like a MAC or C-USA level band, at best) drowned them out. Comical. Additionally, the Husker fans are fickle as hell. I felt safer wearing Badger gear for a period of time than if I was wearing a Taylor Martinez jersey. The annoying: the "Go Big Red" and "Husker Power" call and response chants. The good: that being said, it gets loud. Really loud. Additionally, when David forced the fumble in the third quarter, the vibe changed significantly. It almost seemed that even though the Huskers were down by 21, it was now a game. And it was.

5. Barhopping/tailgating. Checked out a couple of places on O Street and the Haymarket. Walked by Barry's (probably the closest bar to the stadium) but didn't go in. Had the Stadium Bar vibe to it, which didn't appeal to me at all (ETR's quote about the Stadium is dead nuts on). Didn't get a chance to hit any tailgates. The ones in business parking lots seemed rather closed off to the general public, and some of what were the larger tailgate areas were on the opposite side of the stadium. Bar scene was okay. Similar to Iowa City. Did not get a chance to curd stomp any bouncers. They were nice to me this time.

6. Hot dogs. For TAW: the Fairview hot dogs are good.

 

I may think of more later, but for now that's all I can think of. I would give it a 6.5 out of 10, with Camp Randall being a 9, Kinnick a 6 and Memorial Stadium in Chambana a 6.5 by means of comparison."

 

Kind of interesting to see it from the other side.

[Nebula]

Camp Randall a 9, Memorial a 6.5

 

I've seen both, too. It's funny when people try to be objective about something they are only capable of being subjective on.

 

Hope the quitting smoking thing is going well for you. Me....not so much.