Cykron

Tough way to start the season. Hope you take it to them. What is the payout to Akron for this game?

This article and your comments really gave me a headstart on knowing your team for the Iowa State game.

Spring Game awards. Nice idea. At the Iowa State Spring game, they just played and then stopped. And many starters didn't even scrimmage. Did they announce the awards while the crowd was still there?

Didn't know about all this at WMU. I really like the intentionality that they are putting into their fan experience. Some of those ideas are pretty good, especially the DJ. It seems that many schools need someone who can overrule the band director. I love the band, but they need to fit their place, especially for basketball. If the crowd (particularly students) is going wild, such as after the home team forces an opponent time out, then the band should just waive its scheduled song in order to let the crowd have an impact on the game. Bands are best during lulls in order to get the crowd back into it. I wonder what the new coach at WMU thinks about the "Row, Row, Row" tradition?

I always wonder why they don't do a few simple things to make Spring games more entertaining for the fans. For instance, at the Iowa State Spring game, they had an elaborate system for scoring throughout the scrimmage and put the score on the scoreboard, but they didn't inform anyone about the scoring system. Nothing on the roster sheet, nothing before the scrimmage, nothing from the announcer. Or even take a few minutes and do some of the "best on best" drills like they do in recruitment camps. Or tell the audience what plays they are running and explain a few defensive sets to help people know what to watch. And invite everyone on to the field afterwards for a pep talk from the head coach. Can you imagine all the kids taking a knee next to actual players? We have a rabid fan base, but there are a ton of people at the Spring game with kids who don't necessarily have season tickets.

Iowa State is #109. Should make for a good game! Seriously, I doubt that a couple of writers for the Orlando Sentinal are actually paying that much attention to low-win teams in the North or Midwest. They probably just randomly plugged in the bottom 20 or so. They have no idea who red-shirted for us last year. I'll wait for the Athlon preview to make my judgments about who is likely to do what for this season.

Sorry to see the Rubber Bowl in such disrepair. When they first announced that Iowa State was going to play at Akron, my mind went to memories of the Soap Box Derby on TV as a kid and seeing the stadium on visits to the area. I clicked around on some of the links in this thread and saw that the field still seems to be in decent shape. Is it still used? If not, why didn't they auction the endzone turf? Or at least the logo? That would be really cool to have. Given the apparent lack of security, I'm surprised no one has cut it out and taken it.

Iowa State fan here. I feel sorry for you for your schedule. It certainly does not seem attractive to the long-term, hard-core fans. However, I have to say that I have always liked being able to watch MAC games on weeknights. Especially on weeks where we have home games on Saturday, I only get to see our game and the games on the TV at our tailgate. So, I like being able to watch other games (not replays) during the week. If it is any consolation, our next game after yours is on a Thursday twelve days later hosting Texas. We will still get a good crowd, but we have a fantastic and huge tailgating tradition. Weeknight games are great for exposure national TV (e.g. when we beat #2 Oklahoma State in November 2011 to knock them out of the national championship contention and Brandon Weeden out of Heisman contention), but it just doesn't feel right to go to weeknight games without a whole day of tailgating beforehand.