The Grove was great & pre-game, everybody in the stands knew the chants led by the cheer squad and waved red pom poms. Fans were unbelievably nice all day.
Gonna be Nebraska and Georgia like.
I've been to Athens, Tuscaloosa, and Gainesville and the fans at each stop were equal parts knowledgeable and crazy. Georgia probably had the best environment of the three.
Three years ago, South Carolina and Florida in late November. Two mediocre football teams. Pleasantly warm but a noon kickoff so tough to get overly drunk. A girl in her early 20s was going batshit crazy over every bad call. Horrific screeching for three hours. Very angry.
Two years ago, LSU and Alabama. Mink Fitzpatrick goes down. My buddies and I are trying to figure out what happened. A lady sitting next to us who was in her mid-40s says, "Oh that's just Minkah. He was a little banged up coming into this week. He might have tweaked his ankle. But he will be just fine." I am fairly certain she didn't know her kids' names but she knew about the injury report for the Crimson Tide.
Last year, Auburn and Georgia. Another middle aged lady. This time an Auburn fan. Screamed as Gus Malzahn for three hours. "GET A NEW PLAYBOOK GUUUUUUS! YOU SUCK GUUUUUS!" Again, very angry. But she was right.
The other thing that has struck me about visiting SEC Country is that in Athens you can't chew tobacco in the stadium. Security asked a number of fans around us to dispose of theirs. Now, you wanna cuss at the opposing coach? No worries. Just don't rub snuff while you're doing it. Same thing at Florida. Don't even bring it in the stadium.
Overall the fanbases down there are well-informed and know their shit. I have had zero bad experiences but I was a neutral observer and was there for the experience. Georgia was probably the one I think would be most intimidating for an opposing team. Pregame is like being at a hip-hop concert with 90,000 people who hate you.
knowledgeable. As a group, they sure as hell weren’t in my law school days, admittedly long ago. Most UF alumni I have encountered over the ensuing decades tend to be less knowledgeable than most Domers I know.
I'm much more knowledgable about all things football than he. I think he thinks it's hot...And he watches most ND games with me from start to finish.
JS would've found a way to sponsor the cheer and/or otherwise monetize it.
Dancing Harry was around when I was growing up. Funny stuff...
There’s a guy out here in so cal that shows up at HS games cape in tow. He literally belongs in a strait jacket. No school affiliation, free lancing and thinks people should give him money...
Non stop frenetic random lunacy .... I think he shoots crack into his eyeballs...
I've had 2 at Mississippi State so I have been to a few SEC venues. They crank it up for everything. I am always a little jealous because I wish that ND fans could still be that passionate.
People in the SEC
You want intimidating go to Baton Rouge. Holy shit that place at night just goes a bit differently than anywhere else.
It was every bit as loud as Tennessee in 2004, if not louder. I'm guessing Georgia fans are like many others -- get a big name, top 10 team in your stadium, and they'll be loud. Play some body bag game? Not so much. I'm guessing LSU wasn't rockin' when they played Northwestern State.
I’m sure it was loud as hell Saturday
Maybe that was from the tail end of the Richt era, who knows.
We ran into some LSU fans two years ago. They were appalled we hadn't been to Death Valley. The plan is Bama-LSU next year.
But I disagree with you re: the use of the Jumbotron. It seemed like there were were tons of advertisements, and everything in that stadium was "brought to you by..."
But they were in the corners. Lots of ads around the stadium though.
Go to a Mississippi State game and you can see the way it can really go wrong. Before every replay they flash a screen saying "Time for the (sponsor name) replay". They have actual commercials on the screen during timeouts, some featuring the head coach shilling for a local business. Even the band halftime show is "brought to you by (sponsor)"
With an appropriated version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic where they all praise their Georgian forebears and pledge loyalty to the university of Georgia, as the most enviable institution deserving of loyalty ever was some creepy ass confederate bullshit.
Stone Mountain, GA park. Davis, Lee and Jackson riding their horses carved into the side of an 800 foot granite bluff with the battle hymn of the republic blaring as the encore. Redneck heaven.
That song has been appropriated by everyone and their brother - I thought the solo trumpet angle was pretty cool. Maybe I'm biased as I played trumpet growing up.
from the union army to a branch of the US military fighting Hitler.
It's quite another to appropriate it from the song the Union used to rally the north and the troops in the cause against slavery to be used to pay homage to Georgia's prior soldiers and promote loyalty to Georgia above all else.
Our group all looked at each other like WTF was that?
that type of atmosphere for the '17 game. I would have liked not losing 10 of 14 games heading into that game and having the AD mock those that called for a coaching change.
Fan reaction is the result of play on the field.
Not some instructions from a jumbotron.
two games was nothing like yesterday. I'm not sure what on their schedule comes close on a regular basis other than maybe Auburn every other year. UF is neutral site. How fired up do they get for South Carolina, Missouri, Kentucky, etc.?
25 years of almosts and returns to glory and being in the conversation without really being in it. The passion and raucousness that led to an unsportsmanlike penalty for excessive crowd noise has been sapped away methodically, purposefully even. But we still show up because that’s what we’ve always done.
Long days of steady alcohol intake followed by darkness in Death Valley were LSU's formula for success for decades. Witness our daytime win against LSU followed by our Independence Bowl loss when they were selling beer by the stadium cup during a night game. It was loud.
ND has approached it much differently.