When Charlie Strong was hired all we heard from Louisville fans was how they were behind him 100% and now that they had a real coach, people were going to start showing up for games again. We can all remember the embarrassment of giving away tickets before last year's Rutgers game.
The Cards were sitting at 5-4, 2-2 in the Big East, when the South Florida Bulls came into PJCS on Saturday. This game was a big deal with all of the implications involved. With a victory the Cards could inch closer to a possible Big East title due to the fact that Pittsburgh lost to UConn on Thursday. You heard me correct, that is how sorry the Big East truly is, Louisville was in contention for a BCS bowl.
But I digress. The Cards haven't been to a bowl game in three years (looking more like four), they have a winning record, they had just come off of a huge upset victory over Syracuse (ha!) and watching the return of a stud like Bilal Powell is worth the price of admission. You would think that all of this drama would have made for a loud, raucous atmosphere. You would have been wrong. Over 11,000 empty seats wrong.
So now that the cat is out of the bag I am sure the excuses will be flying. I read the Card Chronicle a few weeks ago when one of their bloggers defended the poor attendance this year by making such lame excuses as "you can't expect people to give up their Saturdays for football" and "it was so beautiful outside that people wanted to spend time with their family" and "this isn't the SEC, we don't live our lives according to college football games." Spare me. The whole reason that dump was renovated with extra seats was because Tom "Chavez" Jurich was convinced Louisville had a good football fan base. I would love to hear Little Hugo's spin on this one.
And I feel bad for coach Strong. The guy takes to his Twitter on a weekly basis practically begging fans to show up to games to cheer on his team. He has to plead for people to show up on time and to stay for most of the game. UK football leaves a lot to be desired but we show up and we cheer every game. Many of you would point out the empty seats at Commonwealth on Saturday but those were the Vandy fan section. A team notorious for poor fan support. Kind of like Louisville.
So go ahead Cardinal football fans, let me hear it. I would love for you to explain why, even with the second coming of Joe Paterno as your coach and a winning record (well, a .500 record), you still can't come to games. And this is why as soon as an SEC team comes calling, you can kiss Charlie Strong goodbye.
Update: Here is a link from the Card Chronicle of a letter written BY A LOUISVILLE FAN calling out the fan base. He uses the word disgrace.
Check this link out Boogiewoogie and get a feel for how bad attendance really is in Papa John's...numbers don't lie.
ReplyDeletehttp://web1.ncaa.org/mfb/2010/Internet/attendance/FBS_CAPACITY.pdf
I see that and it is impressive but you have to take into consideration that it is a small stadium and it doesn't take that much to fill it up.
ReplyDeleteBesides, it's not just me that's saying it, check out that link and see what the fan base is saying.
Besides, like I pointed out, you would think with all of the drama surrounding the game that it would have sold out and people would have actually stayed. It wasn't like they were losing!
ReplyDeleteI am a Card Chronicle faithful and I read multiple times daily. Filling the stadium up would be great, but I will still stick to the old argument that Louisville is a young fan base and still doesn't know how to help create a homefield advantage. I would love to see every seat full, but I would much rather know that the seats that are occupied, stay occupied until the end of the game. I think most fans agree with me. We aren't a huge fan base. Filling up can be difficult, but there is no excuse for the fans there to be leaving early. A lot was on the line and the game wasn't decided when people walked out. Traffic is not that bad.
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