I’m taking umbrage with a certain comment by Eric Crawford on his Facebook page today:

“The thing with Louisville is this: It can offer you pay on a scale with some bigger places (though not the very biggest places). It can offer you job security and quality of life at or better than a lot of places. But if you want to walk out of the tunnel into a frenzied stadium where the air is ablaze with the tension of big-time college football, you’re not going to do that on most Saturdays in Louisville, at least not in the current culture. You’re not going to have that kind of engaged fan base or crowd — maybe you can develop it. The difference between College Station on game day and Louisville on game day is pretty remarkable.”

 

To put it nicely, I’ve had it with the media always bashing UofL football fans for their “behavior” at games!

The media loves to pile on us for not being “crazy, frenzied, or nuts” about football every single week. Obviously, I don’t believe it’s justified because we are totally into football when it’s appropriate so here’s my reply on Eric’s Facebook page:

The bashing of UofL fans’ behavior at games is getting old. Sure, you may get a “frenzied” fan base at College Station or Mississippi State on game day, but you also get run out of town if you go .500 or worse one season. Their expectations are WAY out of whack.

What has A&M ever won in the Big XII that’s so special? When has Mississippi State ever won the SEC West? So what if their fans are football crazed … they’re not winning because of it, are they?

What happens when a top tier opponent comes in here like WV when they were Top 10? FSU in the Monsoon Bowl, or Miami even when they weren’t ranked in the Top 10 … great atmospheres. UK isn’t a top tier football opponent, but the atmospheres are charged and exciting. I don’t hear anybody giving the fans props after those games.

If UofL were in a strong football conference where, week in and out, top teams were coming to town, the fans would bring it in spades!

Until UofL wins consistently at a high level for a decade in football, don’t blame the fans because we’ve done more than our part to help build the sparkling facilities that now exist. You don’t get one without the other so if we want to show up and party our tails off for second rate football, so be it. We’ve earned that right.

The point is fans are no different in College Station than they are here. They’ll show up and support a good product especially when there’s something significant on the line. Beating Syracuse or UConn simply isn’t as exciting as beating Texas or Oklahoma or Alabama or LSU.

I bet the folks in College Station don’t show up very goosed to watch A&M play Texas Tech or TCU in basketball. ;)

What are your thoughts? Agree with Eric or me or are you somewhere in between?

Filed under: Football

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