<p>Football at LACs may be very different, but it can also offer a lot of fun. Back in my day, "tailgating" involved dressing up (coat and tie for men, dresses for women) and often never ended--watching the game was not necessarily a priority. </p>
<p>This is a far different thing than the big-time football traditions, but we looked forward to football saturdays and never missed a game.</p>
<p>There can be a "football scene" in all kinds of places.</p>
<p>So true, hoedown. That's why mere numbers at a game tell only a small part of the story, since they are directly related to the number of students in attendance at a particular school. Also, in towns where football is integral to the social culture, a huge number of the population outside of the school will come to the game. Even in a big city like Baltimore, during Lacrosse season, the stands are filled with not only very spirited student/faculty fans, but also people from the city and environs, who are very emotionally tied to Hopkins Lacrosse. So numbers in attendance only tell a small part about the sports scene. Those numbers need to be put into context to have true meaning.</p>
<p>The stunner to me is that 58,500 turned up to watch North Carolina play James Madison. Why?</p>
<p>^
Only thing I can think of would be the new coach Butch Davis, who coached all of those dominant Miami teams, as well as their new defensive tackle Marvin Austin. But even then, 58k is a lot of people for a UNC game.</p>
<p>Against James Madison!</p>
<p>A few years ago I drove down to UNC from Virginia and they happened to be playing Syracuse that day. We walked down by the stadium and just sat and watched the crowd going by. Somebody gave us two tickets for free on about the 30 yard line in the alumni section. Game went to four overtimes I think.</p>
<p>Another aspect is location of the stadium. UCLA, for example, plays in the Rose Bowl far from campus, which limits student attendance.</p>
<p>Jeff Tedford has raised Cal football from the dead. If the tree-huggers win, and Cal can't remodel the stadium, you can say goodbye to Tedford as he'll be packing his bags for Ann Arbor.</p>
<p>A bit of this weekend in the Wisconsin student section.</p>
<p>A lot of people showed for the Chapel Hill game because they thought it was one they had a chance of winning. They were right. Everybody has championship potential on opening day. I do know more than a few UNC freshmen from my town who skipped the game to come home for the long weekend. They showed up at our high school's Friday night game. I guess they're waiting for basketball season to show their support,lol.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, I doubt that football or other sporting games have nearly the campus impact at LACs as they do at some of the major national universities
[/quote]
Actually, the campus impact of football games at LACs is often pronounced, simply because such a significant fraction of all male students are on the football team. LACs commonly have ~ 800 to 1,000 male students, with football rosters in the 60-90 range. At LACs, close to 10% of the male student body may be suiting up on game day.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Against James Madison!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>JM actually has a pretty good FB program.</p>
<p>Must have been exciting for the James Madison kids. I can't believe they've played in front of a crowd like that before.</p>
<p>The results are in after another exciting day of college football for many schools in the USNWR Top 30. </p>
<p>Northwestern probably had the most Fun! Excitement! Drama! as the Wildcats came back to beat U Nevada on a last second touchdown. If only the students could have been in session to enjoy it…</p>
<p>Duke continues to struggle and now has 22 losses (although its score yesterday was respectable) and really needs a win. Maybe they should schedule Michigan…..</p>
<p>The best scene of the weekend goes to the game involving Notre Dame. ND got crushed and it’s going to be a long year for them, but the crowd at Penn State was fabulous to watch and the parties (before, during, and after) must have been absolutely the best. </p>
<p>The Ivies start play next week (what’s with that?-even most high schools have now played a game or two) so there will be more to look at and compare in terms of the size of the “scene” at various colleges and how this might impact undergraduate life.</p>
<p>Here are the full results from yesterday:</p>
<p>College , Opponent , W/L, Score , Attendance</p>
<p>MAJOR DIV 1 (Public)<br>
UC Berkeley , @ Colorado State , W , 34-28 , 27,805
U Virginia , Duke , W , 24-13 , 58,554
UCLA , BYU , W , 27-17 , 72,986
U Michigan , U Oregon , L , 7-39 , 109,733
U North Carolina , @ East Carolina , L , 31-34 , 43,387</p>
<p>MAJOR DIV 1 (Private)<br>
Stanford , did not play<br>
Duke , @ U Virginia , L , 13-24 , 58,554
Northwestern , U Nevada , W , 36-31 , 17,653
Vanderbilt , U Alabama , L , 10-24 , 39,773
Notre Dame , @ Penn State , L , 10-31 , 110,078
USC , did not play<br>
Wake Forest , U Nebraska , L , 17-20 , 32,483
Rice , @ Baylor , L , 17-42 , 29,107
Georgetown (Div I-AA) , Lafayette , L , 7-28 , 2131</p>
<p>IVIES (All Div I-AA)<br>
Princeton , did not play<br>
Harvard , did not play<br>
Yale , did not play<br>
U Penn , did not play<br>
Columbia , did not play<br>
Dartmouth , did not play<br>
Cornell , did not play<br>
Brown , did not play </p>
<p>DIVISION III<br>
MIT , @ Mass Maritime , L , 13-39 , 644
U Chicago , @ Concordia , W , 41-10 , 650
Wash U , @ Westminster , W , 34-3 , 1200
Johns Hopkins , Randolph Macon , L , 9-18 , 1100
Carnegie Mellon , Grove City , W , 16-6 , 2353
Tufts , did not play </p>
<p>NO TEAM<br>
Caltech<br>
Emory</p>
<p>
[quote]
The Ivies start play next week (what’s with that?-even most high schools have now played a game or two)
[/quote]
The Ivy League has more stringent rules than NCAA. For example, Ivy League football teams cannot offer athletic scholarships, even though they play in NCAA Division I. I'll bet that the Ivy League restricts preseason football practice relative to other Division I schools, which means a later start to the season.
[quote]
Tufts , did not play
[/quote]
Tufts is the only university in NESCAC, an NCAA Division III league which otherwise consists of small liberal arts colleges (Wiliams, Amherst, Middlebury, Bowdoin, etc). NESCAC's rules are considered the most restrictive in college football, even more so than those of the Ivy League. NESCAC games don't start until September 22.</p>
<p>Your list without Wisconsin as a major top D-1 public is a joke. BTW we beat a scrappy UNLV team on the road and about 30,000 Badger fans made the trip. It was a sea of red in LV this weekend. The local papers had several stories about the UW fans traveling in large numbers. Still in the Top 10 at #7.</p>
<p>barrons,
You make a good point about U Wisconsin as they offer a great athletic program and "scene." There was nothing malicious in my omission-I just had to draw the line somewhere. For starters, I decided to focus on the national universities as the differences between athletic "scenes" among LACs seemed relatively small. </p>
<p>Second, 20 colleges seemed too few and included no public universities. 40 or 50 seemed too big because: 1) I didn't want to spend all weekend pulling this info together; and 2) I was trying to focus on a group of schools where one is likely to see the highest amount of cross applications.</p>
<p>Finally, 30 seemed like the right number as it combined all of the most highly ranked private universities and also the most highly ranked five publics as well, but there are a few schools in the 30-40 range that would make good additions (eg, W&M, Georgia Tech, Boston College, U Wisconsin, U Illinois). I just hesitate to go about unilaterally adding lower USNWR-ranked teams without someone from an un-added team/school feeling slighted. </p>
<p>So please, in the future, post your thoughts on U Wisconsin (and any other school you like) if you think it would be helpful and useful to students as they evaluate a variety of colleges and the athletic "scenes" that they offer. Thanks. </p>
<p>Also, congrats on the UNLV win and I hope that the Badger faithful enjoyed their time in Vegas. Talk about a fun road trip for a football game! :)</p>
<p>barrons- if Michigans program continues its slide- lets say they are on par with a program like South Carolina- some good years some bad generally average and you combine that with a shrinking population and employment base in the State of Michigan does the academic quality of the school go down. I ask because I read a quote from the Rutgers AD or President, I forgot which that challenged a professor's statement about Rutgers academic quality with relaxed standards for athletes- the AD/Pres point was that the schools academic quality goes up because football brings in applications from smart kids that want a school with a decent program and the small # of football admits really means nothing to the quality of the academics. I am sure Michigan/Wisc/Fla etc can hide 100 kids but kids seem to love the football and basketball scene.</p>
<p>lets not kill Michigan football yet...they still have a lot of talent on the team despite being embarrassed 2 games in a row.</p>
<p>I agree UM will be back--maybe not this year but soon. It has some positive impact on apps and lots of impact on the fun of the average fall weekend. UW admissions have moved up to where UM was just a few years ago. This year's numbers are supposed to be better again. I'm still in LV killin time while my wife gambles. I made a few bucks picking UNLV and 27 and a few others (Oregon for one). A good day.</p>
<p>Michigan is 0-4 since Bo Schembechler died! Now that would be one heck of a curse ;)</p>