The crowds cannot be blamed on students. They were there and loud?Fans

[IMissJack]

need to get behind this team. The defense was on point all night. Marks and Johnson were hitting that line and punishing tacklers. I have wondered about this team and it?s ceiling, but last night was fun and tough. I hope we have turned the corner.

[R2Dawg]

Agree. Students have showed up.

If fans had confidence that team is who we are, guess what the stands would have been full last night.

[MaroonFlounder]

Agree. Students have showed up.

.

Half left early. Way early

[Cooterpoot]

Why so much bitching about fans? This is happening at every school. It's not a State thing. Having a great team helps but people just aren't going to games anywhere. I think some are tired of the same four teams winning every year & generally doing it easily. Then you've got the Covid hang over, higher ticket prices, and $3.50 a gallon gas prices.
Losing to Memphis and LSU and getting killed by AL didn't help. It'll get better if we win but it's not going back to what it was. Stadiums are going to shrink with chairbacks and premium suites etc.

[BrunswickDawg]

Why so much bitching about fans? This is happening at every school. It's not a State thing. Having a great team helps but people just aren't going to games anywhere. I think some are tired of the same four teams winning every year & generally doing it easily. Then you've got the Covid hang over, higher ticket prices, and $3.50 a gallon gas prices.
Losing to Memphis and LSU and getting killed by AL didn't help. It'll get better if we win but it's not going back to what it was. Stadiums are going to shrink with chairbacks and premium suites etc.

To your point about not just MSU - UF section was maybe 85% full in Jacksonville yesterday. After half time it was 50%, and by the muddle if the 4th it was 30%. Made traffic so easy post game we did it even have to wait to pull out of the parking lot.

[Bothrops]

Crowd sucked for a top 15 opponent. I'm sure there are more runt ass excuses over it. Crowds have gone back to pre expansion levels.

[memsu06]

Half left early. Way early

Halloween parties to get to.

[Tater]

The real change to help students stay all game at night games would be to extend Saturday night alcohol sales to be to 3. Then the culture would shift from having to rush to the bar to beat the crowd or not getting in. Extend nightlife in the town past 1 (so they don't feel like 2 hours or less at the bar is all they get if they stay the whole game and then walk there.)

Unpopular opinion and will never happen, but that's the actual problem and solution to it.

[IMissJack]

I think if we had today’s weather on Sat we would have had more people. But not a sellout.

[Jarius]

Why so much bitching about fans? This is happening at every school. It's not a State thing. Having a great team helps but people just aren't going to games anywhere. I think some are tired of the same four teams winning every year & generally doing it easily. Then you've got the Covid hang over, higher ticket prices, and $3.50 a gallon gas prices.
Losing to Memphis and LSU and getting killed by AL didn't help. It'll get better if we win but it's not going back to what it was. Stadiums are going to shrink with chairbacks and premium suites etc.

This is so much BS. Our fans suck. Our fans drove 10 million miles to go to Omaha and packed that place out. We have now beaten 3 top 25 opponents this year and we had a USM level crowd to see us beat the 12th ranked team in the country and basically ensure bowl eligibility. Us having to be elite to give our football team a home field advantage against top 15 teams at home is garbage. We have plenty of bitchers in our fanbase but very little doers.

[BuckyIsAB****]

To be fair It wasnt a USM level crowd

[BuckyIsAB****]

It was a great atmosphere

[Cooterpoot]

This is so much BS. Our fans suck. Our fans drove 10 million miles to go to Omaha and packed that place out. We have now beaten 3 top 25 opponents this year and we had a USM level crowd to see us beat the 12th ranked team in the country and basically ensure bowl eligibility. Us having to be elite to give our football team a home field advantage against top 15 teams at home is garbage. We have plenty of bitchers in our fanbase but very little doers.

That was a 17ing national championship. Holy shit you've lost your mind comparing the two. College football is bleeding fan attendance even at UGA. Take that shit somewhere else.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Yeah, and our baseball team at that point, time and time again to be consistently good.

[Tater]

The other key factor is espn causing run time to be 3.5 - 4 hours. The game becomes a slog to get through at times with the 3 minute commercials at every chance. Compre that to the NFL who cracked down on this recently and began trying to finish games under 3 hours.

[MaroonFlounder]

This is so much BS. Our fans suck. Our fans drove 10 million miles to go to Omaha and packed that place out. We have now beaten 3 top 25 opponents this year and we had a USM level crowd to see us beat the 12th ranked team in the country and basically ensure bowl eligibility. Us having to be elite to give our football team a home field advantage against top 15 teams at home is garbage. We have plenty of bitchers in our fanbase but very little doers.

It's deer season****:)

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Other SEC schools are at or above 2019 attendance except MSU, USCe and Vandy according to NCAA Attendance records. MSU has the largest drop in SEC as a percentage.

[NWADAWG]

The real change to help students stay all game at night games would be to extend Saturday night alcohol sales to be to 3. Then the culture would shift from having to rush to the bar to beat the crowd or not getting in. Extend nightlife in the town past 1 (so they don't feel like 2 hours or less at the bar is all they get if they stay the whole game and then walk there.)

Unpopular opinion and will never happen, but that's the actual problem and solution to it.

Do they still have to take drinks away at midnight? I was there when that was put in place and it was not fun being the guy taking full pitchers and drinks from people. The real issue with it though was people guzzling drinks and trying to guzzle whole pitchers that they bought at last call, then going straight to the car to drive somewhere. It was completely counter productive to the goal.

[Jarius]

That was a 17ing national championship. Holy shit you've lost your mind comparing the two. College football is bleeding fan attendance even at UGA. Take that shit somewhere else.

No I won’t take that shit somewhere else. Our fanbase is not good unless we are elite. I don’t expect sellout crowds for bad games but when we play good teams at home we shouldn’t have 7 thousand empty seats. No, it’s not happening at UGA or any other SEC school when they have big time games. Look at the OM/ LSU game last week. Absolutely packed. I guess they don’t have COVID or deer season or whatever else our fans decide to go shoot at on Saturday. Our team deserves better but we have all these excuses. Covid. Deer season. My mom’s uncle’s cousin’s daughter got married. My grandma had hip surgery. Yada yada yada. We can’t find an excuse to go to support a good football team but we can send 25 thousand people to Omaha.

[BulldogBear]

Half left early. Way early

At least it wasn't halftime. They started bleeding out a little after 3Q with 31-10 lead. I wouldn't say way early, but they were half gone and the game still wasn't decided (leading 31-17 with half a quarter left).

And yes, they were loud and into it.

[DawgFromOxford]

How many times do we have to rehash this conversation. It's not a hard concept to figure out. Let me say it again...

CONSISTENTLY WIN AND PEOPLE WILL SHOW UP

That's all there is to it. People won't mind paying the price if they know they are going to show up, have a good time, and watch their team perform well. What people don't want to do is spend their hard earned time and money just to watch their team not live up to expectations.

[confucius say]

Why so much bitching about fans? This is happening at every school. It's not a State thing. Having a great team helps but people just aren't going to games anywhere. I think some are tired of the same four teams winning every year & generally doing it easily. Then you've got the Covid hang over, higher ticket prices, and $3.50 a gallon gas prices.
Losing to Memphis and LSU and getting killed by AL didn't help. It'll get better if we win but it's not going back to what it was. Stadiums are going to shrink with chairbacks and premium suites etc.

But other teams are at least selling out their big games. OM has done it. TN has done it. Ark has done it twice. KY has done it twice.

I believe we are the only team in the league with a winning record that has not sold out a single game this year. And we haven't been close. Our fans have sucked this year.

[confucius say]

That was a 17ing national championship. Holy shit you've lost your mind comparing the two. College football is bleeding fan attendance even at UGA. Take that shit somewhere else.

Not true. Georgia has sold out multiple games this year.

Nobody is complaint about our fans not showing up for la tech or tenn state, but when we play (and beat) ranked teams at home we should have a sellout.

[confucius say]

How many times do we have to rehash this conversation. It's not a hard concept to figure out. Let me say it again...

CONSISTENTLY WIN AND PEOPLE WILL SHOW UP

That's all there is to it. People won't mind paying the price if they know they are going to show up, have a good time, and watch their team perform well. What people don't want to do is spend their hard earned time and money just to watch their team not live up to expectations.

Expectations? What? We are 5-3 with three wins over teams currently ranked in the top 22 in the country. We likely will be a top 25 team (or borderline) when the playoff poll comes out tomorrow. If that is enough to show up, I'm not sure exactly what people's expectations were for this team.

[BrunswickDawg]

How many times do we have to rehash this conversation. It's not a hard concept to figure out. Let me say it again...

CONSISTENTLY WIN AND PEOPLE WILL SHOW UP

That's all there is to it. People won't mind paying the price if they know they are going to show up, have a good time, and watch their team perform well. What people don't want to do is spend their hard earned time and money just to watch their team not live up to expectations.

We are 7-5 over our last 12 games - that is as good a clip as all but a couple of years over the past decade. Four of those wins are against ranked teams.
We have a solid shot at finishing 9-3 - which would be our second best regular season over the past 2 decades.

What more do you need? There were 9,000 more people watching our 3-5 2016 team play Samford than we had Saturday night. Over their previous 12 games (4 in '2015, 8 in '16) we were 5-7. What is consistently winning about that?

[Maroonthirteen]

But other teams are at least selling out their big games. OM has done it. Ark has done it twice. KY has done it twice.

I believe we are the only team in the league with a winning record that has not sold out a single game this year. And we haven't been close. Our fans have sucked this year.


Mississippi State has the smallest fan base (serious fans that follow through thick and thin) in the SEC, other than Vandy. Also all three teams you list, have larger populations within close proximity and no Alabama 80 miles down the road.

Also, Mississippi State has always, for decades, had a hard filling the stadium up without the help of 10K Bama, LSU and OM fans. Kentucky may have had 2K there Saturday. So, You had 47K State fans. Not bad. Not great but not bad.


State will need another Mullen/Dak era run to bump that 40-50K number up to 60K.

[Maverick91]

But other teams are at least selling out their big games. OM has done it. TN has done it. Ark has done it twice. KY has done it twice.

I believe we are the only team in the league with a winning record that has not sold out a single game this year. And we haven't been close. Our fans have sucked this year.

I am not disagreeing with you, but, I will say the other teams have eye tested way better than we have especially at home. The consistency has not been there and with all the other issues going on in the world why pay to see a game that you aren't guaranteed to get a consistent product from your team?

[Jarius]

How many times do we have to rehash this conversation. It's not a hard concept to figure out. Let me say it again...

CONSISTENTLY WIN AND PEOPLE WILL SHOW UP

That's all there is to it. People won't mind paying the price if they know they are going to show up, have a good time, and watch their team perform well. What people don't want to do is spend their hard earned time and money just to watch their team not live up to expectations.

And our fans wonder why we can’t have consistent results. This right here. We are on the verge of having an 8-4 type year with a really good bowl game and this is the reasoning we have for tons of empty seats. Our fans don’t want to act like a big time program but they sure don’t mind bitching about not getting big time results.

[redstickdawg]

Mississippi State has the smallest fan base (serious fans that follow through thick and thin) in the SEC, other than Vandy. Also all three teams you list, have larger populations within close proximity and no Alabama 80 miles down the road.

Also, Mississippi State has always, for decades, had a hard filling the stadium up without the help of 10K Bama, LSU and OM fans. Kentucky may have had 2K there Saturday. So, You had 47K State fans. Not bad. Not great but not bad.


State will need another Mullen/Dak era run to bump that 40-50K number up to 60K.

State is not in close proximity to a significant metropolitan area either, Bama is an hour or so away from Birmingham, A&m from Houston, lsu in BTR, etc. OM is much closer to Memphis than we are to Jackson (not really major metro).

[confucius say]

I am not disagreeing with you, but, I will say the other teams have eye tested way better than we have especially at home. The consistency has not been there and with all the other issues going on in the world why pay to see a game that you aren't guaranteed to get a consistent product from your team?

Bc you want the team to win. And sellout crowds matter. The attitude of I'm not going to the game unless there is a guarantee is discouraging from our fans.

[Commercecomet24]

To be fair It wasnt a USM level crowd

This. Big difference between Saturday night and a usm game and as you said was a great atmosphere

[confucius say]

State is not in close proximity to a significant metropolitan area either, Bama is an hour or so away from Birmingham, A&m from Houston, lsu in BTR, etc. OM is much closer to Memphis than we are to Jackson (not really major metro).

None of that changes that we sold out our big home games almost every year the last 12 seasons. Now we are not getting even close. All other competitive sec teams are selling out their big marquee home games.

But we will love to whine come signing day.

[SilentSteel16]

Not sure here but didn’t we expand seating? If so wouldn’t that render past sell outs moot and we could go by attendance numbers? If we haven’t expanded just look away from the man in the corner. Haha

[Maverick91]

Bc you want the team to win. And sellout crowds matter. The attitude of I'm not going to the game unless there is a guarantee is discouraging from our fans.

Again, I wasn't disagreeing. Just stating what I think the reasons are.

[DawgFromOxford]

Expectations? What? We are 5-3 with three wins over teams currently ranked in the top 22 in the country. We likely will be a top 25 team (or borderline) when the playoff poll comes out tomorrow. If that is enough to show up, I'm not sure exactly what people's expectations were for this team.

I think the win this weekend will go a long way. Watching us lose to Memphis and LSU and get blown out by Alabama makes it hard to have full buy in for your casual fan. People want to be sure they aren't going to spend time and money just to show up and watch those games happen.

[R2Dawg]

I think the win this weekend will go a long way. Watching us lose to Memphis and LSU and get blown out by Alabama makes it hard to have full buy in for your casual fan. People want to be sure they aren't going to spend time and money just to show up and watch those games happen.

This is the right answer. We've had no momentum since Leach has been here. Yes a good game every once in a while but taken away by a lot of really bad football.

I am energized by the balance we put on field Sat. Hardly any guaranteed wins but if I know we are going to put a good effort - plan, prepared and effort, I'll be there for big games and I think every MSU fan is about the same.

Of course financial strain is real too these days for lots of reasons and lots of people. That is affecting every school too not just MSU.

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

We are an entitled fan base that wants to act like a big time program but not make the necessary financial and time commitment to be a major player.

Our fans like winning much more than they like they actual team and product on the field. This was never more clear than when our women's bball team made 2 NC games in a row. I'm sure people that "Loved the women's basketball team" are lining up now to go to games.

Strong fan support is one of the elements that leads to excellent programs. It's a process that we are just not willing to follow. Top recruits aren't impressed by quarter empty stadiums for big games.

[confucius say]

We are an entitled fan base that wants to act like a big time program but not make the necessary financial and time commitment to be a major player.

Our fans like winning much more than they like they actual team and product on the field. This was never more clear than when our women's bball team made 2 NC games in a row. I'm sure people that "Loved the women's basketball team" are lining up now to go to games.

Strong fan support is one of the elements that leads to excellent programs. It's a process that we are just not willing to follow. Top recruits aren't impressed by quarter empty stadiums for big games.

Ding. Our fanbase makes it hard on our team.

[DawgFromOxford]

Our fans like winning much more than they like they actual team and product on the field. This was never more clear than when our women's bball team made 2 NC games in a row. I'm sure people that "Loved the women's basketball team" are lining up now to go to games.

Strong fan support is one of the elements that leads to excellent programs. It's a process that we are just not willing to follow. Top recruits aren't impressed by quarter empty stadiums for big games.

This is literally true for every fan base/sport there is. Winning ultimately matters more than anything when it comes to sports and fan buy in. I'm willing to bet even Alabama isn't selling out stadiums if they are going 7-5.

Fan support and program success is the chicken and egg argument. Does strong fan support lead to success? Probably. Does success lead to strong fan support? Absolutely. Alabama, Clemson, Ohio state, etc. didn't just play terrible football and have a ton of fans show up. They continually put a great product on the field that people consider it worth spending their time and money on to go watch. From last season and this season, the team hasn't show the ability to consistently put a great product on the field every game. I think the Kentucky game goes a long way in proving that we have a great product. Now we just need to do it consistently. Keep this momentum for the rest of the year, and I guarantee season ticket sales and attendance will be up in 2022.

Again it's not complicated, CONSISTENTLY win and people will show up.

[Jarius]

This is literally true for every fan base/sport there is. Winning ultimately matters more than anything when it comes to sports and fan buy in. I'm willing to bet even Alabama isn't selling out stadiums if they are going 7-5.

Fan support and program success is the chicken and egg argument. Does strong fan support lead to success? Probably. Does success lead to strong fan support? Absolutely. Alabama, Clemson, Ohio state, etc. didn't just play terrible football and have a ton of fans show up. They continually put a great product on the field that people consider it worth spending their time and money on to go watch. From last season and this season, the team hasn't show the ability to consistently put a great product on the field every game. I think the Kentucky game goes a long way in proving that we have a great product. Now we just need to do it consistently. Keep this momentum for the rest of the year, and I guarantee season ticket sales and attendance will be up in 2022.

Again it's not complicated, CONSISTENTLY win and people will show up.

We are currently receiving top 25 votes and have beaten 3 teams that were in the top 25 when we played them. Our fans suck. Not coming to games because we didn’t look good against Nick Saban and we got robbed against memphis is just a garbage attitude from fans. I would not get upset about it if we did not have so many people bitching about our program. There are a lot of hit dogs hollering because they can dish out criticism but don’t you dare call them out for not doing their part. Not saying this is you particularly.

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

This is literally true for every fan base/sport there is. Winning ultimately matters more than anything when it comes to sports and fan buy in. I'm willing to bet even Alabama isn't selling out stadiums if they are going 7-5.

Fan support and program success is the chicken and egg argument. Does strong fan support lead to success? Probably. Does success lead to strong fan support? Absolutely. Alabama, Clemson, Ohio state, etc. didn't just play terrible football and have a ton of fans show up. They continually put a great product on the field that people consider it worth spending their time and money on to go watch. From last season and this season, the team hasn't show the ability to consistently put a great product on the field every game. I think the Kentucky game goes a long way in proving that we have a great product. Now we just need to do it consistently. Keep this momentum for the rest of the year, and I guarantee season ticket sales and attendance will be up in 2022.

Again it's not complicated, CONSISTENTLY win and people will show up.

It's not a chicken and the egg argument for schools like Mississippi State. Fans need to show up first. Period.

Basketball has won 25, 23, and 20 in the last 3 seasons and still no one shows up. I guess consistency is relevant.

And I know people are going say "I just don't like basketball" or something to that nature, but I straight up don't believe that. I will say it again. Our fans like winning and bragging about it to others more than they actually like the team.
If we were 7-0 in the SEC with wins over UK, Auburn, and Tennessee those fans that "Just don't like basketball" would have their asses in the seats and be hyping the team on Twitter.

[Gutter Cobreh]

Can't complain about the outcome of the game or the product on the field this week, so we resort to complaining about the amount of fans in the stands...

The crowd looked awesome on the broadcast and you could tell they were loud... My brood and I would have been there, except you can't find a place to stay within a 60 mile radius...

[MagicDawg]

If I might respectfully dare to add one other wrinkle.

There are many alumni over the last 50 years who, if they/we lived in the state of Mississippi, would probably have the means to attend most home games at least. But opportunity and life circumstances have made it difficult to get back for more than one or maybe two games a year, finances and calendar permitting. We've made it to all but a few of the bowl games since the streak started, but are unlikely to make this year as our son is at another school and participating in the band. So we will be supportive parents, attend the game HE's at, and that will be our budgetary max for the year.

It's sad but true that we export an awful lot of our alumni and "bought in" fans/supporters to areas of the country that make it logistically and financially challenging to physically come to regular season games. Not all of us have the funds to fly back whenever, or drive 6 or 8 or 10 hours each way, get hotel rooms, etc. It's not a "let's go tailgate, see the game, then drive home" investment for an awful lot of us.

"If you were are real fan you'd be here..." -- well, it just doesn't boil down to that simple of a calculation for a lot of us.

[DawgFromOxford]

It's not a chicken and the egg argument for schools like Mississippi State. Fans need to show up first. Period.

Basketball has won 25, 23, and 20 in the last 3 seasons and still no one shows up. I guess consistency is relevant.

I'm with you that fans should show up. But for most people aka casual fans, you won't get fan support before success.

Football has this season more or less done what Ben Howland's basketball teams have done in his tenure. In basketball, we start to build momentum and then get beat at home by OM, or get beat by Liberty in the first round of March Madness, or get beat by a bad Vanderbilt team. That kills a lot of momentum of fan support when you don't know if the time and money spent on the event is going to be worth it, or if you just paid to watch an hour of pitiful play. Beating ranked teams is great, but not if you are also dropping games like Memphis and LSU. Beating a ranked Kentucky team at home like that is going to go a long way to build fan support, but you can't expect a sell out crowd for games when the fans have no clue what kind of product is going to show up on the field.

Look at Vic's women's teams. They consistently played well at high level and won a lot of games, so fans showed up. Having a sold out Hump didn't cause the team to be great, a great team cause the Hump to be sold out. Now look at it, level of play and wins has dropped off which causes fan support to drop off.

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

If I might respectfully dare to add one other wrinkle.

There are many alumni over the last 50 years who, if they/we lived in the state of Mississippi, would probably have the means to attend most home games at least. But opportunity and life circumstances have made it difficult to get back for more than one or maybe two games a year, finances and calendar permitting. We've made it to all but a few of the bowl games since the streak started, but are unlikely to make this year as our son is at another school and participating in the band. So we will be supportive parents, attend the game HE's at, and that will be our budgetary max for the year.

It's sad but true that we export an awful lot of our alumni and "bought in" fans/supporters to areas of the country that make it logistically and financially challenging to physically come to regular season games. Not all of us have the funds to fly back whenever, or drive 6 or 8 or 10 hours each way, get hotel rooms, etc. It's not a "let's go tailgate, see the game, then drive home" investment for an awful lot of us.

"If you were are real fan you'd be here..." -- well, it just doesn't boil down to that simple of a calculation for a lot of us.

My posts aren't intended to call individual fans out. I understand that there are tons of alumni that don't live close enough to make a regular trip feasible or that have other circumstances that keep them from attending games. I totally get that.

I'm more so referring to the fans that live within a 2 hour radius that just straight up choose not to come then get on Elitedawgs and bitch about how Leach is awful and it's never going to work every time we lose a game.

[confucius say]

If I might respectfully dare to add one other wrinkle.

There are many alumni over the last 50 years who, if they/we lived in the state of Mississippi, would probably have the means to attend most home games at least. But opportunity and life circumstances have made it difficult to get back for more than one or maybe two games a year, finances and calendar permitting. We've made it to all but a few of the bowl games since the streak started, but are unlikely to make this year as our son is at another school and participating in the band. So we will be supportive parents, attend the game HE's at, and that will be our budgetary max for the year.

It's sad but true that we export an awful lot of our alumni and "bought in" fans/supporters to areas of the country that make it logistically and financially challenging to physically come to regular season games. Not all of us have the funds to fly back whenever, or drive 6 or 8 or 10 hours each way, get hotel rooms, etc. It's not a "let's go tailgate, see the game, then drive home" investment for an awful lot of us.

"If you were are real fan you'd be here..." -- well, it just doesn't boil down to that simple of a calculation for a lot of us.

No problem with that. But there are plenty of fans within 3 hours who just aren't showing up. Not even for big games against ranked opponents when we are winning and tickets are cheap.