Week 8 in the MVFC (and other games of interest)

If you want to talk about Monmouth University Football, Quincy University Basketball, Notre Dame Men's Soccer, or whatever, this is the place.
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ST_Lawson
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Forgot to post it earlier, but here's my preview article: http://thefcswedge.com/mvfc/mvfc-week-8-preview-2/

And here's the games in the conference:
1:00 PM – #9 Youngstown State (3-3, 1-2) at #28 Northern Iowa (3-3, 2-1)
2:00 PM – #3 South Dakota (6-0, 3-0) at #27 Illinois State (4-2, 2-1)
2:00 PM – Southern Illinois (3-3, 1-2) at Indiana State (0-6, 0-3)
2:00 PM – #15 South Dakota State (4-2, 1-2) at Missouri State (1-5, 0-3)
2:30 PM – #7 Western Illinois (5-1, 2-1) at #2 North Dakota State (6-0, 3-0)
All games listed in Central time and all games on ESPN3.

Most are already underway except for ours and you can check scores here: http://www.espn.com/college-football/sc ... e/2/week/8
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In addition to ESPN3, the South Dakota at Illinois State is also on NBC Sports-Chicago.
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Northern Iowa beat Youngstown State 19-14. Attendance at Northern Iowa = 12,146.

Illinois State beat South Dakota 37-21. Attendance at Illinois State = 12,113.

Southern Illinois beat Indiana State 45-24. Attendance at Indiana State = 6,811.

South Dakota State beat Missouri State 62-30. Attendance at Missouri State = 6,253.
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If the attendance figures are legit for Indiana St & Missouri St. It is sad that there attendance is higher than ours and both those schools have terrible football teams
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meganeck wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 12:18 pm If the attendance figures are legit for Indiana St & Missouri St. It is sad that there attendance is higher than ours and both those schools have terrible football teams
They might be legit, but you also have to remember a couple of things:
1. We don't count students. I don't know why, but we don't. Not saying there have been a ton of students at games, but it would make a bit of a difference.
2. Population of the surrounding area. Terre Haute and Springfield, MO are both much larger cities than Macomb. More people = more jobs = more alumni in the area.
Just for comparison, population within a 30 mile radius of the school's stadiums:
Missouri State - 389k
Indiana State - 242k
Western - 88k
So, we have less than a quarter of the population that Missouri State does in the immediate vicinity. That means fewer local fans to come to games and fewer local alumni (since you have to go to larger cities for jobs in many industries). For actual students, Missouri State has more than double what we have. Indiana State doesn't have quite that many, but they do have a few thousand more than we do.

If all other things were the same except Macomb happened to be a metro area of ~300k, I'd bet you'd have something closer to UNI or SDSU-level crowds. UNI averaged 12,123 last year (19th in the FCS) and SDSU averaged 13,753 (15th in the FCS). And I mean that many in "actual" attendance, not "reported but exaggerated" like we used to have years ago.
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meganeck
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ST_Lawson wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 10:27 pm
meganeck wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 12:18 pm If the attendance figures are legit for Indiana St & Missouri St. It is sad that there attendance is higher than ours and both those schools have terrible football teams
They might be legit, but you also have to remember a couple of things:
1. We don't count students. I don't know why, but we don't. Not saying there have been a ton of students at games, but it would make a bit of a difference.
2. Population of the surrounding area. Terre Haute and Springfield, MO are both much larger cities than Macomb. More people = more jobs = more alumni in the area.
Just for comparison, population within a 30 mile radius of the school's stadiums:
Missouri State - 389k
Indiana State - 242k
Western - 88k
So, we have less than a quarter of the population that Missouri State does in the immediate vicinity. That means fewer local fans to come to games and fewer local alumni (since you have to go to larger cities for jobs in many industries). For actual students, Missouri State has more than double what we have. Indiana State doesn't have quite that many, but they do have a few thousand more than we do.

If all other things were the same except Macomb happened to be a metro area of ~300k, I'd bet you'd have something closer to UNI or SDSU-level crowds. UNI averaged 12,123 last year (19th in the FCS) and SDSU averaged 13,753 (15th in the FCS). And I mean that many in "actual" attendance, not "reported but exaggerated" like we used to have years ago.
Good points Scott, i guess my main frustration is their programs are terrible and still have decent crowds
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meganeck wrote: Mon Oct 23, 2017 7:07 pm Good points Scott, i guess my main frustration is their programs are terrible and still have decent crowds
Oh, it frustrates the hell out of me too. I love Hanson Field and I love Leatherneck Football, and I hate walking into the stadium and seeing like 20 people sitting in the stands before the game. Unfortunately, I don't know of any easy way to fix it.

Here's what I'd love to see (I know other schools things like this too and it often works well for them).
1. Build the new home side of the stadium (I know, easier said than done, but at least it's in the planning stages)
2. Set aside the lower middle section to be just for students.
3. Start scanning student IDs when they go into the stadium so that we can:
a. track the actual attendance including students
b. track individual attendance for the students
4. Set up a "seniority" system whereby at the start of each season, the students who have been to the most games get assigned seating further down towards the front. If, for example, you've been to all the home games for the last 3 years, cheering on the team, you get to be front and center. There would need to be some "variability" in this though, to allow groups of friends who maybe want to all be together and get the letters spelling out LEATHERNECKS written across their bodies or whatever.
5. The first home game of every season, they do the "freshman runout" where the freshman class gets to run out with the team. Then you seat them all around the "student section". That game counts as 1 game towards their seniority. Be sure to explain this to all the freshman well before the weekend (this will provide extra incentive for the freshman to get off their butts and get to the first game).

After 4-5 years of this, we should have a much larger, louder, and more active student section than we've had in a LONG time.
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ST_Lawson wrote: Mon Oct 23, 2017 7:31 pm Set aside the lower middle section to be just for students.
Maybe we can expand on that idea by doing what Appalachian State does. They have their student section in all of the lower sections on the west side--this is the "home" side of the field. So the students are on the same side as the team. In the seating chart below, the ASU students sit in Sections 101-107. Getting the Western students on the same side as the team has to be a priority.

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wiu712 wrote:
ST_Lawson wrote: Mon Oct 23, 2017 7:31 pm Set aside the lower middle section to be just for students.
Maybe we can expand on that idea by doing what Appalachian State does. They have their student section in all of the lower sections on the west side--this is the "home" side of the field. So the students are on the same side as the team. In the seating chart below, the ASU students sit in Sections 101-107. Getting the Western students on the same side as the team has to be a priority.
I think that eventually that would be ideal, but maybe we start with figuring out how to fill one section with students before we go with a whole side.



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