Playoff Thread

[sivert]

And good for Dunne to get some reps after sitting.

[Blue42]

I thought this too. No travel. Stay in game week rhythm. Almost as much rest as SDSU got.

Agree completely.

We seemed to get thru that game clean from any injuries.

Eli got great reps.

Most the two deep(+) got live snaps.

We got another dose of confidence and kept our rhythm going. About all you could ask for with a 1st round draw.

[domedays]

. . . . . and I'm sure you're one of the 33% that believes Trump has had the best first year ever for a president.

No idea what that reference means but anyway. Just saying I think there were plenty of people hoping or at least content to see the team to lose so Farley would be pushed out. The game day atmosphere has suffered all year and Monmouth was not enough to motivate fans.
I'm not judging anybody for wanting to fire Farley or Keep him, just saying that's how it seemed to me.

[clenz]

No idea what that reference means but anyway. Just saying I think there were plenty of people hoping or at least content to see the team to lose so Farley would be pushed out. The game day atmosphere has suffered all year and Monmouth was not enough to motivate fans.
I'm not judging anybody for wanting to fire Farley or Keep him, just saying that's how it seemed to me.

7 people on this site and twitter are not keeping people from games. Get real

[Blue42]

Not to be overly negative...

But the other good thing from this game was putting up a 40 point W.

The selection committee needs to see that margin and realize a 7-4 team from MVFC (or Big Sky or CAA) is more deserving than a 2nd place team from a conference like the Big South.

Maybe that gets the MVFC one more team over the next couple years.

No offense to Monmouth. They got invited...they showed up to play...it's not their fault.

[run&blade]

No idea what that reference means but anyway. Just saying I think there were plenty of people hoping or at least content to see the team to lose so Farley would be pushed out. The game day atmosphere has suffered all year and Monmouth was not enough to motivate fans.
I'm not judging anybody for wanting to fire Farley or Keep him, just saying that's how it seemed to me.

Every year is the same, UNI draws pretty good to great until they lose, after that attendance drops like crazy. If they don't lose the butts in the seats builds nicely as the year goes.

I think things are a little worse now because ISU is starting to get better and social media also hurts, everybody wants to take selfies of themselves tailgating in Iowa City or Ames.

They need to start selling beer inside and maybe have a 7pm game with beer sales and see if it turns into "the place to be". I would also sell craft beers.

I would sell the beer as cheap as possible while still making decent money.

[clenz]

7PM game time you can kiss students goodbye - if they do show they are gone en masse as soon as the half time horn sounds at 8-815.
You can kiss 80% of families with kids under..say...5 goodbye
You can kiss 90% of out of town people goodbye as well.
Out of towners already ***** about how late they get home with games getting over at 7:15. Push that to 10:30 and very few are showing up to begin with. Those that do will leave just as fast as the students.

UNI is in a no win spot for attendance and fighting for fans. No matter what time we kick there is a hundred reasons why it's the wrong time.

11AM:
Traditional Hawkeye kick off time.
90% of the state is either in Iowa City or glued to their TV for the Hawkeyes from about 7AM through 2-:20ish.
Tailgating would suffer as we don't have a fan base that is going to get out in numbers at 7-8AM even if no Hawk game is a thing

2:30
Traditionally the most common Iowa Stat kick time. They vary more than Iowa does at home but other than this year 2:30 was most common home kick on a Saturday
Iowa road games frequently kick at 2:30
Not enough time to get to Cedar Falls from Iowa City, or Ames, for people doing both games
Tailgating would be prime but during Iowa's game and may lead people away - maybe not

7:00:
See above portion of post


4:00:
There isn't a major draw back to 4. It avoids 95% of Iowa games. Avoids the majority of Iowa State games. If someone went to the Iowa/Iowa State games they could make it just after kick off. Game over at 7 means student preparty parties shouldn't* drive students away en masse. It's not too late to drive out of towners and families of smaller kids away in large numbers (though some do complain about it). For the opposing teams it is a bit of a strange kick off time to prep for. Everyone else in the conference plays at 11:00, 12:00 or 2:30


--------------

In general, I agree the dome at 7pm could be a real special place. The ambient outside light is gone and in general night games have a different feel. I just don't know if 7 is actually going to solve anything

What would help bring fans in, more than changing a game time, is improving the record in the first 6 weeks of the season. Since the start of 2012 UNI's records through the front half of the schedule vs D1 teams is 14-22. The social media push on Farley's November record is great, but the talk of August-second weekend of October is always left off.


17: 3 - 3
16: 2 - 4
15: 2 - 4
14: 3 - 4
13: 4 - 2
12: 0 - 5 1-6 at one point that year vs D1

This program gets back to winning OOC games and not dropping the first conferences games of the season we don't have to worry about Thanksgiving home games. We are hosting second round games as a seeded team.


Look at those records through the front half and tell us just exactly why fans should be lining up 14K plus in October and November. 5 of the last 6 years this program has been .500 or wrose by the second weekend of October. Show me any program that is, on average, 3-4 through week 7 that draws well. You can't.

Not shockingly I'd bet if UNI was consistently 5-2 or 6-1 through week 7 this team draws well. How do I know this? 2007- averaged over 15,900 in 2 playoff games and 16,079 over 7 home games. Smallest crowed was still over 15,000. That was coming off of a 6-4 season with a D2 loss with Drake (road) and a D2 as OOC games. General fans don't care about OOC SoS if it's a name they recognize (local) and the team is winning.

2008 we hosted Thanksgiving weekend and drew 8,500 vs a Maine team most fans watched get crushed by Iowa 2 months earlier. It wasn't as good as 07 but still have over 12,000 there for Richmond (75% capacity). Early season home games drew 15,100, 12,900, 13,500 and 9,100 on a Thursday night against a 1 win Nicholls State team.

2011 had home crowds of 11,500, 16,059, 12,500, 15,300, 16,890. Playoffs drew just 7,000 against a team 90% of the general fans had never heard of.

2009 is an example of winning correlates to attendance even in a down year. Started year #3 and by 10/10 UNI was 5-1 with the one loss that disaster Iowa loss. UNI would lose 3 of it's last 5, fall apart completely and miss the playoffs. Still drew 11,100 on Senior day. Drew over 17,100 on 10/17. Fans fall off the wagon of going to games a hell of a lot slower than jumping on the wagon of going to games.

2015 shows the same as 2009. Finished 14 at 9-5 with a ton of momentum. First home game was 13,000. On 10/17 UNI fell to WIU to fall to 2-4 but tsill drew a sell out of 16,234. 2 weeks later - on Halloween UNI was 3-4 and basically dead by all rights in the moment. Drew 11,00. That win got UNI to 5-4. 11/7 was back to over 13,200.

If you look at this year expectations were low preseason. Coming off of a 5-6 season. First home game was just over 10,000. WIU was the biggest home crowd of the season at 12,600. Senior day was down to 8,200

The drop in attendance isn't because of 4PM games. When was the last time UNI's primary kick off wasn't 4PM?

The NCAA controls playoff kick off times. Teams can request but the NCAA slots it. A playoff game against a team that the extreme majority in the area probably thought was the D3 in Illinois - and that's if they'd heard the name at all - was never going to draw jack dick sadly. Had ISUr beaten NDSU and gotten in we'd have likely hosted them and that would have drawn closer to 9K is my guess.

[BCPanther]

Thanks for that clenz.

During the entirety of the Mudra/TA/Dunbar years, 6:30 was the kick time. We had big crowds and a great atmosphere most of the time. Night kicks made us unique and gave the other team something that was way off what they were used to and, IMO, what we should go back to. Use the south deck as a 'Panther Patio'. Get the beer flowing and make it a night out the way the BlackHawks do. Notice how none of their marketing has a damn thing to do with hockey. Make it an event and the place to be on Saturday night, oh and by the way, there's a football game too.

I totally agree with Clenz that the Dome isn't as alive when there is ambient light in there. I also believe the 1:00 kicks we've had the past couple of years have been a disaster. We get small crowds because of the prevalance of other activities on Saturday mornings and it kills tailgating because, frankly, nobody really wants to have to set up at 8:00 to really take advantage of it. Open the lots at 10:00. Kick at 6:00.

Be different. It also gives our 'dual fan' population a chance to get back from Ames or Iowa City to get to our game in plenty of time.

I say this as a parent as well, when did we all get so soft and get so worried about bedtimes on the weekend? We never missed a game when I was growing up and those were all evening kicks, same deal with my sister who is almost 6 years younger than I am. People that are using that as an excuse are going to find an excuse not to come no matter what time we kick.

*BAND COMPLAINT*- Hire somebody that wants to go to the Big Ten style marching band. Big, brassy, high stepping, entertaining. Not a high school style band that marches slowly and for the most part just stands and plays. They could really bring some energy and put on a helluva show, but nah....

[vbfan19]

*BAND COMPLAINT*- Hire somebody that wants to go to the Big Ten style marching band. Big, brassy, high stepping, entertaining. Not a high school style band that marches slowly and for the most part just stands and plays. They could really bring some energy and put on a helluva show, but nah....

and someone that understands football and isn't a detriment to playcalling when the home team is on offense. (or maybe it isn't as annoying on the field, but it annoys me in the stands)

[achrist70]

Thanks for that clenz.

During the entirety of the Mudra/TA/Dunbar years, 6:30 was the kick time. We had big crowds and a great atmosphere most of the time. Night kicks made us unique and gave the other team something that was way off what they were used to and, IMO, what we should go back to. Use the south deck as a 'Panther Patio'. Get the beer flowing and make it a night out the way the BlackHawks do. Notice how none of their marketing has a damn thing to do with hockey. Make it an event and the place to be on Saturday night, oh and by the way, there's a football game too.

I totally agree with Clenz that the Dome isn't as alive when there is ambient light in there. I also believe the 1:00 kicks we've had the past couple of years have been a disaster. We get small crowds because of the prevalance of other activities on Saturday mornings and it kills tailgating because, frankly, nobody really wants to have to set up at 8:00 to really take advantage of it. Open the lots at 10:00. Kick at 6:00.

Be different. It also gives our 'dual fan' population a chance to get back from Ames or Iowa City to get to our game in plenty of time.

I say this as a parent as well, when did we all get so soft and get so worried about bedtimes on the weekend? We never missed a game when I was growing up and those were all evening kicks, same deal with my sister who is almost 6 years younger than I am. People that are using that as an excuse are going to find an excuse not to come no matter what time we kick.

*BAND COMPLAINT*- Hire somebody that wants to go to the SWAC style marching band. Big, brassy, high stepping, entertaining. Not a high school style band that marches slowly and for the most part just stands and plays. They could really bring some energy and put on a helluva show, but nah....

Fixed your band complaint, but I completely agree, when did we start worrying about bedtimes on the weekend? If we went to night games we could turn the dome into what it used to be. I do also think that we are dealing with a student who is much more about themselves then ever before, they don't understand supporting their school at a game because they themselves don't get anything out of it.

[vbfan19]

if they had fb games with a 630 kick in the past, did they just have fb and vb games at the same time?

[Born-a-Panther]

The nostalgic part of me who grew up with 6:35 kicks would love to go back to that. It gives us ample time to do other things on Saturday - enjoy the outdoors, kids' activities, etc. -- and still make it to the game. If it's not good tailgate weather, could do a 5:00 family dinner somewhere in full Panther gear and help create a buzz around town to get to the game that night. A Panther Patio only helps - and for students 21 and older - that keeps them there through the 3rd quarter.

[ronfitch]

The nostalgic part of me who grew up with 6:35 kicks would love to go back to that. It gives us ample time to do other things on Saturday - enjoy the outdoors, kids' activities, etc. -- and still make it to the game. If it's not good tailgate weather, could do a 5:00 family dinner somewhere in full Panther gear and help create a buzz around town to get to the game that night. A Panther Patio only helps - and for students 21 and older - that keeps them there through the 3rd quarter.

As I recall, the 6:35 kickoff was started in part - if not primarily - so's not to compete with U of Iowa games on the TV.

That - and the reasons BaP notes above - makes me think it is a better start time for regular season games. For Thanksgiving playoff games ... ish, I dunno what will ever work.

[BCPanther]

As I recall, the 6:35 kickoff was started in part - if not primarily - so's not to compete with U of Iowa games on the TV.

That - and the reasons BaP notes above - makes me think it is a better start time for regular season games. For Thanksgiving playoff games ... ish, I dunno what will ever work.

Winning another game during the regular season so we don't have to play that weekend?

[ronfitch]

Winning another game during the regular season so we don't have to play that weekend?

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

With the MVFC being what it is, UNI's OOC games should no longer include Montana or McNeese or SFA or EW or any of the other top FCS schools. But this has been discussed at length.