Florida was lucky enough to get Scott Stricklin as our AD a couple of years ago. We hired him from Mississippi State and he has done wonders at Florida, hiring Dan Mullen, with facilities and other items. Here's an interview with him by the Gainesville Sun. Some pretty interesting topics, not the least of which is probable reducing the capacity of our football stadium. Sun interview: Scott Stricklin
Interesting article Bill. I see that UF students are like so many of their peers across the country. Schools all over are seeing changes in the way student's approach gameday. They are late arriving and early to leave. They complain that at games they feel cut off from their friends because of poor wifi or cell phone reception. Reduction in capacity is also an interesting item. Notre Dame with their renovations ended up with slight smaller capacity, part of it was increasing the width of the seat allotted to the ticket holder. But there is so much TV money coming to UF due to the contracts the SEC has that they didn't get 20 years ago that they (all SEC teams) make a ton of money even with slightly smaller stadiums. I think you've mentioned before that there is not a possible solution to increase capacity of the UF stadium, like we have at Texas or how Texas A&M did and other schools have also increased capacity. Tell you the truth, sitting in the upper deck at Texas watching the ND/Texas game, I was a very long way from the field.
I agree on all counts Terry. Especially the students, they sure have a different attitude toward attending football games than when I was a student. I lived for a football Sat and don't remember ever missing a game when I was there.
Strange how things have changed for college students over the years. I graduated from The Ohio State University in 1958. I had a ticket on the 50-yard line, the first row of B deck on a wooden chair, bad weather to my back was protected by the structure of the stadium and we did not know wifi even existed?
My first two years at Purdue I was in the band (bad seats) and then seats in the student section were so-so (Juniors and Seniors better seats than Freshmen and Sophomores). My student seats at Ohio State were just plain bad...but I got to watch Archie Griffith for three years. My thought as to students being no-shows or late shows...maybe the entertainment value is going down (I'm not talking about the quality of the football...just the ancillary show and traditions at the stadium). As far as I have seen at Ohio State, what with the tailgating, parties on Lane Ave, skull session, ramp entrance, and other traditions, it's still an early and long party. Side rant; (I'm an old fogey and I get that)....but that damn scoreboard screen and it's endless ranting and pseudo-cheering and "messages" and ads severely detracts from the quality of the experience (to me). They give the responsibility of putting all that crap together to the IT and media students and they try to outdo themselves in inserting their annoying and endless graphics and noise into the atmosphere. Spare me.
Stu, I agree with the overkill, but it is nice to see replays and the display of scores from around the country is good too.
Those jumbotrons can be good and as Stu notes annoying as hell. I like them when I go to Astros games and they show a lot of stats on the player at bat, but I can live without the kiss cam, the races, etc. It's the same at Basketball games, at Rockets game they have a running box score that I like but then the other stuff ruins it. Football more of the same, except at Football stadium they are so huge, but I like the replays and stats.