Matt Dragonette

For the past few years, much has been said about the dismal attendance and poor atmosphere at University of Maryland football games. Many have lamented the fact that Big Ten, Big 12 and Southeastern Conference schools, from Tennessee to Michigan can fill stadiums with tens of thousands of fans, no matter the weather, game time or opponent. Scott Van Pelt himself rightly criticized students for their lack of school spirit; fans showed up late, left early and weren’t loud. I wholeheartedly agree with him. But this year, as a senior, I won’t just criticize our abysmal football fanbase — I’ll address football game days as a whole.

The fact of the matter is, the entire Maryland gameday experience is terrible.

While good fans should show up no matter the game time, having three straight noon football games is brutal. Let’s face the facts: university students have fun on Friday nights, especially early in the semester. Can’t we have just one afternoon game? How about an early-season night game? Sure, television contracts are important, but we also need fans in the stands if we want to stay relevant as a football program.

Fans also want to see quality opponents. Scheduling Alabama, Oregon and Baylor probably wouldn’t be the best idea, but games against Richmond, Bowling Green and South Florida are hardly appealing for your casual football fan. Additionally, the university gave away a home game to Penn State by agreeing to play Penn State at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. The Penn State crowd will dwarf the Terps crowd at our “home game” and deprive students of a potential future rivalry. Students deserve to see a game like that in Byrd Stadium. Unfortunately, as has become all too common, the university and the Big Ten prioritized money over students.

If you go to a football game, you generally tailgate. Yet the university makes it impossibly hard for your average, non-Greek life-affiliated student to tailgate. The Interfraternity Council partially funds its tailgate, but can’t other students have the opportunity to do the same? Fortunately, many of us have family members who come to games, but for those who don’t, the gameday experience is lacking. If students are forced to tailgate off the campus, then they might be more likely to show up late — if at all.

Once you’re actually in the stands, the experience hardly improves. Much of the crowd is passive, hardly cheering or supporting the team; college students around the country are more active fans. Fortunately, a core of students stays passionate throughout the game, ensuring the football team has at least some consistent support. At least the crowd will fill in for the biggest home games and stay loud — until our opponent runs up an insurmountable 14-point lead.

Other frustrations include poor communication — my friends and I received no notification that play had resumed after the lightning delay against Bowling Green. Certainly, the fan spirit leadership should develop its playbook as well, especially considering how well-organized basketball and soccer games have been. The cringeworthy “Go Terps!” cheer, in which one side of the stadium yells “Go!” and the other replies “Terps!” is a direct copy of Penn State’s far more successful cheer.

The sports section can provide better analysis of the football team’s play than I, but as a fan, it can get hard to watch — especially when the Terps play poorly against mediocre competition. While we all get excited every time we see Will Likely anywhere near the football, we get frustrated when basic passes cannot be completed. Certainly, the poor play against Bowling Green was a factor in the vastly diminished student section at the end of the game.

If the university and students want a more engaged, supportive home crowd, then officials need to make the gameday experience more student-friendly, and students need to commit to supporting the Terps. If you’re going to wake up at 6 a.m. to drink, then at least show up and support your football team for a few hours. In college football, it can mean the difference between a win and a loss, a four-star recruit and a miserable recruiting class. If the university to steps up and students put some effort in, the overall gameday experience will improve vastly.