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The Power Five => PAC 12 => Topic started by: CatsbyAZ on August 30, 2017, 06:53:18 PM

Title: Tomorrow Game
Post by: CatsbyAZ on August 30, 2017, 06:53:18 PM
Visiting PHX this week, and why not, I picked up tix for ASU's Thursday night game tomorrow.

Two tix for $8 apiece, lower level between the 40s - that's the cheapest I can remember paying for college football tickets, much less for tickets that are 25 rows up from the sideline.

I know the opponent (NM St) hasn't qualified for a bowl since pretty much the Nixon presidency, but I guess the local demand is that low for an opener??

I've been to ASU games where Tempe is hopping but I'm thinking tomorrow will be more like their weeknight game from two years ago vs the NM Lobos where the campus leading up to kickoff was dead. No tailgating. No problems parking in the garages. No Mill Ave bars offering gameday specials. No activity at the stadium ticket booths. No students wearing their yellow student section tees between classes. Just no sense of a game that day.
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: DevilFroggy on August 30, 2017, 06:57:07 PM
Weekday games. Enough said.
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: Drew4UTk on August 30, 2017, 09:34:34 PM
are folks in the SW just not that into college football?  i mean, the ones that are really are, but... the general populace? 

you can walk into any convenience store or diner and have a conversation about SEC ball with anyone- and they know at least the odds for the upcoming game, who's injured, how the execution is rhyming this season, ect.... 

it's about the same in the NE but with a NFL twist.. the midwest with the B10, and even the ACC region (where I'm at)... but. how about in the South West?  

$8 tickets is what you'd pay in taxes for face value for tickets won on a radio show or something, and they go quick 'round here... 
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: CatsbyAZ on August 31, 2017, 11:37:41 AM
are folks in the SW just not that into college football?  i mean, the ones that are really are, but... the general populace?


It's the West as a whole - Bay area, state of Washington, etc - but, short answer, yes.
And the list of reasons can go on and on:


- For one, most of the Pac 12 markets are in large cities where pro-sports vastly overshadow the college game. In PHX all of the coverage goes toward the Cardinals. Turn on the radio in Seattle and the Huskies, even in strong years, are fighting with the Mariners for a single radio segment on a morning show that's 95% Seahawks coverage. In the Bay area it's all 49ers, SF Giants, and Raiders talk. Think out east where BC and the University of Maryland receive almost no coverage in their large local markets.

 
- I also think the college football attention in the West is more nationally focused which thins out some of the regional coverage. This is due to the highly transient nature of the West. In my Dad's Tucson neighborhood I can't tell you how many license plates were from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, etc. And they all have Big Ten network and attend local Big Ten alumni groups to watch their games. It's a lot easier to find a large Iowa football watch party in Phoenix whereas it's hard to imagine much of a UCLA viewing in Detroit. FWIW, the PHX/Tucson sports bars love the Big Ten fans because they can make a killing off group brunch specials during the earlier Sat morning hours where business is typically nill. 


- To a lesser degree I think the weather/geography of the West takes away from sports attention as a whole. While Boston locals are cramming their sports bars in January to watch the Celtics, Westerners can hit the beaches and hiking trails. They aren't by force of nature, tied to their TV sets in bitter winter.

Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: 847badgerfan on August 31, 2017, 06:34:30 PM
Where are all the peeps?
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: Hawkinole on September 01, 2017, 02:30:17 AM
What about Utah? That's a Pac-# team.

Wish our ticket prices were less.
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: CatsbyAZ on September 01, 2017, 11:32:06 AM
Fun evening in Tempe but ASU has plenty to worry about:

Manny Wilkins plays so average, holding onto the ball too long & taking way too many sacks all evening. Wilkins is a QB purgatory where he never plays well enough to will the offense but never poorly enough to be benched.


The OL was inexcusably horrible.


The defense gave up over 500 yards to a team they should've handled easily. Some will argue that the 500 yards looks worse than it really was because by the time the game was in hand the D had only given up about 320 yards, but that's exactly the point - they had a horrible 4th quarter like many CTG games before because they were exhausted, because once again there was almost no substitutions. Instead the starters were in the whole game, and out of gas later, a personnel decision that has left the defense exposed to big comebacks in the past.
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: PiratesRoost on September 01, 2017, 02:44:06 PM
If I was a devil fan I would be in full on panic and meltdown mode.

The stats are actually far far worse than they look: 
ASU didn't just barely get by a midmajor, NMSU only won 10 games in the past TWO seasons combined!
ASU didn't just barely get by a terribad midmajor and give up over 500 yards, they did it while having a 2 turnover advantage.
ASU didn't just give up 7 sacks, they gave up 7 sacks to a team that only got 11 all year last year (3rd worst nationally).
The D didn't just suck late, that's just when NMSU managed to finish long drives (TD drives in 4th qtr were only 142 of 549yds)
The D didn't just suck, they sucked playing the first string D all night long (first sub in 4th qtr and only b/c injury)

Panic.  Time.
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: PiratesRoost on September 01, 2017, 03:19:21 PM
are folks in the SW just not that into college football?  i mean, the ones that are really are, but... the general populace?

you can walk into any convenience store or diner and have a conversation about SEC ball with anyone- and they know at least the odds for the upcoming game, who's injured, how the execution is rhyming this season, ect....

it's about the same in the NE but with a NFL twist.. the midwest with the B10, and even the ACC region (where I'm at)... but. how about in the South West?  

$8 tickets is what you'd pay in taxes for face value for tickets won on a radio show or something, and they go quick 'round here...
Drew,
It was a weeknight game in Phoenix heat against Nobody Tech.  I lived in SEC country and the Southern half of ACC country (the part that cares at least some about football).  The average guy at the convenience store didn't know jack other than Nobody Tech U's name for the warm-up games, and attendance is way down if the fans can't blow off the unimportant game at the end of the first quarter and go back to tailagate and booze because Thursday night.
Yeah, the West in general has more attractions than just football so they won't go haywire over a warm-up game, but don't kid yourself that warm-up games in Tennessee or Texas are about anything other than tailgating, ducking into the stadium for a quarter or two and then getting back to tailgating and hanging out with friends as soon as possible.  The three Tenn OOC warm-up games I went to surely were.
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: CatsbyAZ on September 01, 2017, 08:35:45 PM


The D didn't just suck, they sucked playing the first string D all night long (first sub in 4th qtr and only b/c injury)

Panic.  Time.
Was listening to the post game radio call-in show and a big point was made that Graham refused to give the second string any playing time because he wasn't impressed with their effort in practice. If that's the case I'm wondering why the second string practices apart from the first string? By the start of the season defensive staffs are usually practicing and playing both the starters and their backups as a cohesive 2 deep. 
My guess is that Graham wants six wins at all costs and has already resorted to unblancing his roster for hope in the short term.
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: Drew4UTk on September 02, 2017, 10:31:03 AM
i appreciate the responses to my questions... i've spent little time out there so i really don't know. 

as far as SEC ball, yeah the tailgate is a big thing and part of it, but... as a for instance, one of our things in middle school was to get the teacher going on Monday's about the game- she'd totally lose focus on teaching, and the blackboard would be covered with x's and o's, with arrows demonstrating the more impactful plays from the Saturday prior... when we went to other classes the other teachers would tell us why she was wrong and attempt to set it straight... 

we knew more about drifting a tackle on a pull shift by ninth grade than i did dangling participles, or about setting up a bubble screen off a suspected jailbreak blitz (rarer back then) than the War of 1812. 

and that was just school.... you should have seen what we did to the Sunday school teacher, who was a disciple of General Neyland and preferred powering through the dust over anything to do with the ball in the air. 

the world has grown- or at least access to other things has... so... maybe there is that, but it still remains pretty clear that folks in the SE are more in tune than most... it's easy to say that for me, though, being from and living primarily 'round here most my life. 
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: PiratesRoost on September 02, 2017, 08:42:31 PM
Must resist schooling in the south jabs...Must resist...  :67:

Seriously drew, are you putting the ball on the tee just to drive some activity?

If not exaggerating for effect, then I guess the nicest thing to say is that you may be a product of a previous era.  I know a few lovely and adorable school teachers in the south from my days bopping around down there and only one gave any hoot about football.  Given the usual product of university level teacher programs I very much doubt they are a minority these days.  Of course teacher ambivalence would still give the southland a more friendly posture than the derision or outright hostility of most teachers in the Bay Area and LA suburbs.  Where I live in SD is a little different since it is a Navy town and a more athletic oriented beach town.  I don't know AZ football culture well, but I lived in NM for a few years in college and it had a bit of Texas football about it but it faded the more north or west you went.  The only part of P12 country that really gets into top gear with its football culture is the Pacific Northwest--it is not SEC-like but is kinda on a similar par with B1G or B12 (outside of Texas) levels.
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: Drew4UTk on September 02, 2017, 08:49:40 PM
heheheehheehheheheeee..... go find some of your Pac cohorts!!!!!!!  
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: PiratesRoost on September 03, 2017, 01:29:02 PM
Yeah, I think most of what we had left got lost in the abrupt shut down.  The old boards had been dwindling for years anyway.  I spend most of my time on EDSBS and SBNation hangouts. 

With first week mostly done now, though, I gotta say I love how the first week shoots about half of what I and everybody else thought we knew right in the head.  Supposedly terrible Cal looking pretty damn serviceable, supposedly playoff-ready UW and USC both looking pretty pedestrian against second tier opponents, supposedly down Oregon looking like Oregon of old, and supposedly down and out Arizona looking like the better of the two desert teams.  Couple lingering games left like UCLA-A&M, but I already can't wait to see how week two busts what we think we know.
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: betarhoalphadelta on September 04, 2017, 11:35:54 AM
I made a post on the old board talking about football in the PAC. I think part of it is purely geography. The B1G, B12, and SEC are highly clustered. The ACC is a bit of a far-ranging conference, but it's in an area where everyone (absent the North East) follows CFB.

The P12 is spread FAR and WIDE. You have geographic rivalries (USC/UCLA, UA/ASU, Stan/Cal, OU/OSU, UW/WSU), but basically outside of those, there really aren't a lot of "driving distance" games. A lot of B1G or SEC games are available within a 4-5 hour drive. If you live in the "center" of the P12, i.e. the Bay Area, there's nothing within 6 hours drive. 

So you add all the other things, like beautiful weather into November, like strong pro sports pretty much everywhere except Oregon and Utah, like the fact that so many people are transplants, etc, and people just don't devote their Saturday to CFB the way they do in other parts of the country. They might watch their own team, but they don't sit and watch football from the early B1G kickoffs at 9 AM all the way to the late P12 games. 

Oh, and I don't think "their own team" is even as big of a thing in CA. Stanford and USC are very small, private schools. UC schools in general are VERY difficult to get into, and there are a lot of them. So most people here in CA didn't attend those schools. They went to a different UC, or to a Cal State school, or Cal Poly, or private, etc. The ones who are still CFB fans despite not attending one of those are usually so because one of their parents went to one of those big four. 

Culturally, most of the people I know here in SoCal that care about CFB aren't from here. USC gets a lot of bandwagon fans when they're good, but those are USC fans, not CFB fans.
Title: Re: Tomorrow Game
Post by: DevilFroggy on September 04, 2017, 12:00:53 PM
Well said bwar.