On Indiana football and the Memorial Stadium crowd

A conversation that requires more detail than you’d probably think!

Indiana football kicked off the Curt Cignetti era with a 31-7 win in Bloomington this past Saturday and the Hoosiers’ fanbase and media are abuzz with talk of how the defens- just kidding everyone’s yelling about the crowd.

At kickoff? Pretty good! The student section was full to the brim and the remainder of Memorial Stadium filled out nicely.

After that? Well,

Look. I get it. The crowd thinned out considerably as the game wore on, particularly in the student section. Which obviously means they are terrible and do not deserve a winning program under any circumstances.

But, uh, no? That’s not exactly the case?

Suddenly everyone has an opinion on The Crowd and The Fans, it’s the conversation of the week and man there are some takes out there. But that conversation involves a bit more nuance that most are probably willing to grant a ton of sports fans and college kids.

Here’s the deal:

With the hype of the Cignetti hire, it feels like a lot of people were expecting a more drastic vibe shift among the in-person fans and students. Online circles have been buzzing about the hire for months but, and I cannot emphasize this enough:

Twitter is not a real place.

The more casual Indiana fan and student probably just knows there’s a new coach. And that the team has been rather not good for the past three years. Current seniors probably turned out as bright-eyed freshmen in 2021 having been told about The Reach against Penn State, beating Michigan at home and back-to-back bowl appearances only to get their spirits broken by a 2-10 season.

Every grade below them only remembers the team getting blown out by or narrowly losing to any of the big three schools of the old Big Ten East and failing to reach six wins. Or almost losing to Akron. Or squeaking out a nail biter against Western Kentucky. Or- actually, I think I’ve made my point here.

Hence the new coach in town.

So can you blame them, and other fans, for being cautious to trust when the last wave of optimism crashed ashore and resulted in one of the worst seasons in the 21st century? I don’t think so.

Another factor: Bloomington rocks.

Which is great! Until you want butts in seats.

I have a certain level of affection for Memorial Stadium because I love the overall aesthetic and the way it resembles every other campus structure. It looks like it belongs. But right now it’s not an outstanding place to watch a game.

The cell service is somehow nonexistent. The seating isn’t all that great. Concessions have made incredible strides this year but were more just okay previously (again, not the kind of upgrade most casual fans will have heard about).

Thing is, the athletic department is working on that. But that’s gonna take time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s far from a bad place to watch a game, but it’s not ideal. Students and some fans long for a few other things. The company of friends! A roof! Air conditioning!

The area around the stadium is flush with tailgating space. Even in years when the team isn’t good (see the last three) the lots and greenspaces are absolutely full of crimson, grills, cars and tents.

A lot of those fans don’t end up making it into the stadium. They have a TV out there, a tent over their heads and their own food and beer.

And then you get out to Bloomington, absolutely full of bars to watch the game with a roof over your head and a beer in your fist. Off the top of my head I can think of Kilroy’s on Kirkwood, Upstairs, Nick’s and Brothers as just a few places to watch.

Sometimes students and fans get into the game before heading out to join others at the tailgating scene and aforementioned bars. This is especially true for when a game is pretty reliably in hand, as was the case against FIU.

The Hoosiers were up by just two scores, yeah, but if you were watching the game they were moving the ball downfield at will through the run game. Even if you know just a little about football you know that’s a pretty good recipe for success and reason to trust the second half performance.

A good football crowd at Indiana is very, very possible and we know that because we’ve seen it before. Fans turned out for a win over FCS Idaho in 2021 and filled the stadium completely for what ended up being a loss to playoff-bound Cincinnati that was pretty competitive in the first half.

That’s not ancient history, that was three years ago. And, again, those fans were met with a 2-10 football team.

No answer to this whole conversation is going to make anyone particularly happy. It’s going to take time, as most things do. Until then, there’s football to watch.