Gopher Football Opener Being Moved Up to Aug 30th
The game has officially been moved up to Thursday.
"It is customary in college football for the visiting team to do its best to accommodate these types of requests," Marc Ryan, senior associate athletics director, said in a statement. "Coach [Jerry] Kill felt that there were a number of positives for our program in agreeing to the move."
Sorry Gopher fans who were planning to head to Las Vegas over Labor Day weekend, but you'll have to make your trip a little longer or not go at all.
3 months ago
GopherNation
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Yea, can't go now...
…and neither can several of my buddies. Oh well! I would have come home much lighter in the wallet then intended anyhow. =) And it does appear to be better for the team so that’s good. Guess I’ll just start planning for the trip to North Carolina next year!
I am going to NC.
That should be fun. And we’ll be a year better! New QB…but still optimistic about it. We’ll be joining a crew of friends who are UNC grads and who live out there. Wife and I are very much looking forward to it already. No kids!
Doubtful.
Drinking and absorbing life with kids at home mainly.
I also have thoughts on this...
….for the seemingly large number of fans complaining about this. And I’m not talking to you, but just in very general terms, stating my opinion.
1. People saying they now can’t afford to go couldn’t afford to go anyway. Thursday night in Vegas is always the cheapest of the weekend. Flight is probably more reasonable too vs. Friday. I don’t know this for certain.
2. Don’t people go to Vegas Thursday anyway? Even on a long weekend? I don’t know many midwesterners who go Friday. Thursday is a popular day to go to Vegas. If anything, this gives people something to do so they don’t overdo it on the first night. Or, go Thursday morning and come home Sunday and chill at home Monday to recover. Perfect to me!!!! Don’t want to come home from Vegas on Monday a mess and try to function Tuesday. Though, hiting the Hard Rock Hotel Pool for Sunday is epic….migh be a hole in my theory there…
3. Think bigger picture. I’d be willing to bet this game is on ESPN. New uniforms, new players, playing a “decent” UNLV team. This is good for the program. You can’t base program decisions around what…MAYBE 100 fans who now can’t go? Say 200 fans who now can’t go? The diehards will still find a way to go. The others will bitch and moan about it. Reading some of the angry posts on other sites about this, you would think the gopher football program just threw away a guaranteed 20,000 traveling fan base. It’s a few squeeky wheels making ripples in the water, making it seem like the gopher athletic program is the anti-christ now. It is just silly to me.
I’m learning people in general just really like to complain. To feel slighted. to get angry. Being angry over this seems incredibly petty to me.
Eh, I'm not complaining really.
For me it’s all about PTO (or in the case, not enough of it). It’s a better decision financially that will free up money for road trips during the B1G season and for more golf during the summer (with some left over prob…I don’t win money in casinos).
I definitely didn't want to seem to attack you.
I just happened to browse other places and see a silly reaction like this is the biggest betrayal by the department, and will now push away die hard fans.
I’m like “really? it’s going to do that?”
Die hard fans want program improvement. This move helps the program by getting exposure in Vegas. High school kids like that.
Yea, there is a lot of that out there right now.
And it is silly. Besides, the coaching staff wants it and they’re going to defer to the coaching staff.
My group of eight is a scratch now as well
I think 100 – 200 people not showing is a shade optimistic. For myself and my friends marching into our corporate jobs and demanding the last week of summer off (before kids go back to school) is just not going to happen. I would like to think we aren’t ten percent of the people who are affected by this. I think it was a destination that got many people excited on a long weekend. My first reaction was vitriolic towards our athletic department, though I kept it off the internet.
OK....but was it even 1,000?
Seriously….we are the most die hard of fans. My point was, it’s in the low hundreds….at best.
Did fans get excited? Yes. But it’s not as many as you think. It’s a sliver. Or, said another way, it is far less than necessary to alter the decision the coaching staff made. My mockery was of the fan base who looks at this as a “final straw to push away fans” and all that bullshit. Come on….get real. This was not the program “crapping on it’s greatest fans” like it is being discussed as by a few pissed off people who can’t make it out there Thursday night.
And I’m a corporate guy too, I have 2 kids, etc.. Regardless, I find it difficult to understand how, if this was really important to you, that you couldn’t take a half day Thursday, instead of just a full day Friday, to make it for the start of the game. At MOST this means taking a single, additional vacation day. I can see the kids getting a bit more difficult because now you’re asking some care-giver to take an additional half day off too….
And here's what I'm basing it on...
….I was a big Dave Matthews Band fan in the ’90’s and "00’s. He had a return trip to Charlottesville. It was the absolute most epic return to his roots. I was active on chat boards and such because I really didn’t have anything else to do with my life and I loved the music. I literally thought the entire music world would stand still and this would be the most mind-blowing experience ever.
Know what? It was average all around. Not the world changing mecca. Nothing even close. It was the really die hard fans going down there and taking in a concert. Tickets weren’t over the top expensive. In short, it really wasn’t that big of a deal to anybody beyond the most ridiculous of fans. Yet, we thought it was because it impacted us.
So my point is…we are uber-Gopher fans. Maybe our circles know 5-10 people like us. Say that adds up to a couple hundred, and that seems aggressive to me. Now you need to assume all of those few hundred were guaranteed to go to Vegas Labor Day Weekend (another stretch). This decision maybe pissed some people off…but the regular fan base who will be attending the games at the Bank could give a fuck about this game being moved to Thursday. They’ll watch it at home and prepare for the home opener a week later.
That’s the reality I see.
Now if we were Iowa, or OSU…now we’re talking about 10,000+ regular traveling fans. Now I think you can have an intelligent discussion about it.
I also doubt this ends up on ESPN.
Neither team is good enough. I’d expect it to end up on NBC Sports (the old Versus).
I wouldn't doubt it
We were on ESPN a few years ago against Middle Tennessee St to open the season. This is a better matchup than that.
That was ESPNU.
Not exactly the same thing. I don’t doubt we could end up on the U. I just doubt we’d be on the 4 Letter or the Deuce.
Guess we'll see....
I feel like I’ve seen some crappy UNLV games on ESPN before. And Jerry Kill is a “feel good story” still in college football. So is MarQuese….being a senior and such.
Who knows. Guess my question is, how many “good games” are there on August 30th to start the season?? WV or VT against whom? ha ha ha…bastards are always on television on Thursdays. Or Central/South Floridas? I’d say I like our chances.
I feel like I’ve seen some crappy UNLV games on ESPN before.
I have no doubt. It’s just that ESPN isn’t the primary TV partner for the Mountain West anymore so their games end up there much less frequently. UNLV’s previous Thurs night games in the first week were on Versus (now NBC Sports) because of the TV deals. Those might have changed recently with the change in branding.
Guess my question is, how many "good games" are there on August 30th to start the season?
Only an handful, but when you’re talking about a non marquee matchup like Gophers/UNLV it’s prob more about contracts, timeslots, and other programming that ESPN wants to run.
This is most likely a 7pm kickoff. Which means it’s a 10pm kickoff in eastern time. If memory serves, ESPN has had their CFB games end by 10 or 11 eastern on ESPN before going to SportsCenter. I think ESPN2 has broadcast a late CFB game, but then the question becomes “quality of other options” and “how does that NBC Sports contract come into play?” And if you’re talking about a game on ESPNU in the late timeslot then you’re not talking about a huge difference in exposure compared to NBC Sports as they are equally low on the sports programming totem pole. The bonus of ESPNU is the ESPN branding, that cool U shaped Gopher logo that get’s splashed up all the time before and after commercial breaks, and more access for fans via ESPN3 if they don’t have ESPNU in their cable package.
True words
That this game is viewed by 99/100 college football fans as absolute garbage.
I’m kidding myself. This game is absolute dogshit on a national scale. We’ll be fortunate to be on television.
I'm for the move
Primarily for selfish reasons as I wasn’t going to be able to go if it were still on 9/1. Now I can.
Besides giving us an extra day for the next game...
…which matters.
Getting so angry is just absurd.
Gotta prepare
for that big matchup against New Hampshire!
This gets the program some exposure and the kids a holiday weekend. Win win in my mind.
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