(04-24-2014 08:06 AM)KnightLight Wrote:  

(04-23-2014 03:05 PM)Knightshift Wrote:  

(04-01-2014 09:53 PM)frenchbeef Wrote:  

(04-01-2014 09:46 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  BTW, my opinion having gone to each kind of stadium all over the country: Playing in on campus stadium owned by your university is the best over any of the other possibilities. If you're a student or alum it's your stadium. Seems like more energy, more of the college lifestyle/culture with all of the school's traditions/fight songs/band etc. Pictures or paintings of your school's legends from years past can be seen everywhere. The concessions have relevant cultural food that's named to coincide with the school and mascot etc. I've been to football stadiums for games where the "home-team" was playing in someone else s stadium (usually the NFL) and it seemed odd to see mascots and imagines all over that weren't related to the home team. Thought it took away from "the home field advantage" a bit. There's many more differences but hope that's a start for you. Does that info help a little?

Absolutely! I appreciate you providing your input. I have only been to a few stadiums and they're Samford University, UAB, Alabama, and UCF. UAB's is the only one that doesn't have a "home-field" advantage element to it (and not only because attendance is ridiculously low). I'd rather have Samford's small stadium that's located on campus because it's at least there stadium and something for alumni to be proud of.

I have always been very sympathetic to UAB's situation. I'm not even a UAB fan, and to me it's infuriating how UAT does everything possible to prevent your program from growing even an inch. That Board of Regents (or whatever it's called in AL) sounds like nothing but pure corruption.

But I'll back up what the other poster said about UCF. Building Bright House Networks Stadium transformed our athletic program in every possible way. In the Citrus Bowl days, it was an atypically good day to see a crowd over 30K for an average game. Since moving on campus to BHNS, I think we've had just 4 games that dipped under 30K (three were Thanksgiving weekend games in bad seasons, the other was a horrendous rain storm game against Marshall).

People can chuckle about "The Wok" all they want, and the thing is certainly a bare-bones stadium. But the effect that it's had is immeasurable. But, UCF also had built an entire Athletic Village at the same time, which included the CFE Arena that opened a couple months after BHNS, dorm towers, and retail stores. That was a big part of the transformation as well.

Slight correction.

UCF Arena (now CFE Arena) opened to the public on Sunday, Sept 9, 2007 while BHNS opened up just 6 days later on Saturday, Sept 15, 2007.

UCF was the only school in over 70 years to build a good size on-campus stadium and a good size on-campus arena at the very same time...and the only one to have them open up to the public in the very same week.

That feat alone was an amazing accomplishment for UCF, as UCF was entering just its 3 season in CUSA, had never won a football conf championship (now has 3), never won a bowl game (now has 3) and obviously never played a Div II, Div I-AA or obviously not even a Div I-A football game on campus before.

Yeah, the Nevada game was the first thing that popped into my head, but of course it was open well before that. I attended the pep rally in there in the hours before the Texas game, after all.