I must admit that I take App State football way to seriously. The ups and downs of football take a tremendous toll on me, and by the end of the season I'm emotionally exhausted. As the clock clicked down to zero last Thursday, I sat with my fellow mountaineers feeling every bit the agony of defeat. Starting the second half, it was still a tight game. But, the game quickly got out of reach. The majority of the fan base had already given up, leaving the stadium in a steady stream. At the end we may have had five thousand serious fans remaining, out of over eighteen thousand. I know for certain that we have a very strong football program, young with a great future. I hope that our fan base is equally as strong and will continue to mature and grow.

A loss use to ruin my week....Now it's just a game....even though I hate to lose.
We are not alone it seeing fans leave when they get whipped at home. It's the rare school that has a fan base that will stay to a bitter end. I've even seen the rabid USC fans leave early in Willams Brice.

I completely agree with you. I also, take this game way to serious and find myself emotionally exhausted toward the end of the season.

Personally, I think we have a very unique opportunity to grow our fan base over the next 5-10 years. From a university standpoint, this needs to be taken very seriously and everything regarding our athletics department needs to be orchestrated perfectly. It all starts with our future schedule (which we seem to be doing a fine job at). Our marketing and game day events need to be fine tuned. We need to reinstate tradition into all of our fans and help create new ones. That being said, if executed correctly; it will be fun to watch our fans and culture continue to grow over the next decade.

Lets all continue to support this team. The more we talk (positively), the more excitement will surround this team and hopefully the more people will come. As much traffic as this site gets, we could even start a campaign to keep peoples butts in the seats until the clock hits 0:00 (or at least next year).

The one thing I hope we as a fan base never do is to fall into the "delusional fan base list". We all know who they are. For a long while I had Clemson on that list. They seemed to live for decades off of the 1982 NC. A record of 8-3 (when 11 games were played) or 9-3 (with 12) never seemed good enough. Texas, Nebraska, NC State in hoops are on the list. They had success in the past and seem to think it will last forever. There are only a few schools in football who never seem to fall off the map. There are many more who never even come close to sniffing success. Our NC run in FCS was awesome. We have the makings of a formidable program for years to come. How far we can go every year remains to be seen. We need to guard against falling into the delusional pool by thinking we are just going to win the Sunbelt every year, move to a better conference immediately, challenge for the New Year's Day bowl, etc. I admit I am in the group who loved the New Year's Day bowl discussion even though I knew the chances were slim to none. I still love the fact that we are playing big boy football. We sometimes forget that programs like Ark State still recruit the same type of players that we do and land big, strong kids just like we do. Even though the Sunbelt stinks as a whole there are still a couple of programs that are not rolling over and playing dead. We are way ahead of schedule IMO but still have a ways to go. We have seen that a lack of O-line depth is killer. While an 11-1 record would have been awesome I still think we have the goods to take the last 3 games and go 10-2. Let's keep things in proper perspective. Like the old saying goes, "you can't win them all". Sometimes the other team just whips your butt. I have twin boys who play at a high level of baseball. Sometimes their competitiveness causes them to criticize the play of their teammates (not to them but to me). I have to remind them that the other kid might really being doing the best that he can and that often times it just doesn't go right. I would like to think that last Thursday our boys did the best that they could but just got whipped.

I think 7 or more wins per year with 8+ wins being the norm and a bowl win 2 out of every 3 years is a good goal and would satisfy me. Any season without a bowl invite would be disappointing.

In the long run anything without a Bowl Bid would be disappointing because of how weak over all the Sun Belt is.

Let's see...hopefully 10-2 or at least 9-3 in FBS football. Votes in the top 25. We played the #1 team in the country and didn't embarrass ourselves. Play hopefully Miami at home next year and Wake Forest the year after. Going to bowl games. Opportunity to move up in the future if we can continue to win. I think this beats the tar out of the Southern Conference or does anyone really relish playing VMI, ETSU, Mercer and Western? I like where we are moving and Rome wasn't built in a day.

As much as that loss hurt the fans, we need to remember how much it hurt the players. Check out the locker-room scene at the end of this week's RISE video.

And whoever is heading up the RISE video episodes (Kelsey Sharkey?) is doing a fantastic job. I much prefer it to the normal coach's football shows, during which the coach spends 15 minutes answering questions that are so banal and predictable that you really don't even care about the answers.

And we will be ready for Idaho.

http://m.gastongazette.com/article/2015 ... /151108932

Nice article about a couple local Apps. An interesting tidbit near the end. 28 teams have made the FCS to FBS jump since 1978. Only 6 have winning records. It is not easy and our (and GaSo) early success is a testament to the kind of program we have built. We have every reason to be excited about the future.

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Appsolutely wrote: And whoever is heading up the RISE video episodes (Kelsey Sharkey?) is doing a fantastic job. I much prefer it to the normal coach's football shows, during which the coach spends 15 minutes answering questions that are so banal and predictable that you really don't even care about the answers.

Yes to this. I have loved the football show this season.

appgrunt71 wrote:I must admit that I take App State football way to seriously. The ups and downs of football take a tremendous toll on me, and by the end of the season I'm emotionally exhausted. As the clock clicked down to zero last Thursday, I sat with my fellow mountaineers feeling every bit the agony of defeat. Starting the second half, it was still a tight game. But, the game quickly got out of reach. The majority of the fan base had already given up, leaving the stadium in a steady stream. At the end we may have had five thousand serious fans remaining, out of over eighteen thousand. I know for certain that we have a very strong football program, young with a great future. I hope that our fan base is equally as strong and will continue to mature and grow.

I could have written this post myself. Go Apps!

Yes, it's Sharkey who edits the RISE series and it's fantastic. Not perfect, which they would admit, but very well done.

If you haven't seen them, go to appstatesports.com and watch them. The Georgia Southern week one is really good and you'll love Satterfield even more than before.

As for Mountaineer Talk, yes Satt says a whole lot of cliches, but given the stupid things other college coaches are saying that gets them in trouble, you realize that Satt has a good head on his shoulders. I'd rather he be boring and winning rather than interesting and losing.