It has been a long time since I last let loose and let my shoes fly. The truth and knowledge that I'm about to drop on y'all will go against what many think about our program and its position nationally. In fact, many will probably call me a crotchety old man that is devoid of happiness with all the bitching and moaning I'm about to lay out.
Doesn't matter to me, let the insults and negative comments fly, I haven't cried myself to sleep since I the day I found out Kim and Kris were getting divorced. Whether you agree with me or not know that I am presenting these opinions in hopes that something, anything will change for the positive and improve our program
#1
The "fans" in sections 133 and 134 should never be allowed at a serious sporting event again. They should be relegated to minor league baseball games and MLS soccer matches. What would prompt such a serious punishment? Simple, these "fans" were attempting to start the wave during Louisville's 8 minute fourth quarter drive. Did they care about the outcome of the game? No. They only cared about getting people to stand up and go WOOO in progression. These sections are infamous for this practice and it needs to stop while the game is being played. It is amateur and wasn't even cool back in the 80's. Stop it.
#2
Speaking of fans, ours are generally fair weathered and need to step up into big time college football if we have any hopes of seriously competing the Big 12. We are not half the fanbase we believe ourselves to be. I'm not simply talking about our fans silence for most of the game (I'll get to that below). Nope, I'm talking about giving of our money to improve our athletic staff, facilities and environment. We booted our "idiot" coach in favor of a young and talented coordinator. We have one of the best basketball coaches in the nation. Yet, rumor is our athletic department is running in the red this year. I hope it is not true, but if it is our much needed facility upgrades are not going to happen and we will lag far behind other Big 12 schools.
#3
Mountaineer Field was once a place to be feared. Whether it was a fear of trash cans to the head or the noise from the stands. Our home field advantage was among the best in college football. However, over the last few years the silence has been deafening. I thought we might regain our passion once we had an exciting and competent offense. I was wrong. Many sit on their hands and wait to be entertained by the team, rather than trying to lift up our players performance with noise. Dan Patrick would say our passion bucket does not runneth over. I think the sad fact of the matter is that our fans are one game a year fans. We show up for one big game a year and then go into hibernation for the remainder of the season. Sad state of affairs at Mountaineer Field.
#4
The inept leadership of the Big East caused the conference re-alignment we are now experiencing. I'm not only talking about the Big East losing teams. I'm talking ALL the conference re-alignment nonsense. If the Big East had allowed the football school to control their own destiny outside of the votes of our catholic brothers, the college football landscape would be much different. The shuffling of teams may have happened anyway, but the current state of re-alignment is directly attributable to the lack of leadership with the Big East offices in Providence.
#5
West Virginia University athletics has terrible student support. If you thought it was bad last year, they have taken it to a new level this season and it appears that Luck is finally going to do something about their lack of attendance at football games. He finally sold some unclaimed student tickets to the general public. They almost filed the sections 210 and 211 with only 3 days notice of tickets becoming available. If you take sections 205 and 206 away from students and open them up to MAC level donors, it will bring in more revenue. A majority of students would rather drink beer in the parking lot or sleep in, rather than support their fellow students on the football field. Awful.
#6
A majority of the writers that cover WVU athletics are the only people in the state that complain and bitch more than me. We know, y'all lost your access when Rich Rod left. That doesn't mean you need to throw stones at every decision the university makes to improve its athletics program. Don't believe that a majority think the move to the Big 12 is a bad idea for WVU? Go back and read the articles written by Dave Hickman, Mitch Vingle, Fufari and Hertzel. The only reporter covering WVU that I respect is Mike Casazza. Furfari was great back in the day, but he needs to retire as his views are outdated. Casazza's writing, analysis and style is fair, even when he is being critical of WVU. He even tries to be funny sometimes. He isn't as successful as me though. The point I am getting at is the reporters covering WVU are pushing an agenda that is anti-Luck and anti-Big 12. Why? Who knows, maybe their papers are only going to let one reporter travel to Big 12 away games. It does not matter the reason. They should be reporting stories, not creating them out of thin air.