Coal Bowl 1 of 7 games...

[Clarkbar225]

ANNOUNCED ATTENDANCE? What an idiot you are Clarkbar. I bet (A case of Captain Morgan) there will not be 27K asses in The Joan on Sept. 3. NOT announced attendance since anyone that buys a ticket is CONSIDERED present. You are one stupid person!

HerdZilla22 in Charlotte

What other method is there to count attendance, Gary's Weeney? Would you like to hand count every fan yourself? Hate to break it to you, but announced attendance is the official record used for box scores - turnstile numbers went away 20 some years ago.

You're a coward, all talk and nothing to back it up. Too chicken sh*t to accept a ban bet because you know you will be wrong, as usual. Enjoy your case of rum, 6-teamer.

Clarkzilla225 pissing off Gary's Weeney in Huntington

 

[Greenbloodedstill]

Fortunately, football is coming soon. Practice is already beginning in the pros. For now, we can follow the exploits of Cato in Montreal ( a great town with many fine restaurants). If we can just last through July we will have something to write about.

 

[Clarkbar225]

ANNOUNCED ATTENDANCE? What an idiot you are Clarkbar. I bet (A case of Captain Morgan) there will not be 27K asses in The Joan on Sept. 3. NOT announced attendance since anyone that buys a ticket is CONSIDERED present. You are one stupid person!

HerdZilla22 in Charlotte

Bump for 30K tickets SOLD for the Purdue game.

Herdzilla = wrong again in Charlotte. Good thing you dodged the ban bet, Gary.

 

[GreenDuke]

Perhaps you should review the history behind Va Tech's invitation to the ACC b4 you spread rose petals around UVA's vote to include them.

USA strongly opposed the membership of Va Tech to the ACC until strong armed by the Gov. The only "thoughtful" process was facing the reality of state budget cuts unless they changed their position.

This is correct.

 

[bbneutralfan]

Forget all the talk. Let's just play. Marshall does not need Norfolk State and West Virginia does not need Liberty. Fans could give a flip about games like that on either schedule but both schools sure put fannies in the seats to see MU vs WVU.

 

[CT Mountaineer]

Well, I can vouch for one thing. Herdzilla is a man of his word. If he makes the bet, he lives with the results.

Next time I'm in Charlotte I'd like to have a couple beers with him and chat. Gary is a good man, regardless of the athletic teams he supports.

 

[bklyneer]

Sooo.... a couple of things that I hope wont cause a fight;

1) I am an eer fan first as that is where I am alum of and currently employed by
2) I am also a BIG Herd fan as I do a lot of work with MU faculty and they are also a representative of the state that I love and have adopted as my home
3) I also wish this game were played on a yearly basis
4) However, (and here is where the name calling will start) there is absolutely no way that WVU should agree to this as a 1-1 series. While I would rather see WVU vs Marshall then Geo Southern or Liberty, both of these games are 1 and done and give WVU an extra home game and about an extra 2 mill per year (like it or not that is just finances)
5) I have never bought into the "its good for the state economy" argument for the obvious reason of it is better to have 2 home games with people from out of state traveling here and spending their money then 1 home game that is only supported by WV money (again, you don't have to like it but it is just finances)
6) While I have never liked the "its good for the state economy" argument, I also find it a disingenuous because nobody who believes this would like the idea of playing all of those games in Morgantown even though you would have at least 15k more people at each game as opposed to playing in Huntington (I am certainly not advocating for this just pointing out the hipocracy of the argument).
7) The neutral site game argument is a ridiculous one because WVU gets paid just as much for them as they do a home game... without all the clean-up and mess.

I think both of my 2 favorite teams will have great seasons this year. Marshall has a real shot at going undefeated and playing in an even better bowl this year as we will continue to gain respect nationally. I also think that WVU has turned an important corner and will go 8-4 and go into next year as one of the favorites to compete for the B12(-2) title.

 

[CT Mountaineer]

Sooo.... a couple of things that I hope wont cause a fight;

1) I am an eer fan first as that is where I am alum of and currently employed by
2) I am also a BIG Herd fan as I do a lot of work with MU faculty and they are also a representative of the state that I love and have adopted as my home
3) I also wish this game were played on a yearly basis
4) However, (and here is where the name calling will start) there is absolutely no way that WVU should agree to this as a 1-1 series. While I would rather see WVU vs Marshall then Geo Southern or Liberty, both of these games are 1 and done and give WVU an extra home game and about an extra 2 mill per year (like it or not that is just finances)
5) I have never bought into the "its good for the state economy" argument for the obvious reason of it is better to have 2 home games with people from out of state traveling here and spending their money then 1 home game that is only supported by WV money (again, you don't have to like it but it is just finances)
6) While I have never liked the "its good for the state economy" argument, I also find it a disingenuous because nobody who believes this would like the idea of playing all of those games in Morgantown even though you would have at least 15k more people at each game as opposed to playing in Huntington (I am certainly not advocating for this just pointing out the hipocracy of the argument).
7) The neutral site game argument is a ridiculous one because WVU gets paid just as much for them as they do a home game... without all the clean-up and mess.

I think both of my 2 favorite teams will have great seasons this year. Marshall has a real shot at going undefeated and playing in an even better bowl this year as we will continue to gain respect nationally. I also think that WVU has turned an important corner and will go 8-4 and go into next year as one of the favorites to compete for the B12(-2) title.

Your opinion is as good as any other, but I will point out that while there are some Mountaineer fans such as yourself who would like to see a series played, there are far more of them who want nothing to do with it. You said yourself that you are a BIG Herd fan. Interest in the game is mostly restricted to Herd fans and a portion of Mountaineer fans living in the Kanawha Valley area. If the last series game is any indication, even Marshall fans don't support it much because fewer than 3,000 of them showed up to see the game.

You surely are also aware that from Sutton north, most people in West Virginia barely know Marshall exists, and to out of state Mountaineer fans it is just another word. To those folks, playing Georgia Southern is actually preferable, and although both GA Southern and Marshall are teams filled with non qualifiers, GA Southern might actually have the better team. Getting this series on track again would be a major project, and I don't believe WVU would ever agree to play in Huntington again, and certainly never for less than 2 for 1 with the 2 in Morgantown. That's the only way a series makes any sense at all financially for WVU. Just my opinion.

 

[WV_Celt]

I know you want to believe that, and there is some truth to what you are saying. There is no question that WV must spend money to compete in terms of facilities with the larger programs we are playing these days, and it is doing that as you pointed out. What you are missing is the income differential that is paying for those facility improvements. They are not running around helter skelter spending money... they are spending money guaranteed from future media income and donated funds. Last year alone someone donated $25 million.

You probably haven't been to Morgantown in recent years, so you would have no way to know what's happening around here, but we have one of the best economies in the country and are highly ranked by Forbes and other publications for economic growth. Our state is poor, that's true, but Mon County is not with a University employing 7,000 people, healthcare facilities employing 8,000 people, several federal facilities and research organizations employing thousands, a major pharmaceutical company and so forth. There is growth and construction everywhere you look here.
I'm not saying we are as rich as Austin, Texas, but Morgantown is definitely an up and coming city.

I have to be honest here too... our city is doing very well in spite of having a city government that is stuck in the stone ages and totally lacks vision. Other factors are driving the growth. I would love to trade our city council for the one in Huntington and borrow Huntington's mayor. He has great vision, and I don't think you will find anybody who has done more with what he has to work with. He is definitely a winner.

One other thing I want to mention. WV's fan base is not restricted to our state. If you look at the media maps, you will see that the western half of Maryland is primarily Mountaineer fans in terms of television audience, and in PA, only Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) itself has as many Pitt fans as West Virginia fans. WV dominates the media in Greene, Washington, and the bottom half of Fayette counties in PA. There is even a county in Virginia that has more WV fans than any other school. Our media ratings are about #32 in the country... not too bad for a school from a small, poor state.

As to not being able to compete with the big boys... I will just point to the 3 BCS bowl wins in recent history... Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange. WV alone has almost as many BCS wins as the entire ACC combined. Losing seasons are few and far between here, regardless of the opponents we are playing. Will we win as many as in the Big East? Not likely. The XII overall has better competition. Right now our attendance situation, as much as anything, is being hurt by the economic situation in the southern part of our state. Many of our southern fans are having trouble making games due to layoffs in the mines there, and we don't have any $10 tickets here. The absolute minimum for a season ticket is $395, and the vast majority of seats require a donation of at least $100.

Morgantown, doing well? Are you f*cking kidding? All of the employees you just mentioned live outside of Morgantown. The jobs outside of those in WVU (that includes Ruby) are mostly service industry and part time work. Housing in the town is quickly becoming student housing, apartment complexes, and hovels in and around South Park. And I know of which I speak, as I lived in Morgantown for 29 years and finally got out this past June. Have fun cramming 60k people into a town set up for no more than 20k.

 

[CT Mountaineer]

Morgantown, doing well? Are you f*cking kidding? All of the employees you just mentioned live outside of Morgantown. The jobs outside of those in WVU (that includes Ruby) are mostly service industry and part time work. Housing in the town is quickly becoming student housing, apartment complexes, and hovels in and around South Park. And I know of which I speak, as I lived in Morgantown for 29 years and finally got out this past June. Have fun cramming 60k people into a town set up for no more than 20k.

One needs to differentiate between the notion that everything related to Morgantown happens within the city limits, and the fact that the Morgantown area is thriving and prosperous. The city limits are just 10 square miles... maybe 1/3 that of Huntington, but there are at least as many bodies in those 10 square miles most of the year. A more telling statistic is the one that shows the population of Monongalia County as having surpassed that of Cabell County (and that is just permanent residents... not counting students), and economic activity in Mon is considerably more than in Cabell. Most of the development here (as you are likely aware) is taking place outside the city limits but in proximity thereof.

There are a lot of service and part time jobs in the city limits. The city is home to a large university. That does not despell the fact that Mylan pays great wages for their 1,400 employees, or the many healthcare service jobs you mention generally pay very well. Like Huntington, South Park has some lovely historic homes. The student slums of past eras will start to evaporate now since owners will not be able to compete with the amenities of the new student housing projects springing up everywhere... as you mentioned.

Aside from maybe Shepherdstown, there isn't a city in our state that wouldn't do anything to change places with Morgantown economically, and there is every indication that trend will continue.

 

[Walter Brennaneer]

Sporting News says should be played every year.

Seven Games That Should Be Played Every Year

Agree

 

[WV_Celt]

I wasn't comparing Morgantown to Huntington, or Monongalia County to Cabell County. I was simply talking about Morgantown. Nor did I say anything about health care service. I said service industry, you know, retail and food?

 

[CT Mountaineer]

Agree

Sporting News is full of crap, and they don't make schedules for colleges. They spin stories, often
designed to create controversy. However, in the highly unlikely event that the publishers of
Sporting News want to step to the plate and offer WVU a couple million per year to schedule that
game, I have no doubt that somebody at WVU would at least take a look at it. The days are gone of the old Pruett animosity stuff and they tend to look to the bottom line and recruiting venues for schedules.
Bobby came up here and apologized, and many folks took him seriously. I am one of them. I like Bobby Pruett. So does Don Nehlen.

 

[CT Mountaineer]

I wasn't comparing Morgantown to Huntington, or Monongalia County to Cabell County. I was simply talking about Morgantown. Nor did I say anything about health care service. I said service industry, you know, retail and food?

As I said, there are lots of service industry jobs in Morgantown. Nobody will dispute that. There aren't many manufacturing jobs left anyplace in our country since the elitists who control both major political parties moved them to cheap labor countries. There are some in Morgantown, and most of them pay well, but there are a lot of service jobs filled largely by thousands of college students. You're going to find that in most college towns.

The primary money industries in Morgantown are medical, pharmaceutical manufacturing, mining equipment manufacturing, and research organizations. There are also many Federal Government workers at the Dept. of Agriculture and in the prison system. Morgantown has had one of the lowest unemployment rates in our state for several years now. Only Martinsburg sometimes challenges it in that regard.

 

[CT Mountaineer]

Forget all the talk. Let's just play. Marshall does not need Norfolk State and West Virginia does not need Liberty. Fans could give a flip about games like that on either schedule but both schools sure put fannies in the seats to see MU vs WVU.

The truth is, the last time Marshall played WVU they sold 3,000 tickets and held on to the rest of them until just 5 days before the game, then sent them overnight to Morgantown. In the 4 remaining days, WVU did not have an adequate opportunity to market those remaining 2,000 tickets and many of them went unsold. The visitors corner in Puskar was maybe 80% full and many of those folks wore gold and blue.

WVU would sell 40,000 tickets to a game played any place in West Virginia. That means if they schedule a game in Huntington, not only do they have to make do with less income and give up a sure home game with the millions attached to it, they also have the 30,000 Mountaineer fans who couldn't get a ticket because every Marshall fan for 500 miles would actually show and pay the full price for a college ticket instead of the usual $10 for a Marshall home game, and the Herd would put 25,000 butts in the seats themselves. That is a no go situation for WVU.

If you think about it, you can understand why it is actually better for WVU to schedule Liberty for a game in Morgantown 1 and done. It's better for the City of Morgantown too, and the school feels an obligation to support the city that provides so much support to them throughout the year in all sports.

 

[banker6796]

It amazes me that you repeatedly bring up the topic of WVU's attendance when MU's attendance history is somewhat less than stellar, to say the least. Even in the "craptastic" 1990s, WVU had more sellouts than MU. Here is a little chart that compares WVU's annual attendance with MU's since MU moved up to Div 1-A:
Ave attendance, % capacity

WVU MU
1997 52,854 83.2 26,397 88.0
1998 54,136 85.3 24,788 82.6
1999 45,562 71.8 28,673 95.6
2000 51,993 81.9 27,884 73.3
2001 48,323 76.1 25,455 67.0
2002 52,413 82.5 27,789 73.1
2003 52,205 82.2 27,837 73.2
2004 56,545 94.2 25,933 68.2
2005 56,287 93.8 26,510 69.7
2006 58,773 98.0 25,910 68.2
2007 60,400 100.7 30,020 79.0
2008 58,085 96.8 24,766 65.1
2009 57,317 95.5 22,236 58.5
2010 56,325 93.9 27,046 71.1
2011 56,532 94.2 25,874 68.1
2012 55,916 93.2 24,896 65.5
2013 52,910 88.2 25,023 65.8
2014 56,686 94.5 27,461 72.2
Ave 54,626 89.2 26,361 72.5

I hate to point this out to you, but your post supports what you are being told. You drew more fans in the watered down Big East than you did in the real Big East and your attendance has declined since joining the Big 12 where your fans get the opportunity to see a solid slate of big time programs come to the Puss.

In other words, your fans come out much stronger when you are winning. Something you have only done consistently in the watered down Big East. As the losing continues in the Big 12 you are headed to a return of a 50,000 average being a good year. To offset this they will continue to raise ticket prices, which will further hurt attendance given the number of Walmart fans who can barely afford tickets now.

 

[banker6796]

So CT, the school feels the obligation to support Morgantown? Is that why they are signing neutral site games at a rapid pace, like the one with a FCS team?

 

[CT Mountaineer]

So CT, the school feels the obligation to support Morgantown? Is that why they are signing neutral site games at a rapid pace, like the one with a FCS team?

The obligation is not to Morgantown per se. The first responsibility of the Athletic Program is to maximize income and exposure. The responsibility to the city goes along with playing AA and mid major teams only there for all of those factors... income, exposure, fans, and the city that is home to the school.

Those neutral site games pay at least as much as they would pay if the game were played in Morgantown, and they take place in areas where the school wants to have a recruiting presence, both in terms of athletics and students. They are also against high profile teams so there is great publicity that goes along with that.

Playing the mid majors and AA teams only in Morgantown maintains the revenue stream for the school and supports the city as well. Playing any of those games in other venues invariably results in a reduced revenue stream, and in the case of playing a game in Huntington it would mean that many Mountaineer fans who otherwise would be able to get seats for a game in Morgantown would not be able to secure a seat. The Athletic Program has a responsibility to its fans, not to the City of Huntington. That's nothing against Huntington... they have their own athletic program supporting them there.

My opinion is that in the future there will be few games scheduled against mid majors or AA teams for any program serious about wanting to be a contender because strength of schedule is an important consideration for playoff consideration. Teams that are playing one or two such programs now will likely find themselves playing none or one, and only programs that have little fan support like Pitt or Purdue will be scheduling any of those games out of their home stadiums. They don't have as much to lose.

 

[ThatNehlenFeelin]

Donald Trump said he would close Marshall on Day 1. Effectively clinching the State of West Virginia.

 

[CT Mountaineer]

Donald Trump said he would close Marshall on Day 1. Effectively clinching the State of West Virginia.

LOL ... Yep, that would pretty much do it.

 

[MichiganHerd]

CT, you should go over to the smack board (TITM). All of your old buddies from the past are there. You have the unprecedented ability to annoy other posters better than anyone else.

 

[CT Mountaineer]

CT, you should go over to the smack board (TITM). All of your old buddies from the past are there. You have the unprecedented ability to annoy other posters better than anyone else.

Thanks for the compliment, but it just seems to come naturally when I'm talking to Herd fans so I don't need any help. LOL

 

[VaultHunter]

Georgia > Georgia Southern

Ohio State > Ohio

Texas > North Texas

North Carolina > Charlotte

West Virginia > Marshall

Marshall fans can quote numbers and stats all they want. Marshall fans can predict costs and losses all they want. Marshall fans can even argue why they are better than WVU all they want (you should because Marshall is your team.)

But just like the few examples above ( and there are many many more than that out there) Marshall is and always will be second best in the state of West Virginia.

Know your role and embrace it Herd. Its never gonna change and if it bothers you that bad find another team. You don't compare in budget , you don't compare in popularity, you don't compare in success. You just don't compare. No I don't want to play Marshall and I don't care if WVU does. Stop worrying about WVU and worry about Marshall. And if I was a Marshall fan I would be very worried.......

 

[VaultHunter]

You guys are this bad and have never beaten WVU in football. God I cant imagine how bad you would be if you had won only once.

 

[joeyb184]

Stop worrying about wvu... yet these comments are made on herdnation.... lol we aren't playing this year and didn'tplay recently so why are you guys even here? Who is worried about who?

Georgia > Georgia Southern

Ohio State > Ohio

Texas > North Texas

North Carolina > Charlotte

West Virginia > Marshall

Marshall fans can quote numbers and stats all they want. Marshall fans can predict costs and losses all they want. Marshall fans can even argue why they are better than WVU all they want (you should because Marshall is your team.)

But just like the few examples above ( and there are many many more than that out there) Marshall is and always will be second best in the state of West Virginia.

Know your role and embrace it Herd. Its never gonna change and if it bothers you that bad find another team. You don't compare in budget , you don't compare in popularity, you don't compare in success. You just don't compare. No I don't want to play Marshall and I don't care if WVU does. Stop worrying about WVU and worry about Marshall. And if I was a Marshall fan I would be very worried.......

 

[ThatNehlenFeelin]

So Purdue(who is one of the worst Big10 teams in history) is billed as one of the biggest games in the Joan's history? Lol says something about MU's 'program'