Does anyone know how the UH Administration feels they did in terms of traffic management, parking, crowd management, and concessions? My thought is some issues were annoyances, and some were preventable. The traffic around the stadium, on a weeknight during rush hour, is predictable and definitely annoying. No amount of police will make it better. The charter buses parked on Holman was not a good idea and affected the traffic flow to the parking garage. Those buses should have parked elsewhere. That issue was preventable. The ticket scanner issue was preventable IMO.
As long as UH recognizes the opportunity to improve the fan experience, and fixes issues they can fix, that is reasonable moving forward.
Last night was the absolute worst game experience I have had as a Cougar fan. . . Yes I am old and grouchy but last night was totally mismanaged. [/quote]
Iâm also a grumpy old man, and with good reason. As my wife and I approached the gate, we were told âno stadium seats.â Hmf. They were never a problem until now. Okay, so I left them at the prohibited items trailer, then got back in a long, long line, again.
I took pictures of the game, including some fans who were sitting in their stadium seats, and no, not the ones provided by the stadium. Is the enforcement selective? Did I forget to bribe the guy checking for weapons? Did we go in the wrong gate?
The missus and I left after halftime. The line to retrieve verboten items was ridiculous, with one guy, supplemented by another off and on, it appeared, working the wagon. Iâm pretty sure I didnât leave until the end of the third quarter.
The parking situation would have better if the university would have stopped classes after 4pm so the parking situation could improve a bit for the fans coming to the game.
Having classes up until game time meant that people had to wait for some lots to clear out.
I donât think we have designated parking spots for the charter buses for the visiting team other than the football team.
Our administrators should have reached out to SFA on how many buses they were bringing in because their football team, band, cheerleaders, dance team etc all drove down.
It happened a few times during my years at UH for Thursday night games when I had a class that started at 5pm.
This was during the Keenum and Sumlin years.
Some of my professors would just tell us no class but stay up to date on the blackboard website.
I think the main difference for this Thursday game compared to many past years of Thursday games is:
This week was the first week of classes at UH Main. The year started on the 25th. UHD started last week. It was surprising to a lot of people about how LATE the school year started, for reasons unbeknownst to us.
In classes and areas that I work, when the Thursday game normally goes on in the middle of the year, classes will be cancelled and stuff will be thrown up on blackboard. We know to expect it.
In the first week? Itâs still syllabus week. Professors have to put out their information and first lectures. Labor Day Weekend comes right after. We donât want to slack off on a âstart the first week strongâ mindset.
This was a very smart move by the AD. There are students that are probably going to go home and bring everything back that they didnât do for the first week of move in. Some that are parking on campus to get the first week out of the way and get the Cougar Football experience. Professors werenât wanting to cancel class over a first week football game, and that came to the benefit of the students who had to be here anyway. 8500 students showed up. I looked up in the 2nd deck of the student section, one Iâve barely even seen populated, and it was filled to the brim.
Had it been this Saturday, nobody would have been here. Nobody would have come. It wasnât a rival, it wasnât a big game, it was an FCS team. Plus we would have had rain so a double whammy.
They told me I couldnât bring my seat in as well, I put up a fight and the lady showed me the rule on a laminated prohibited items list. The list said, no stadium seats over 18 and a half inches. My seat is 17. I kept telling him its not over 18 and a half. He finally gave up and let me bring it it. I found a couple of UH officials with lanyards and told them what happened. They wrote it down and were happy to know about it. I wasnât mean at all. I was impressed and would encourage whenever there is a problem to find those guys.
Thatâs weird, because I got out of the garage in a couple of minutes since there was no line. Of course I stayed until the end of the game and the band played our alma mater. The buses did limit it to one lane and I had to wait until the train passed, but it was not bad at all.
No problem with classes on a Thursday night as that is the primary purpose of a university. Though I did once have a professor (in undergrad) cancel a Tuesday class and the whole class (professor included) went to the basketball game against Arkansas.
Does the AD actually have any say on which days games are played or does ESPN/ABC and media have full scheduling control?