Somewhat adjacent topic -- On the prospect of playing more NIGHT games in the future, regardless of where we end up... I know it sucks for the game day experience, hurts turnout, and also sucks for us on the east coast with some of those games ending at 2am.. But, a major pet peeve of mine has always been with the fact that our team's si…
Somewhat adjacent topic -- On the prospect of playing more NIGHT games in the future, regardless of where we end up... I know it sucks for the game day experience, hurts turnout, and also sucks for us on the east coast with some of those games ending at 2am.. But, a major pet peeve of mine has always been with the fact that our team's sideline is on the east side of the stadium, where our coaches and players stand with the blazing sun in their faces all game, while the visiting team stands comfortably in the shade. My gut tells me this has a detrimental effect, though no coach or player would likely admit it..
So -- I doubt the data is readily available, but it would be interesting to see if we're statistically better during night games using various measures.
Okay, here's how you solve that - move the student section(s) to one of the two end zones or at least far enough north or south on the east side so that the visiting team is not in front of the student section(s). Seriously, it's a requirement.
This is why Cal Memorial's configuration is an outlier among college football stadia - the students have seats at midfield. And this is possible because they are in back of the home team.
Somewhat adjacent topic -- On the prospect of playing more NIGHT games in the future, regardless of where we end up... I know it sucks for the game day experience, hurts turnout, and also sucks for us on the east coast with some of those games ending at 2am.. But, a major pet peeve of mine has always been with the fact that our team's sideline is on the east side of the stadium, where our coaches and players stand with the blazing sun in their faces all game, while the visiting team stands comfortably in the shade. My gut tells me this has a detrimental effect, though no coach or player would likely admit it..
So -- I doubt the data is readily available, but it would be interesting to see if we're statistically better during night games using various measures.
Okay, here's how you solve that - move the student section(s) to one of the two end zones or at least far enough north or south on the east side so that the visiting team is not in front of the student section(s). Seriously, it's a requirement.
This is why Cal Memorial's configuration is an outlier among college football stadia - the students have seats at midfield. And this is possible because they are in back of the home team.
One could almost as easily hypothesize that the sunny side helps keep those athletes on that side stay warmed up and toned for the game.