[OT] Yale @ Cornell 9/25

[Robb]

[Q]Scott Kominkiewicz Wrote:

 How was the size of the crowd?  I know that Cornell was pushing for a sellout.[/q]

Where "sellout" is defined as getting rid of all the tickets...  My parents said that among other ways they were getting rid of tickets, the cops had set up some roadblocks coming on to campus, and anyone who was wearing a seatbelt got a free ticket to the game.  Those who were not wearing their seatbelts got a different sort of ticket!

[peterg]

It was a great day to root for the Big Red.  Cornell physically dominated Yale and not too many people expected that.  Yale was shut out in the second half and, after scoring quickly at the end of the first half to cut the lead to 2 points, the second half shutout tells how well Cornell played.  The team - coaches and players - did a great job of preparation and execution.  One penalty, I believe, and no turnovers for Cornell (THAT's a lot different from last year), and we held Yale to around 180 yards of total offense.

Great job Cornell!

[Liz \'05]

While I'm whole-heartedly happy that Cornell got its first win in a LONG time, I wouldn't say that either team was very good today.  In fact, Yale was awful (and I've watched some pretty bad Yale teams in the past 20 years).  They were falling apart at the seams today, as the many Yalies sitting around me were commenting, with shoddy and holey defense and very little, pathetic offense.  Having seen Yale play at least once a year for the past few years and season tickets before that, I have a hard time believing we saw the best of them today.  I'm willing to give a lot of credit to Cornell for preventing Yale from getting its first first down until the second quarter and interfering with both their passing and running games, but we couldn't complete FOUR drives from within 20 yds.  It should've been a blowout for the amount of yards we gained, and it wasn't.  There were a few instances (especially around the end zones) where my dad made the comment that Cornell's plays clearly weren't helping, were obviously losing ground, and perhaps should be improvised if they weren't going to work.  There's still a lot of work to be done.
On the other hand, the Cornell players seemed to love the crowd presence today - Kitlowski (#5) in particular was on the field getting the crowd on their feet and cheering.  They've made a vast improvement from last year's Yale game (Yale's 40something to Cornell's single digits) and seem to have an optimistic attitude about the season.
I hope we'll be winning a lot of games this season, but for now, I'm content with having beaten Yale. :-D

[Greg Berge]

Last year's loss at Yale was "only" 21-7.  However, that still represents a net 26 point improvement.  If they were to repeat that over the rest of the Ivy schedule (to take a wild premise), they would finish 5-2.

[mjh89]

what does nm mean, i always see it but I never know what it means?

[Greg Berge]

"No message" (just the subject line).

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]mjh89 Wrote:

 what does nm mean, i always see it but I never know what it means?[/q]
"nm" stands for "no message."  That is, the posting has a headline that gives the message, and there's no need for clicking on the link in order to read it.  Of course, it will still be flagged as "New" forever and ever, unless you are still avoiding use of the "threaded view."

[Liz \'05]

edit: In 2001 Yale beat Cornell 40-13 (the game I was thinking of), in 2002 it was 50-23, in 2003 it was, as Greg says, 21-7.  I'm apparently no good at remembering what year games were played in.

[jtwcornell91]

[Q]Al DeFlorio Wrote:

"nm" stands for "no message."  That is, the posting has a headline that gives the message, and there's no need for clicking on the link in order to read it.  Of course, it will still be flagged as "New" forever and ever, unless you are still avoiding use of the "threaded view."[/q]

That's what "mark all messages read" is for.

[Josh '99]

[Q]mjh89 Wrote:what does nm mean, i always see it but I never know what it means?[/q]"nm" can also mean "never mind", but it didn't really make sense in this context.

[billhoward]

An average home game at Cornell draws what, 5,000 fans? My understanding is that across America, undergrads have much less interest in football than a generation ago. At big football schools, when it's a 50,000- or 80,000-sellout, that's 5,000 students and a whole lot of fans and alumni.

[Tub(a)]

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

 An average home game at Cornell draws what, 5,000 fans? My understanding is that across America, undergrads have much less interest in football than a generation ago. At big football schools, when it's a 50,000- or 80,000-sellout, that's 5,000 students and a whole lot of fans and alumni. [/q]

It has a lot more to do with big programs making money by limiting the low income student tickets and increasing "alumni donation" seats. I read an article recently about how much tickets are at various football schools, and I was stunned. There are only 5,000 students because of the athletics department pricing them out of the market.

[billhoward]

[Q]Tub(a) Wrote: /Q]
It has a lot more to do with big programs making money by limiting the low income student tickets and increasing "alumni donation" seats. I read an article recently about how much tickets are at various football schools, and I was stunned. There are only 5,000 students because of the athletics department pricing them out of the market.[/q]

We've got different information or different beliefs. What I heard wasn't a pricing issue. It was that students to a greater degree than a generation ago just aren't that interested in Saturday afternoon football. I'm not talking Cornell or Wisconsin hockey or Duke basketball, I'm talking Ohio State or Texas football. But when you see the rows and rows of exercise bikes at Teagle hall, I'm not sure that it's such a bad thing if students have swapped watching sports for taking part in sports and staying fit. I got just as much (well, almost as  much) excitement out of pickup hockey at Lynah at midnight as watching the Big Red roll over Colgate four hours earlier. Me personally, I wanted to do both.

Somebody who's been a grad student at a big time school help out here: Aren't student tickets priced lower than general admission tickets and by quite a bit? At Ohio State, I believe students pay $100 for five home games and the public pays about $50 a ticket for each game. I don't know how individual games are handled or what happens if you manage to get a date for one game, but I'm assuming there's a ticket exchange that works those things out. $20 isn't free but it is 60% off list

If the athletic department limited student access to games, I couldn't imagine that alumni wouldn't notice the absence of students. I suspect no one from the class of '84 scans the stands with binoculars looking at the snug sweaters of the trustees' wives.

[KeithK]

Here's one quick data point from MSU: student season tickets for football are $99 compared with $228 for the public.  That's a 57% discount and under $17 per game.

[ninian '72]

Things have changed a bit since I was a grad at Michigan, and the system they have now seems pretty reasonable.  Even with a stadium capacity of 105K, they have a waiting list for season tickets.  However, they don't cap the number of student season tickets, which are priced at 1/2 the cost for non-students.  Students present their tickets at the game with an ID, or they can pass their tickets on to non-students if they purchase a $27 validation sticker for each ticket, which I assume is the difference between student and public prices.  This eliminates the black market in student tickets that existed when I was there.  Seems an effective way to maximize their income without shutting any students out.