The stadium was a full as I've ever seen it but the crowd thinned out significantly beginning late in the third quarter. I'd say 40% or more were gone the mid 4th quarter. It was a long game and it was getting late. We need the 7 pm starts in September though and the east side doesn't get fried alive. Heck, the forecast is for another triple digit or two next week.

UC Davis Health Stadium is a relaxing and beautiful place to watch a game with the fam.

Plough has made the point twice now in press conferences that our crowd is not making things hard for our opponents.
That was the most silent 14,500 people I've ever experienced. If I'm a visiting player I'm LOVING it.

This is definitely a Davis culture thing (and a California thing at large- the students at Cal didn't have a clue either for what its worth)...6,000-7,000 students in attendance that don't understand football (or care about it).

This can be changed with rallies and orientation activities, but damn, the silence is DEAFENING.

How does the UC Davis Band compare to the Band-Uh?

How are the student leaders this year?

Band feels smaller....but school hasn't started, so? I feel Band-uh was higher energy. The musicianship has always been great, and I've always loved the Band-Uh/Band.

As far as yell leaders, I couldn't hear one in the student section, but I wasn't close during game action. The students made no noise on defense and knew no cheers. Brace yourselves my fellow alums, but we were dead-silent as well.

All fixable stuff....some years have been better than others. I'm pretty convinced there's no science to the thing....

A few times when I belt out "Let's go Ags!" I'll get funny looks from the wine and cheese crowd.

In the crowd’s defense, a couple TDS early might have kept the crowd noise level up!

As a former Band-uh member from way back and from only gathering from what I can hear on radio tv, the band-uh was much better for game experience. Constant cheering and yells and energy. We went to all away games and were the primary cheer section at those (of - Far Western Conference if anyone embers). We were small in number but could play pretty dang loud. BTW, our uniforms were much classier and better. Satin back with CA for color flashes. What is with the new weird blue color?

What I see now on tv is sort of like a social event in which the game is secondary (both students and band). It is certainly a California cultural thing that hurts the game experience and the home team. I don’t see how that is going to markedly change.

I was in the Band-UH during the transition from Toomey to Aggie Stadium. Something was definitely lost moving the Aggie Pack from the north end zone to the 50 yard line. From a band perspective the Stud and AP leaders were at a right angle to each other at Toomey and could communicate timing visually. It’s hard to see what each other is doing now. Added in, from the beginning athletics wanted Aggie Stadium to be “big time” with canned music, video board clips, etc. but it was hard to get timing right between groups on headsets and it seems 17 years in, the production quality is still not great with the ref mic not even working consistently.

One of the stated goals of the UCD(u)MB is to “limit” the amount of time band members spend together so that it is an organized activity but resists becoming a community or extended family, as a strategy to manage conflict. Whether good or bad strategy I think it’s why you see the flat energy. The university has been showering money on the new band for uniforms, instruments, and staff but some things can’t be bought and from what I hear, interest has waned. They haven’t been able to cobble together the minimum number of members to play Aggie Fight in some cases and, while Band-UH alumni are officially not welcome, they have quietly hand picked alums friendly to the current regime as “university volunteers”, having them throw on uniforms to fill the holes.

Its like the administration castrated the band-uh. They are definitely not the banduh that we all loved back in the day.

OK, they wanted an antiseptic band. Why ditch the UC colors and classic CA?

Good bands are known for strong bonds, creativity, and passion. Aggie coaches all raved about band support, so did the players.

I am a Band-uh Alum from the late 80s and early 90s. It breaks my heart seeing what is out there now. The blue color is just horrible. It went from Pride of the Regents to an average high school band.

what we think of as the classic Band-uh uniforms were purchased in the early 80s with a donation from Warren Mooney. They were heavily influenced by the Cal uniforms but were all Aggies—prior to that CAMB had only acquired retired uniforms from Cal. Those uniforms lasted until 2010, well beyond their service life. The 2010 uniforms had student input. The university wanted something as different as possible from the Cal blue front/gold back look and demanded to have the C-Horse logo. The band wanted the block CA and colors that would “flash” front to back with about faces. The compromise was blue back with CA, white front with C-Horse. Operationally, it was overalls and jacket so simpler to maintain than the the old jacket, pants, overlay… and easier to fit individuals of girth. At the time, the university said they were assigning a lifetime of 10 years and decided to basically eliminate travel to fund asset replacement cycles, stating the age and state of uniforms and instruments was unsustainable. We were all surprised that they actually replaced the uniforms again in 2020 as promised but I don’t think had much student involvement. A very Midwest look that I think they were trying to break visual association from the Band-uh heritage. No idea why they picked the wrong color blue. My guess it was a stock fabric color that looked ok in a catalog and less expensive than custom matching the color.

The same level of effort goes into the media releases. Very little pride, zero accountability and no vision.

LOL. Competing with, and/or trying to be Stanford fans?

yeah maybe journalism, media production and sports marketing majors would attract relevant talent but those industries don’t have much market in Sac metro. Compared to other universities I’ve followed, UCD spends more effort trying to control or even obscure the narrative than genuinely engaging students, fans, and alumni. It’s like that super religious relative who you know is into weird crap but tries to be uncomfortably normal at thanksgiving.

Or the whole paying Google to scrub pepper spray results.

Couldn’t agree more. So many missed opportunities. Instead of acting like adults and providing some leadership to course-correct, Mrak Hall always defaults to forming a cancel committee. The current bunch of administrators was born on third base (thanks to funding levels) and acts like they hit a triple. A lot of good things that separated the campus from many peers have been lost due to mismanagement.

I was the student manager in 2019 during the suspension, so technically I was the last manager of the "old" band and first one of the "new" band. As far as I'm concerned, the "new" band is substantially the same as the old one, just with new branding. Even the full dress uniforms they have now were planned before the suspension, so they'd be worn now regardless of whether it happened.

The band might be quieter now, but from everything I heard from those who graduated after me, this had to do with losing a lot of collective knowledge from a year and a half of little activity during covid while older students still graduated, plus having some individual student leaders who aren't that into sports.

I haven't heard anything whatsoever about limiting time the students spend together, but when I was part of the student leadership when we were coming back from the suspension, a big focus was on making a clearer separation between "band time" and "non band time." Of course they didn't say this, but the purpose was to limit the school's liability for anything that happened at parties, bondings, etc. that they knew would still end up happening.

planned or not I find the current uniforms ugly and of inappropriate quality for a D1 school. But that’s just my opinion.

True, before 2019 the band’s student run status had already been substantially eroded because it didn’t fit Campus Rec’s business model. Their expertise was in intramural sports and playing guitars around campfires. It was never a good administrative fit after SPAC was consolidated.

Promise I’m not a blow hard but I enjoy research. If you ever need a good bathroom read the full report on the matter describes just what I say. If you need a longer bathroom read, check out the full document regarding the Ohio State Band… here’s what you will find— the law firm UCD hired more or less plagiarized the OSU document, with the exception the conclusion. OSU found their Student Affairs executives liable for failed leadership, fired them, and doubled down on engaging their alumni. That wouldn’t work for Davis, because the law firm they hired was personal friends of the vice chancellor for student affairs. Or shall I say “interim” VC. See, if you research her, Emily Galindo didn’t actually have the required qualifications to be named full VC, but she was an interim DEI promotion at an appropriate political moment. Her lifetime state pension is based on her highest 3 years and VC pay was like double her previous role. The band nonsense popped when she was about 2 years into VC pay. She desperately wanted to sweep it under the rug until she retired but when the Bee wouldn’t let it go, she realized she needed any scapegoat she could find to avoid a forced early retirement that would cost her potentially millions in lifetime pension benefits. She retired a few days after her 3 year mark with maximum benefits.

@LeFan
But setting aside anything band specific, it is an overall tenor at UCD to always deflect fault, obscure incompetence, and only wishing to engage the community in a curated way. I’ve been involved with other universities and companies that when there is a screw up, there is an apology, engagement, transparency, and then there is an executive held accountable. For all the talk of character and principles of community, the university lacked the moral fiber to even ever fully own the Katehi saga. Marketing research notes that people most loyal to a brand often mention the word “love” and that it’s easier to feel love toward brands that seem personal and human. And I think that reflects in the lack of energy at games… I would venture that most of the people who would use the word love will say they love the nostalgia of what UCD was 20-50 years ago. But I think the modern university is comparatively cold and mechanical… and that’s much harder to get people to fall in love with.

It's been five years now, but I recall there were a lot of things staff said at first about how the band was going to be that didn't end up materializing in practice. I don't think the intent was ever really to change more than they had to, even where campus administrators said otherwise. The beginning of the school year was kind of weird because we weren't really sure what was going to happen, but by the end of my term as manager, it mostly felt the same as before.

I've heard a saying from people around my year that covid did more to kill tradition than the suspension ever could.

This is my favorite off-topic conversation ever

The Aggie Band played a KEY ROLE in our NCAA DII National Chamionship in men's basketball. They DROVE 2200 miles to Kentucky, maybe 30 I'm told, stayed at alums homes on the way, and took finals in Kentucky!

The DII National Championship as a non-scholarship program was one of the most remarkable achievements in Aggie sports history...right up there with beating Stanford when we were a non-scholia DII team and they were FBS...

I'm told the opposing team was making fun of us, and hated our effective Band.