Students were disappointing yesterday. Even the regulars on the Wast side, a lot of them were just golf clapping. The team had to act like maniacs on the sideline just to wake everybody up at times. Clearly, we don't have a yell your butt off and affect the game mentality in the stands. Most of our fans just show up and watch, they're not crazy into it.

Student turnout and inactivity during game was very disappointing. The old folk in our section got several chants going that the students halfheartedly picked up. I doubt most of the brewfest people made it inside. Our section is more full than in the past few years but still 20% empty and those are tickets that mostly went to stadium donors originally. They keep renewing but not showing up. The locals? I don’t know if they’re aware or it’s just not part of their lives like in the old days. Not having a daily paper (a real paper delivered to the house!) doesn’t help. I’d like to think we get close to 10000 for homecoming and build from there. But......

It did not seem like there were 8000 at the game last night. Maybe total tickets sold but not people in the seats.

Hard to understand the logic of not showing up the game after a blowout win.

I was disappointed in the noise levels. Too quiet and people cheering at the wrong times (not EWU fans, but cheering when we were on offense).

Speaking of which, EWU had a fair number of fans at this game and kudos to them.

Speaking for myself, we'll be back at the games when our kids are old enough to either be interested in the game or be left home.

We gave up our tickets last year, so we are at least not actively contributing to the emptiness of the west side. ;)

My guess is several changes. Huge demographic changes, short attention spans, rebuilding a tradition, possible poor comm w/ students ... it may be the lure of TV is required (hoops)... we've yet to replace Ass AD Mkting, and not sure we had the basics covered. And where is Aggie Pack leadership? Some of our fans also seem uptight.

Bittersweet night. Great game, vastly improved game day experience.

We are building though!

This was just on night and one game. People now have to respect us. This will help recruiting.

Eventually we’ll win one like this.

We now have a chancellor, AD, and Football coach that are on the same page. It’s exciting!

I noted that too on Pluto, I.e. lack of students and tepid support. I was at the NC State -Louisville game in Raleigh Thursday night and the student turnout was easily 8,000 and noise was deafening. It really impacted the game. I’m general west coast fans are much more ‘wine and cheese’. And I think to the students atUCD football is a novelty rather than something more serious. Not sure if the Nevada-Reno type crowd of 77 will ever return.

NDSU fans have it down pat. Dead silence when O is on field at snap and loud for opponents. Lack of football education I guess.

I'll never forget the Nevada-Reno game at the Toom in "77. My girlfriend (wife now!) and I squeezed ourselves into the west side stands. The crowd was crammed in like sardines, loud and electric, and the Ags responded by knocking off the #1 Wolfpack. It was a crazy good, collegiate football atmosphere. I want to see that kind of atmosphere to return to Aggie Stadium but I not sure that's going to happen.

I don't want to cast a dim light on the current resurgence that we're seeing in the program but the lack of support by the students and the Davis community is discouraging. I really don't think the majority of Davis students are interested in football or other intercollegiate sports for that matter...certainly not like the students at the bigger, west coast FBS programs.

The City of Davis itself has grown dramatically since the mid-70's but we are not seeing a corresponding increase in attendance. Davis is a highly educated and progressive community and I think that the popularity of football has decreased among most Davis residents who see football as a dangerous sport. You really can't blame them with all the research continuing to show the debilitating effects of repeated hits to the head.

I think the times have just changed...

It's too early to panic. No student currently at UC Davis has any memory of Football being good (the current seniors saw 2, 2, and 3 DI wins per season) and two home blowouts over schools they've never heard of aren't going to reverse a bad image.

The vast disparity between student attendance last game and this game suggests to me that there was a marketing push for UND that we didn't have here -- perhaps because ICA felt they spent their "hype capital", or that they were worried about UCD getting blown out. But I'd expect higher student attendance for Homecoming at least and probably the Poly game.

Let's not forget that MBB and Soccer can fill the stands for big games and WBB often leads the conference in attendance.

Last game was running of the first years, pics I have seen show half the kids taping their own run. Maybe ICA thought Brewfest was enough.

Cal Poly should see an increase though....I mean even though CP is terrible, that should bring out fans. Do you think anyone from Poly will road trip or will most stay home because their team is terrible this yr?

CP will definitely see an increase in turnout, because it is Homecoming, the Battle for the Golden Horseshoe, and a recognizable opponent. I never got the sense that most students were the type to attend two football games in back-to-back weeks, so the poor attendance yesterday could ironically have been attributed to the great attendance last week. Of course I was still disappointed, but I doubt many students knew how significant the game was or how improved the team is. It's a little early to be worried that attendance will never be high again. The more we win, the more they will come. And I'm not talking about expecting a sellout crowd immediately after only one blowout win -- it will take several seasons of consistent winning (and postseason appearances/marketing) to make our fans regularly attend in higher numbers. If Davis were in Texas, it'd be a different story, but football culture is just not the same here.

I do, however, think that our fans are terrible when it comes to Football knowledge. Why does Aggie Pack throw celebratory free stuff after the TD and not after the extra point is made? I swear they sound the loudest not when we are on defense, but instead literally right as our inexperienced kicker is nervously stepping up to tack on an extra point. Why can't they do Tube Sock Madness when the opponent is on 4th down during what could be a game winning drive (serious question I ask myself every home game)? Also, I know we all love Band-Uh! but they too get noisy at the worst times -- for example, loudly playing music right after a big play on one of our critical 4th quarter drives as the offense is rushing to snap the ball and execute the next play. And it just makes me feel bad that the football players on the sidelines have to swing their towels around and go crazy just to make the season ticket holders stand and clap a little.

Many of the season ticket holders seem to barely have a pulse. They just sit there quietly while the players are imploring them to show some life. Like you said, it's makes you feel bad for the players that so many fans just can't bring themselves to lend some enthusiastic support to the team and make some noise. I've been know to jump out of my seat when there's a great play only to have some of the folks around me look at me like I must be off my meds. Geeesh!!

And my pet peeve: Parents who sit together yakking away and paying little attention to the game while their young children grow bored, antsy and annoying trying to entertain themselves. I'm glad the families are at the game but, please, go sit in the end zone and let the little ones burn off some energy while you talk about everything but what's happening on the field. >:o

Students really need someone ona mic to lead them . They have no idea when t make noise. No ‘Go’ ‘Ags’ chants between Pack and west side. And no Aggie Pack shirts? People around us were trying hard to get chants going; sometimes at the wrong time but at least they were standing and yelling.

...and the Bossey Cow Cow is still with us...ugh!

Amen. It's time to retire that "cheer" once and for all.

I agree. The times have just changed. Back when I was at UCD (graduated in 2001) a football game only had to compete with study time and frat parties. It didn't conflict with dating, as you could just take your date to a game. It was only during my time that I even saw the beginnings of social media. Anyone else remember ICQ and collegeclub.com ?

Now millennials have all these social media things to play with. The younger they are the less interested they seem to be in authentic social activities. It's just like when our parents would nag us about putting down the video games and going outside to play. Kevin Blue would qualify as an older millennial. He's young enough to see new trends but old enough to kind of understand us old fogeys. Dan Hawkins being hired- that was him reaching out to those of us who value tradition. The kids could care less.

I've seen the 20- somethings at various sporting events. Many of them are just there to be seen and take selfies, especially holding an alcoholic beverage. Sorry, it's not the Prohibition era guys. Your beer pic is neither shocking nor interesting, and anybody can see raunchier behavior in a $2 DVD of American Pie (which also coincidentally came out during my time in Davis)

Every now and then the youngsters get interested in retro things, but something truly terrible is going to have to happen to the internet to make it uncool. I'm trying to disconnect from it myself. I'm on this site more than Facebook.

I'm on this site more than Facebook.

Group meetings are the third Tuesday of every month. ;)

Hahaha..."Hello, my name is Chester and I'm a an internetaholic..."

I think you hit the nailed it...

To be fair, this is the only website I post on ever since I became disgruntled with the dimwits on the Giants website.

Blogging is for old people. What's cool these days is to post two incoherent and badly spelled sentences about something trivial on twitter.

They're more connected, yet less. In our day we also wanted to be seen, but then we'd connect w the band the game, the strategy. Now the dumb phone rules all. Parents bear a chunk of the blame, many have stopped parenting.

The dept is also playing catch up. 5 ADs, 3rd Ass AD for Fraising, no Ass AD for mrkting, The Aggie coming back. Thank goodness we have a stadium and traditions. Hawk was hired bc he can coach and motivate.

Tip from a friend. When she goes to lunch with her children she has everyone put their phones in the middle of the table. First person to reach for the phone pays for the meal.

Your friends have a great idea about ditching the phones during a meal. Our devices and social media can keep us more closely connected in some ways and, in other ways, they can get in the way of way of of interpersonal skills and public courtesy.

I think the most alarming problem, however, is that a millions of people now get their news from social media hearsay and then resend the "fake news" on down the global digital highway. It's becoming more and more difficult to know what the real truth is and that is truly scary.

As a current student I can't tell you how much it annoys me that we are loud on offense, don't make any noise on defense and that we can only seem to get truly loud when free stuff is thrown. It's ridiculous. I spent a lot of the fourth quarter trying to hush the students while we were on offense and then get us loud on defense. Especially during those big third downs. I absolutely love football and love this school but it's hard to sit in the student section when there is no good direction from the Aggie pack leaders.

in years past they had some really good Aggie Pack leaders. This needs to be addressed (Dr. Blue?).
Fiat, your insight is important. How do you fill up the stands in the student section? Stanford, Cal, dont seem to have this problem. Do you see marketing on campus promoting the games?

Thanks for your input... have you ever spoken to the Aggie Pack leaders about the most important items? Are they knowledgeable, receptive? I was on the student side for the ND game and spoke with 2 pairs of students. Newbie freshmen, very nice, one pair possibly int'l students, curious but not yet committed fans.

I do think the Pac12 is an easier sell.

Agreed about social media, and I'd also include late night comics, NYT, etc. I don't worship or hate any president as one example. We have real issues we just kick down the road, whether it is the City of Davis, the state, or our nation. A youngster I know who has claimed to love socialism doesn't know a single fact about the implosion of Venezuela. She has had a smartphone for 6 years. But she knows America is bad?

My son, who was raised a true blue Aggie, is in his first year at a Pac-12 school. I know it's a bit easier to get students out to games when your team is 6-0 and ranked in the top 10, but he was blasted from every angle with Cougar Spirit long before he even stepped foot on campus. As soon as he accepted, his social media was inundated with football related articles/tweets/posts. "Get to know the players", here's the scheduled (again and again), game day activities, etc. Then the very first night he was on campus, all the freshman met at the FOOTBALL stadium for the official welcome to campus. The band was there, cheerleaders, mascot, and they learned the fight song, the cheers, and what it means to support your school. On game day, the band (or parts of the band) goes around to every dorm (and a lot of greek houses) to fire everyone up. Obviously they don't get everyone to go, but I guarantee that most everyone at least knows there's a game going on. I'm positive the same can't be said at UCD.

Again, I know Pac-12 football is a lot easier of a sell than Big Sky, and that the student demographics is different at UCD. But we can, an must, learn from other schools successful techniques for engaging students.

The band came by the dorms when I was a student, and I never once had to be bribed to go to a game with goodies.