Idaho state 41 over CP 38 on a field goal in the final second.

@CA Forever Portland State, something about a watertight crate.

I think the main argument for artificial turf comes down to it looks nicer and short term holds up better in extreme weather. It’s not the environmental wonder the manufacturers claim. It is not water or maintenance free, still has to be rinsed and repaired. It is mostly made of dinosaur juice and has a finite number of uses before it must be thrown away and replaced. In my area in the southeast, high schools use artificial but most universities use Tifway 419, Celebration, or Latitude Bermuda. When I was managing multi use fields, we used natural turf because we could adjust the “speed” of the grass based on height/method of mowing, application timing of water, etc. At elite levels, soccer, field hockey, and lacrosse have different requirements. For example the German national soccer team has requirements to the millimeter, and I had the equipment and the guys who could do it. But it requires downtime for grass to grow between use cases. Artificial is a one-size-fits-all when you lack that kind of expertise or grow time. Football is the least prissy of the sports about grass.

the elephant in the room - football isn’t broadly popular with Asian American females. Football, and the game day alumni experience, historically appeal to what are shrinking demographics at UCD.

well at least 20 years ago the adjacent park was sketchy at night. But the parking lot at Hornet Stadium wasn’t great at night either.

Been to Hughes a few times for Causeway games. Such a nice neighborhood for a night game.

agreed Sac State needs to replace their stadium. What they have for a grandstand is basically rental fleet hardware designed to be in place for a couple years that has been abandoned in place for 30. If they hadn’t had a coaching turnaround that reignited interest, I don’t think their program would have survived the pandemic. Their longtime fans had given up. Personally, I think FCS suits us in many ways except the name recognition of the opponents. While Montana and NDSU are giants in their own mind, they are who-cares teams to the casual passerby in California. The risk I think is if either UCD or CSUS make a move to change the status quo, would the market still support two teams or does the early mover put the other out of business? You are correct that I don’t have the checkbook for the university to meaningfully check with me on their plans but I do know athletics reads this board to some degree to get a read on the community. If I buy a case of beans at Costco, the transaction is done and what Costco does next week is irrelevant to my case of beans. With universities, what they do next week could impact the perceived value of my degree or if I became someone important, I might impact the perceived prestige of the university. So while not enforceable, I think there is some level of social contract toward alumni engagement.

yeah idk what the basis is but $50m doesn’t sound unreasonable. What I do know is that projects like this are usually 20% more expensive than you think they will be and construction costs have tended to rise faster than overall inflation.

construction costs can be hard to say with so many variables. But here’s how I might suggest a rough order - adjusted for inflation, Aggie Stadium construction cost was about $4100 per seat in today’s dollars. If I pick a stadium built the same year, University of Central Florida built a 45,000 seat stadium for $1800 per seat in today’s dollar. Part of that is different labor market, part of it is construction method - UCF, like many in the southeast, has a steel frame like a Butler building with aluminum planking, and part of it is your cost per seat goes down the bigger you get because the cost of the field and other infrastructure doesn’t really change proportionally. If I split the difference, maybe a 10,000 seat steel frame upper level, if we said $3000 per seat, $30m? Possibly less if there’s existing design and someone is committed to value engineering, maybe a lot more you self impose rules on sustainability, minority contractors, art installations, etc - not saying those are wrong but they aren’t free. To move to the next level though, I think there would have to be an inclusion of skyboxes and a cabana section, which some Big Sky schools even have. Keep in mind it is substantially more expensive to do multistage expansions rather than doing it all at once because of the sunk costs every time you turn on a jobsite. Could be other considerations though, for example does a seat increase require more parking to be developed, or is it the expansion that “tips the scale” on campus needing a utility upgrade or the fire department needing some new piece of equipment. It’s not unusual at all in the outside world for non-revenue entities to try to pack these deals with pork for themselves.

Tube sock madness
Burrito madness
Steve’s Place Pizza madness
Aggie Pack “characters”
Integration between Aggie Pack, Band, Cheer team, Dance team and the video operator.

you might even say a “concept of a plan”? Interesting press release. Says construction will start at the end of the season (so this year?) but no budget or renderings. Having been the project manager for a couple sports venues, this is not usually how it works. Typically as part of feasibility you identify a budget and hire an architect for conceptual design to make sure it’s grounded in reality and get some renderings, then move into schematic design, often with a different architect (where you will realize everything costs more than the bean counters estimated and redesign it). It’s common to start construction like this before schematic design is complete, but it’s October. If they think they will have shovels in the ground by December they should at least have 30% drawings at this point, so to still be “weeks” away from renderings or budget numbers from the conceptual stage doesn’t make sense. This is either not real or oddly managed. That said, Hornet Stadium is a dumpster and needs replacement. A functional steel frame stadium with some decorative cladding can go up much faster and cheaper than Aggie Stadium did.

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.

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.

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.

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.

At first I thought this was satire piece from The Onion. Sac State Fight Club… isn’t that basically the Hornet Stadium parking lot after about half a keg of warm Natural Ice?

Glad we got 7 on the second possession but anybody for the address for the new team center? I was going to send a donation of clean sheets after someone pooped the bed on the opening play. Can’t do that against good teams.

Sigh, another one slips away against Eastern. Lots of reasons. I don’t know that any injuries were intentional but I do think that Aaron Best would probably kneecap his own mother with an iron pipe if it meant 6 points.

Aggie Stadium official capacity is 10,743 but has been oversold on at least one occasion north of 14,000.

After the game got less interesting, I noticed a sign for Tokyo Express just outside the stadium. Apparently 4.5 stars on Google with reviews saying it competes with any big city sushi joint. So the question, is a small town in BFE Texas hiding a cultural gem or is the average reviewer just happy to have something other than another bbq brisket joint?