[Jonathan Carone]

While last night’s win was great, no game or game day is perfect.

So how can we improve?

This thread is where you can bring all the things you noticed from the game, the broadcast, and/or the game day experience.

[Jonathan Carone]

Game

Secondary - the secondary was beat on multiple occasions, especially in the first half. Had ODU had a QB who could connect on those passes, it would’ve been a totally different game. We have to tighten that up to have continued success.

Tempo - The first two series were great. We slung it around and played with a great tempo. The rest of the first half we tried to force the run and slowed down significantly and didn’t score again. We got some luck in the first half where they didn’t score and corrected the tempo in the second half. Just gotta hope we keep the tempo going all game moving forward.

Game Experience

Replays - There was a lot of stuff on Twitter about the lack of replays on the giant new video board.

Crowd - We have to figure out how to get more non-students out to the games. While this was likely the highest attended game in school history (despite other games having higher attendance), there were tons of open seats. How do we get people out to the G5 home games?

Main Entrance Lighting - I don’t know if this is by nature of the construction still going on, but it felt like there was a giant black hole above the berm. Was that just on tv?

Broadcast

Studio Show - I don’t know the host, but I was in school with Pat and Matt and they have a lot more personality and energy than was shown. I don’t know why, but they felt stiff. One thing that the ESPN shows have been doing in places to help with that is going open collar. For whatever reason, eliminating the tie opens things up and makes it feel more laid back and energetic.

Catch Phrases - This isn’t Sportscenter in the 90s. Everything doesn’t need a catch phrase attached to it.

Overall, these things are all very minor and would be easy fixes. It was a great night in Lynchburg by all accounts.

[FLAMEfromBAMA]

Don’t do stuff to get suspended the rest of the season. Thumbs up to Gill and staff for drawing a hard line and sticking to their guns despite the pressure.

[Jonathan Carone]

“Show up for meetings” is probably an easy place to improve. Haha

[LUGrad2000]

Stadium was noticeably louder. Students were engaged and loud at the correct times.

I was disappointed at how empty the Baptist side was. Win consistently and it will grow. Hard to get far flung alumni back to many games.

Fan Fest in the IPF was top notch, especially as I was eating my meal just as the storm came through. We sat with a wonderful couple that were here in the 70's. Shared some Jerry stories and of course about the dream of FBS being fulfilled. #BHAG Lots of fun stuff for the kids.

I can't see them opening up the berm ever. Waaaay too steep. Not safe for anyone.

The screen was perfect. Sound was good. PA announcer is one high quality.

They were wrong about getting off campus quickly from the Orange lot after the game. Either leave early or hang out somewhere. It was cool being waived in through two checkpoints as I entered.

Concessions were same old. Walked over the East side and the wings stand was really smelling great.

Overall game experience we are #FBSready

I am cautiously optimistic about the team, but...

Next week will tell us much more about the rest of the season. My cable includes CBSSN, so I am excited.

[R i]

National Anthem was terrible. Did the band not do a sound check on the speakers they used ?

I still dont like red face-masks. I believe white face-masks would have looked a lot nicer.

[Chippy]

I gotta believe the weather had some effect on the attendance.

[BJWilliams]

National Anthem was terrible. Did the band not do a sound check on the speakers they used ?

I still dont like red face-masks. I believe white face-masks would have looked a lot nicer.

I would disagree on the facemasks. I think that was the right call there. I wouldnt have liked all white on the helmet personally

As for the band, sounds like they had a new student tech running that aspect. They'll have this week to iron out those kinks before HoF weekend

[thepostman]

The confusion from the weather delay was frustrating. LUPD tweeted that gates were opened so we walked over only to find out that they weren't and nobody seemed to have answers. It was not a great way to start. Also I noticed 0 enforcement to keep anybody out of the reserved sections on the student side. I'm glad I didn't spend extra money for those.

Overall great experience. The video board was great and j thought they did a great job with replays.

The team is better than I anticipated but I'm worried about overconfidence setting in. Army is good so hopefully they dont sleep on them.

[olldflame]

I really believe that last year after beating Baylor we (maybe sub-conciously, but nonetheless) fell into the trap of believing that after beating a P5 opponent, the FCS teams on our schedule would be a cakewalk. I´m pretty confident this year every team on the schedule will have our full respect, including Norfolk St and Idaho, based on what happened last year. If I´m TG, before the Norfolk St game, I hang a big sign saying 13-7 in the locker room. In case anyone forgot, that was the score of the St Francis game.

[Purple Haize]

I watched on TV
ESPN not crashing would be a huge step in the right direction
PxP Guy was good and I think got better as game went on
Color guy was a momentum killer. They really didn’t have a lot of chemistry at all. There could be an ‘Old School v New School’ thing they could play up if they wanted to. But one guy has a ton of enthusiasm and energy the other is about a step and a half above Eeyore in enthusiasm
Sideline reporting was not too bad and I can see being good
The crowd looked good on TV.....until they showed the Baptist side. Campus shots etc were good.
My wife was on top of her Chef-Boyardee Pizza game last night

[TH Spangler]

What can we improve? The weather forecast. Might explain some of the missing fans. Read that the ticketing system went down. The long lines due to the weather delay and counting threatening weather probably sent some packing. Best student section ever!

[LUAlum1215]

Attendance was most definitely affected by the weather. I drove by the tailgating and parking lots near Green Hall at about 620 and there were more than several prime spots. A lot of people left during the storm. That said, athletics still needs to find ways to get the locals behind the program.

ODU has 4 team buses, 3 band buses, and 3 fan buses. I spoke with one of their videographers for about 20 minutes both before and after the game. He was a very nice guy and had great things to say about our stadium and the team. He said he’d like to come back for another game this season and I don’t think he was just saying it.

The lighting does need to be addressed outside of the gates. I agree it’s likely a matter of finishing the construction though.

Overall I’m optimistic going forward. The game was a ton of fun to watch and seeing the adjustments in the second half were refreshing to see as we’ve never seen that from this staff. I’m looking forward to next week to see if we can be competitive or if Army just had an off night at Duke.

[olldflame]

You are always going to have some penalties, and 6 for 58 yards is not awful, but the out of bounds hit by Benton and the 2 false starts were avoidable and not helpful. I especially hate it when our guys do anything that even borders on poor sportsmanship. Apparently Tillman did some taunting as well, and got raked over the coals by Wimbo and Gill, even though no penalty was called.

[ElmersTwin]

Attendance was most definitely affected by the weather. I drove by the tailgating and parking lots near Green Hall at about 620 and there were more than several prime spots. A lot of people left during the storm. That said, athletics still needs to find ways to get the locals behind the program.

ODU has 4 team buses, 3 band buses, and 3 fan buses. I spoke with one of their videographers for about 20 minutes both before and after the game. He was a very nice guy and had great things to say about our stadium and the team. He said he’d like to come back for another game this season and I don’t think he was just saying it.

The lighting does need to be addressed outside of the gates. I agree it’s likely a matter of finishing the construction though.

Overall I’m optimistic going forward. The game was a ton of fun to watch and seeing the adjustments in the second half were refreshing to see as we’ve never seen that from this staff. I’m looking forward to next week to see if we can be competitive or if Army just had an off night at Duke.

Not to be that guy, but I know a decent amount (10+) LU staff who scratched going to the game when they realized there's no discount option available for faculty and staff. For some, $30+ a ticket doesn't make sense, even if you're getting an FBS product.

[ElmersTwin]

Attendance was most definitely affected by the weather. I drove by the tailgating and parking lots near Green Hall at about 620 and there were more than several prime spots. A lot of people left during the storm. That said, athletics still needs to find ways to get the locals behind the program.

ODU has 4 team buses, 3 band buses, and 3 fan buses. I spoke with one of their videographers for about 20 minutes both before and after the game. He was a very nice guy and had great things to say about our stadium and the team. He said he’d like to come back for another game this season and I don’t think he was just saying it.

The lighting does need to be addressed outside of the gates. I agree it’s likely a matter of finishing the construction though.

Overall I’m optimistic going forward. The game was a ton of fun to watch and seeing the adjustments in the second half were refreshing to see as we’ve never seen that from this staff. I’m looking forward to next week to see if we can be competitive or if Army just had an off night at Duke.

Not to be that guy, but I know a decent amount (10+) LU staff who scratched going to the game when they realized there's no discount option available for faculty and staff. For some, $30+ a ticket doesn't make sense, even if you're getting an FBS product.

But something tangible to improve upon, there could've been better communication at ticketing on the baseball stadium side. I'm sure it'll progress as the season goes on, but the line was extremely slow and people weren't sure what exactly was going on.

[ballcoach15]

Need to improve goal line defense.
On the ODU touchdown, all 11 players went for fake to running back. No one has seen QB walk into end zone yet, unless they have been in film room.

[Cider Jim]

I know a decent amount (10+) LU staff who scratched going to the game when they realized there's no discount option available for faculty and staff. For some, $30+ a ticket doesn't make sense, even if you're getting an FBS product.

LU was selling faculty/staff tickets for 5 bucks for this first game ONLY (cheaper than a movie ticket at the mall). I bought reserved season tickets for $50, which is about the same cost as ONE UVa or Tech game.

Concessions
I bought my first-ever 10 dollar Rise With US cup, which will give me FREE unlimited soft drinks for the rest of the season. Ordered the nachos to see what FBS nachos taste like (same as Big South FCS nachos), then I realized you have to order "pork nachos" to get the fancy ones (never saw the price for those). A friend of mine got the deep fried Oreos, and he gave me one, which was amazing. I saw onion rings on the menu, but ever saw anyone order them.

I'm with Ballcoach--I'd prefer fewer student videos and would recommend out of town scores, since not all of us have a smart phone.. Heck, even WVU does that.

[rmiller1959]

Game Experience:

• I missed the team running out onto the field through the inflatable tunnel. I presume they eliminated it because of time, but that really gets the crowd going.
  
  Something was terribly wrong with the band's halftime performance. They were using a portable sound system rather than the stadium PA system, and it was riddled with static and hard to hear. The performance felt truncated, as if they rushed it to save time. Why did they carry chairs out there onto the field and not use them?
  
  Why doesn't the west side have a wing stand?
  
  The berm does look like it's too steep to sit on; my wife pointed that out right away.
  
  Loved the scoreboard. Would be nice if they showed replays, and the ribbon scoreboard showed the scores of other games.

As for the game:

• The secondary was being beaten regularly and also missing tackles. A more accurate QB on their side would have hurt us badly.
  
  We couldn't stop their QB when he decided to run. He broke containment almost every time and picked up lots of yards, so much so that I was surprised to see they averaged only 3.3 yards a carry.
  
  Why do we start out like wildfire on offense and then completely bog down? I think they had at least five drives after the first two where they didn't score a point. To their credit, they more than made up for it in the second half, but we should have had at least 21 points going into halftime.
  
  There were a few dropped passes. For the most part, Buckshot was highly accurate with his throws.
  
  One sack? We need to do better.

[alabama24]

I know a decent amount (10+) LU staff who scratched going to the game when they realized there's no discount option available for faculty and staff. For some, $30+ a ticket doesn't make sense, even if you're getting an FBS product.

...But there IS a discount for season tickets. It makes much more sense to buy tickets at $45 for all 6 games than to pay $30 for one.

[thepostman]

Season tickets are super affordable. If I were local I'd be all in on those.

[ballcoach15]

The rain before the game caused tunnel to collapse. I believe the air machine that keeps it inflated went off, and tunnel went down. Due to amount of water in front of FOC they decided to not put it back up.

When FOC is renovated a permanent tunnel should be constructed. That would be much better than a blow up tunnel one would expect to see at high school games.

[willflop]

The new east bench backs are nice, reasonable seat room and leg space. Also, the incline seems steeper, which is nice. The row in front of you is much lower, so it improves the line of sight, no more staring at the back of someone's head.

The Rhino sports/ticket people were noticeably nicer and professional appearing. I was expecting them to guard the reserved seats more, not that there was any issues on my end, but they didn't. Last year I felt harassed just trying to get to my seat (a little exaggeration), which was general admission, but on the same aisle as the red bench backs, so I guess that's an improvement.

I was disappointed with the crowd turn out and pregame entrance, but weather was the main culprit, at least with the latter. I was on my phone all through the half-time show, but didn't hear any good feedback. I don't like how they perform for one side, it sounds atrocious for half the stadium. Not sure if there are better approaches or not though, marching band isn't my thing.

I was of the mind that people were just whining about the steepness of the berm. I'd still sit on it for fun, but that's just me. It's a different animal when you look at it from behind the end zone, probably not usable for the less adventurous...it's steeeeep.

Long lines at concessions, but that's not really a negative. There may not be any feasible way around it.

Sound was good, noticeable increase in bass, which doesn't bother me. They did show a lot of replays, in general, but were really bad at zeroing in on replays during questionable calls. You never had the crowd groan from a replay that contradicted the refs call, while under review, like you hear on t.v. so often.

For the ESPN3 feed, are we ever going to get the yellow first down line?

[LUDad]

I'd like to see LU license some food booths out to quality local vendors known for speciality food/sandwiches, etc. That and/or food trucks. Need more variety.

[JK37]

The increased fencing and security has severely limited space for food trucks inside the stadium - and you can’t have them outside of it. Ther were a couple in the northwest corner, which I was told is the only remaining place they can fit inside the fence. And that’s a poor traffic location: they’re hard to find.

I suggested all along the pergola over the south end zone. But so far the optics of that aren’t desired, because there is a fear it takes away from the view of the pergola from the seats. Just my guess on the last part.