I'm a junior at OU right now and the students leaving at halftime disgust me.

It's not all about drinking either (although that is a lot of the cause), a lot of it is because its tradition and a lot of students feel like they have to go.

A lot of people that go to the games don't even really care about OU football since its only the MAC. They come for the band and to hang out with their friends. then they leave after halftime. Some of them go to the bars afterwards but a lot of them don't. I was uptown after the Temple game and believe me, there wasn't a ton of people going at the bars.

Its just so stupid. Its reputation, assuming the MAC sucks therefore OU doesn't matter, many girls don't want to stay for the whole game, some of it is drinking (not all of it), then tradition, and other dumb crap.

When I ask my roommates why they leave, they always answer that everybody else is. The problem is that people aren't coming for the game or the team, they're coming for the experience. And to them, once they get bored or their friends want to leave, they leave as a group. 

And even though I said its not all do to drinking, I'd be lying if I didn't say half of it was do to that. The thing I don't get is why student's can't wait the extra 90 minutes to drink or pregame. If its a 3pm game, why can't you wait till 7 to get ready. If its a 7pm game, why can't you wait till 10:30 to go to the party instead of 9:30. Its stupid &*^( like that which pisses me off. Its college kids who think drinking and smoking weed are the two most important things in life and it annoys me. They think in the now instead of realizing what an embarrassment they are when they leave early and how the football team hates it.

I've talked to many football players and they have acknowledged to me that they couldn't give a crap about most of our students. They told me they play for themselves and their families. They love the 20% of students that stay for the whole game but could give a crap about the students that leave early. As one player (won't say name) told me, "the heck with those students, we couldn't give a crap about them anyways. They leave early, we don't play for them. We play for ourselves and Coach Solich. We just try to forget about all the students that leave at halftime as soon as we start the 3rd quarter."

And i'll add this, I know its annoying to see everybody leave but think of it this way; those are the people that don't trulu care about the program. Who cares if they leave. They don't enjoy the team the same way we do so they are the one's that lose out in the end

QFT. I graduated last spring and can echo these statements. I come from the greek life scene and did my fair share of partying basically from Wednesday on near the end of school but I could never understand why nobody seemed to care about sports at the University. You see it in facebook posts. People always talk about how much they love "Athens" but never "Ohio University" or the "Bobcats". Its not everyone, but OU definitely has a strange group of students as a whole. At most state universities with a party reputation (Wisconsin for example, even though they are Big Ten) school pride seems to be a much bigger deal than it is here. It changes when we have big wins (Georgetown in hoops) but overall there just seems to be a disconnect with a segment of the Ohio University student body and OU Athletics and I dont know what the solution is outside of beer sales at Peden

#3...It wasn't even remotely cold.  Sheesh.

All true, I suppose.

But give it a little time.  It seems better this year.  As we keep winning, it will come.  Isn't that why there are recruiting threads here.  'cause it starts there.  And it's beginning to happen on the fields and on the courts.

What did those who will graduate this year go thru school (5 years) with?

What will this year's frosh see over their five--probably significantly different.

GO OHIO!

Ohio69 has some good ideas to address this problem.  Wish he'd come on here and post about it.

OCF...I know you addressed this question to Buffalo, but I don't think it'd make much difference to these "early leavers" if Ohio joined another conference...unless it was a  BCS level league.

Selling alcohol at our sporting events was brought up at a meeting a few years back and McDavis said if it was ever brought up again that person would be fired.  So as long as McDavis is the president there is absolutely no way alcohol will be in Peden, unless your sneaky.