Setting the scene for UCF vs TCU

By: Robert Aronoff

TCU Fans: Better late than never?

My tailgating and game day experiences are vast and deep. I have been to UCF games home and away since the late 1980s. Based on the experiences that I have had the Citrus Bowl, the Bounce House and stadiums in far flung locations like Tempe and Boise, what I discovered in Ft. Worth was unexpected. What I found was an affable group of people who will show up, but not ahead of time.

I usually start to measure up an away game fan base and experience from the moment I walk out of the airport. In this case, that was not possible, because I live in the DFW metroplex. (The TCU campus is only a 40-minute drive from my home.) Because of this, I decided to intentionally immerse myself in the TCU/Ft. Worth road trip environment. I went out of my way to go to the campus and experience the TCU environment early and often. Apparently, such acts of dedication are foreign to the TCU fanbase, based on my observations on game day eve, the tailgating, and the in-stadium experience.

GAME DAY EVE

The night before the game, my companions and I went to the Buffalo Bros sports bar on the edge of campus. (If we crossed the street, we would have been on the TCU campus.)  Despite this close proximity of space and time, there was a severe lack of pre-game buildup amongst the customers at this packed establishment. Institutionally, this local bar/restaurant had one TCU banner hanging from the ceiling and a few random pictures on the wall. It certainly did not seem decked out as a “TCU bar” like you might find on the edge of a campus in Lawrence, Kansas or Morgantown, West Virginia.

The customers of this establishment were similarly unadorned in TCU insignia. My companions and I sat in the back of the restaurant, so I walked in from the front door, taking an account of what everyone was wearing. While one might expect a sea of purple and more frogs than on a large pond, the reality was far from it. I think in the entire place, I saw one person wearing a TCU shirt and another wearing a TCU hat. Based on what I experienced, the TCU community seemed as unprepared for game day on Friday night as UCF was unprepared for the first half of the game on Saturday night.

TAILGATE SCENE

My first impression of tailgating on the TCU campus was not a good one, in part because it started so late by the standards of what I am used to. For example, when I came home for the game against Sam Houston, I reached out to my dear friends Heather and Sebastian to find out when they were setting up their tents and tables. They told me that they would be setting up their tailgate at 8:30 that morning for the game that started some 10 hours later. This is not unusual for those that tailgate in my circle of friends. Because of this, I arrived at TCU’s Amon Carter stadium around noon, looking for tailgates to visit before the game that started at 6:30 PM, central time. I pulled into the empty parking garage next to the stadium and drove up to the top floor, where I could survey the scene and pick out the tailgates to visit. When I looked out across the landscape, what I saw made me think of a post-apocalyptic movie, where the streets and parking lots were eerily deserted, apart from a few bored employees guarding the parking lots, who were passing the time by looking for shade and chatting in small groups.

I thought that maybe I was just missing the action from the top of the parking garage, so I jumped back in the car and drove around the streets, neighborhoods and parking lots that surround the stadium. While driving around, I again found the empty parking lots and green spaces, along with students who were more likely to be toting textbooks than coolers. I stopped and talked with a few of the parking lot attendants that were blocking the lots. I was informed that the parking lots were slated to open at 1:30 PM, five hours before kickoff.

While this explains the lack of tailgaters in the parking lots, it doesn’t explain the lack of tailgating that I would expect at private residences that were only minutes from campus by foot. This is in stark contrast with a place like Lawrence, Kansas, which also has homes and neighborhood streets surrounding their stadium location. In Lawrence, tailgate parties start at breakfast for night games and even the night before for day games. Yet here I was only a few hours before kickoff and in the homes around the stadium I counted 1 residence for every 30 that looked ready to tailgate. There was no actual tailgating happening, but they had set up tents, chairs, and coolers in their front yards. There were no people in those chairs, so I I can only guess they were all hiding inside and staying cool in the air conditioning. Finally, about 3:30 PM, only three hours before kickoff, cars started pulling into the parking lots and people started setting up tents. (At 4:00, the lots around the stadium were only half full.)

As disappointed as I was at the late start of the tailgating, I was nonetheless impressed with the people I met there. I talked with everyone from a couple who had been coming to games for 50 years, to fraternity brothers who have been rolling in a towable grill/smoker on a trailer for a decade, to students in their first semester in college. I stopped and talked with a dozen groups at tailgates, and at every stop I was offered food and drink and felt welcomed as a person and a fan from UCF. They were excited to have UCF join the Big XII and singled out our membership as being much more desirable than the additions of Houston and Cincinnati.

So, while the TCU tailgaters were slow to show up, they were quick to be friendly and welcoming. I can’t entirely blame their truant start of tailgating entirely on them, as TCU institutionally encourages this tardiness by keeping lots closed until only a few hours before the games. This seems to have created a culture of a lack of intensity regarding tailgating. Proper, high-level tailgating takes a lot of work, and if you only have a few hours to enjoy it, one might think that its not just worth the effort.

IN STADIUM EXPERIENCE

The late arrival phenomenon that I observed at the tailgate scene, seemed to pervade TCU fanbase habits regarding showing up for the game in time for the opening kick. At the time of the start of the game, most sections of the stadium were about 30% empty. I did not expect this because the game had been promoted as a sell out. The one obvious exception to this was the student section, which was packed a full 30 minutes or more before kickoff with a loud and enthusiastic undergraduate population, strategically placed in the lower sections right behind the visitor’s bench. Late arrivals are an issue that TCU seems well aware of, as evidenced by their effort to combat it with special “happy hour” prices on food and drink for the 90-minute period leading up to kickoff.’’

From this one game, I do not know if leaving early is as regular a problem as the late arrival habit for TCU fans.  For this game, the stadium exodus in the second half may have been due to a false sense of security based on the halftime score or it may have been evidence of bad habits of the fanbase.  Either way, what I saw was that by the end of the third quarter, about 50% of the student section had emptied out, along with 30% of the rest of the sections.

While empty seats never really help the home team, there are some impressive aspects that the Horned Frogs experience at home. In addition to the unique, strategic placement of the students right behind the visitor’s bench, Amon G. Carter stadium is a beautiful facility. Original construction on the site started in 1929 and was reconstructed a dozen years ago, with an expansion project in 2020. Despite the majority of “the Carter” or “Hell’s Half Acre” dating back to 2012, it does not look even that old. It has been wonderfully maintained and updated over the years. The open design with smaller sections at the end zones, combined with VERY STEEP and high sections, towering above the narrow sidelines, gives visitors the impression that the capacity of the stadium is much larger than the 46,000 people that it actually holds.  It must make for an intimidating presence for players who feel that the crowd is literally on top of them.

MY TAKEAWAY

At some point in the coming years, UCF will surely play again in Ft. Worth. When they do, I suggest that Knights fans go to the game.  In addition to the friendly people at TCU, the down to earth folks of Ft. Worth, a great stadium, and the ability to visit places like the historic Ft. Worth Stockyards, it is an away game experience well worth investing in.  As an added bonus, you can sleep in at your hotel and show up just before kickoff, when the TCU fans do.