The Keys to Regaining Home Field Advantage

I’m entering my 27^th season as a Notre Dame fan and I’ve seen a lot of change in South Bend.  New coaches, a new stadium with more seats, the inability to see Touchdown Jesus and stricter tailgating rules, just to name a few.  But there’s one more change that makes me angry: no home field advantage. 

I don’t know when, or even how, it happened.  All I know is that I’m pretty sure it was one more item on the long list of fun things that Monk Malloy was able to decapitate before he finally left the University to his puppet, Father Jenkins.  Somewhere between the early nineties and now, the energy was sucked straight out of the stadium on Saturday afternoons.  Its not just the noise, it’s the feel.  The pulse.  The life. 

I’m not going to pretend to know the whys or the hows, but I do know the answer. 

First and foremost, Notre Dame needs to take a hint from Michigan and build luxury boxes and go one step further and build a Jumbotron.  I don’t care anymore if it looks ugly; it works.  The luxury boxes get the stiffs out of the stadium where thousands of fans would rather sit.  The Jumbotron consistently gets dumb fans off their feet.  I don’t know how giant televisions with innovative phrases like “CLAP!” and “YELL!” seem to make a stadium louder but those corny video screens have a heck of a track record.  (note: I also wonder if Big Ten referees will ruin football games for me anymore if they can watch replay after replay of their terrible calls, but I digress) 

By allowing more fans into the game, and not just the spectators, and giving them the apparently needed guides to being loud, the ceiling is very high. 

The next solution is a simple one.  Give “The Shirt” to the students.  It’s advertised as the official shirt of the student section but at least in two of my four seasons as a student, we hated them.  They were dull.  We liked the green ones, in fact we were ecstatic with the whole “Sea of Green” thing we had going there for a couple of years. 

Then the University decided that they could sell more shirts if they changed colors.  “No one needs more green shirts,” they said.  I mean it’s not like Nebraska goes around giving out red shirts every year. That’d be insane, right?  All sarcasm aside, it makes it a lot easier to stand up and cheer when everywhere you look is a unified color. 

Now, I know that the students are the ones who design the shirts, but the student body never even sees the finalists.  They have no vote, no opinion.  That needs to change. 

And that cute phrase "If you could bottle the Notre Dame spirit you could light up the universe" is a nice quote for Hallmark cards and graduation speeches.  It does NOT belong in a football stadium.

There’s one more idea I’ve had that isn’t the most feasible idea in the world.  On the other hand, I give it a 100% guarantee to make the stadium a louder and better place. 

While they build the new luxury boxes, they can take out some of the bleachers.  I’m serious.  Remove the southwest bleachers and reserve that section for young alumni and other fans who don’t want to sit in the stands (pun intended).  Name it Alumni Alley or something fun.

Or I have one more idea, but the University can't help me here.  It's up to the fans.  Listen, you're at a football game.  It isn't an opera, it isn't a religious event.  It's a football game.  Stand up.  Cheer.  Get angry.  Get loud.  Get nasty!  You want the team to be nasty, now help them out.