Dear Old U.Va.

The View From Scott: Richmond

Wednesday, September 08 2010 by Tim

I’m trying to reprise an old series that I started on Dear Old U.Va. but never did much with. Let me know if you folks are interested in having me continue this.

Heading into the weekend, I had very little expectations for the crowd at the Richmond game. I had spoken to too many folks who were just very iffy on the football program. I had no idea what to expect from the students, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t expecting much.

As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. The official numbers were somewhere over 54,000 fans in attendance and that looked about right to me. My estimate to Tiki before kickoff was 49,000 and sometime in the 2nd quarter I increased that to 52,000. Hopefully I’m not the only one to underestimate our team/fans this season… Anyways, I heard a rumor that the student section was full well before kickoff and that students were having to head to the upper deck. I can’t say enough how thrilled I am that London has gotten the students energized about the team. Oh yeah, and the other 40 thousand people who were there too.

My new seats are at about the 37 yard line towards the closed end of the field, about midway up the lower bowl (I’d like to take a moment to give a big hearty thanks to all the people who didn’t renew their season tickets the last few years and allowed me to move up this far this fast). The view is great from these seats. The only problem was the family of Richmond fans sitting directly behind me. The dad was a little obnoxious, until he realized that I knew more about both teams than he did, at which point he started asking me questions. Which was… less annoying.

It was about this time that I noticed the new… mascot… thing. I’ve seen it described as just about every kind of animal, from a dragon to a lizard to a fish. Rarely is it described as a horse, which is what I believe it was supposed to be. Whatever it is, it’s ugly and it has GOT to go. I almost prefer Lil Hoo because at least I knew what it was.

Watching the first drive unfold left to right before me was an amazing moment. Jones for 38. Jones for 5. Verica to Burd for 21. Payne for 10. The pass interference call. Payne taking it in from the 2. The drive lasted five plays, covered 77 yards and lasted only two minutes and fourteen seconds. But it was a drive that might have done as much for the spirit of Virginia football as any drive in recent memory. The crowd was shocked. A running game. A passing game. A touchdown. I haven’t seen that much excitement from the non-student section in a long time.

Keith Payne got a standing ovation from a large portion of the crowd after the third of his three consecutive rushes on Virginia’s first possession of the third quarter. He then got another after he put the ball in the end zone just a couple minutes later. That must have felt really good for him after everything he’s been through.

In the third quarter, I moved over to the student section to find some friends of mine. The barrage of questions I got about who each player was felt pretty good for a couple reasons. First, it meant that we were seeing previously unknown players make an impact on the outcome of the game. Second, it also meant that the fans were actually interested in learning about the team. Perry Jones and Keith Payne will be household names by the next time they’re playing in Scott. Of course, everyone also wanted to know where Ras-I was, but at the time I didn’t have a good answer for them (other than, “over there on the sideline,” of course).

The crowds in the two places from which I watched the game stayed very involved in the game until we started to pull away. With the score sitting at 28-13, we were definitely starting to lose the attention of a lot of the fans. But interestingly, they still mostly stayed around. When the game finally ended, I was pretty pleased with how many fans had stayed throughout the stadium, and especially in the student section. I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen that many fans still in the stands at the 0:00 mark of the fourth quarter in a while.

I had previously been informed that the team would come over and greet the student section after the game, but clearly a lot of the students were unaware that this was going to occur. That surprise caused much elation amongst the somewhat inebriated crowd around me. As long as they remembered it in the morning, I’d almost be willing to guarantee that it had the effect that the coaches and players wanted it to have. It also appeared that several of the players made their way around the stadium to different parts of the crowd other than the students. Good move fellas, good move.

Overall, this game day experience was just one of those “pleasant” experiences. Everything went above average. Nothing spectacular, nothing to really necessarily write home about (though since it’s kind of my job, I do it anyway). Just a solid win and a pleasant experience. I expect similar results from my next View From Scott.