On… Campus… Stadium. We need that for students to attend games. As an alum who was there while we were more than respectable, it was difficult even back then to pack students in for games. And most students who went would be out the door headed back to campus before the game was over. We need an on campus stadium with a great game day experience to take ourselves seriously.
While I agree about students leaving in the second half back in the hayday, difficulty of packing in students was never an issue then. The student section was the most heavily filled area of the stadium in that era. My 3 kids were all students in the RENT's first decade. Maybe it was the novelty of 1-A football, but saying that getting students into the stadium to fill that section was an issue is a red herring.
It's only in the last decade that student lack of attendance became a problem. When the Huskies were competitive in the Big East, we rarely heard the following complaints:
-Students have a problem waking up early in time to catch the bus
-The falsehood that it's a 45 minute ride from campus: Living in Southington, I've driven to & from Storrs for decades. Unless there's heavy traffic in the immediate Hartford area, the ride from Storrs to the RENT is a 20-25 minute ride no matter if you take Route 44 through Coventry or go up Route 195 to I-84. (I can get from Storrs to SOUTHINGTON in 45-50 minutes)
The RENT is fine for most patrons. It has easy highway access, which will never be true of Storrs without major expensive infrastructure changes. UConn has to market the RENT as an all day experience. There should be parking lot student events both pre & post-game to entice students to stay through the entire game.
From the season ticketholder standpoint, we've seen some changes for the better over the last few years. Access to pregame parking has been increased from 4 to 5 hours. Blue lot pass holders are allowed to park wherever they wish if they arrive up to 3 hours prior to kickoff before the LAZ Nazis take over parking directions. The State Police no longer issue the strict 1 hour post-game leave the premises mandate.
A better game day student experience along with a winning team will bring back the students. The University needs to figure out how to make that happen.
