FWST: Armed Forces Bowl coaches hardly recognize TCU's renovated stadium

[TopFrog]

FWST: Armed Forces Bowl coaches hardly recognize TCU's renovated stadium

By Jimmy Burch
[email protected]

The reunion angle ruled Tuesday's news conference at the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl, but with a unique twist.

Although the competing coaches have extensive experience taking teams to TCU's Amon G. Carter Stadium, both Air Force's Troy Calhoun and Rice's David Bailiff found familiar landmarks missing in the wake of a $164 million stadium overhaul that caused the bowl to be played in Dallas, rather than Fort Worth, the past two seasons.

And that's a good thing for everyone involved with the Dec. 29 game.

"I thought I was going to have to duck to get into the visitors locker room. Then, I realized it wasn't there any more," said Bailiff, reflecting on lessons learned during his three seasons on the TCU staff (2001-03). "This is just a fabulous venue. It's completely reinvented itself. You walk around and you go 'wow' every time you turn the corner." ...

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/12/11/4477965/armed-forces-bowl-coaches-hardly.html#storylink=cpy​

 

[bscttyb]

Nice to hear what other coaches think about our stadium! Great job TCU and Coach P!

 

[dannyfrog]

[quote name=timestamp='1355326953' post='1320617']
Not only are bowl officials happy to be back in Fort Worth after playing the past two seasons at SMU's Gerald J. Ford Stadium
[/quote]

Ha!

 

[neo926]

They should talk to maniac, I'm sure he can change their opinion on how nice the stadium is.

 

[masterfrog]

It is a great facilty, but it is still only second best in the county. It all depends how you look at it, but I am glad TCU has it.

 

[steelfrog]

Childiac has rendered himself utterly irrelevent.

 

[tcumaniac]

People who give me [Craig James] are ignorant and clearly don't understand what my complaints are.


There are many things that are fantastic about our stadium. There's no doubt it's probably the best looking stadium in the country. It's absolutely gorgeous.

As far as amenities go, it's also probably the best in the country. There's literally not another stadium in the country that's as "nice" as ours in all aspects. Lockerrooms, facilities, club area, press box, suites.... Everything is top notch.


My argument has always been and always will be based on the layout of the stadium. It's idiotic. And wasteful. And it creates an atomosphere that is far worse than what it could have potentially been. The lower bowl is only 15 rows and way too spread out. Dumb. The majority of the west side fans are in the damn nose bleed section. Dumb. They feel removed from the game, and their noise is very wasted. Dumb dumb dumb.

The argument made by TCU is that the stadium had to be designed that way in order to persuade the donors. The other argument is that in order to generate as much revenue as possible, the club level seats and suites had to be placed as close to the field as possible. There's truth to this. Revenue clearly is a main priority, but it shouldn't be such a priority that you sacrifice the well being of the majority of your fans. Compromises could have been made. They weren't. The people that make noise were put in the upper deck. We lost a huge part of our home field advantage.

Not winning a single conference home game is not completely coincidental. I promise you.


Our stadium is beautiful. It's nicest in the country. But it's also one of the stupidest layouts in the history of stadiums. When a project that big and that expensive is designed, there's no excuse for that kind of mistake.

Our stadium is great, but it's not near as good as it could have/should have been. Sorry if you disagree.

 

[weklfrog]

People who give me [Craig James] are ignorant and clearly don't understand what my complaints are.


There are many things that are fantastic about our stadium. There's no doubt it's probably the best looking stadium in the country. It's absolutely gorgeous.

As far as amenities go, it's also probably the best in the country. There's literally not another stadium in the country that's as "nice" as ours in all aspects. Lockerrooms, facilities, club area, press box, suites.... Everything is top notch.


My argument has always been and always will be based on the layout of the stadium. It's idiotic. And wasteful. And it creates an atomosphere that is far worse than what it could have potentially been. The lower bowl is only 15 rows and way too spread out. Dumb. The majority of the west side fans are in the damn nose bleed section. Dumb. They feel removed from the game, and their noise is very wasted. Dumb dumb dumb.

The argument made by TCU is that the stadium had to be designed that way in order to persuade the donors. The other argument is that in order to generate as much revenue as possible, the club level seats and suites had to be placed as close to the field as possible. There's truth to this. Revenue clearly is a main priority, but it shouldn't be such a priority that you sacrifice the well being of the majority of your fans. Compromises could have been made. They weren't. The people that make noise were put in the upper deck. We lost a huge part of our home field advantage.

Not winning a single conference home game is not completely coincidental. I promise you.


Our stadium is beautiful. It's nicest in the country. But it's also one of the stupidest layouts in the history of stadiums. When a project that big and that expensive is designed, there's no excuse for that kind of mistake.

Our stadium is great, but it's not near as good as it could have/should have been. Sorry if you disagree.

steelfrog, you are right....completely irrelevant.

 

[Rabble Rouser]

People who give me [Craig James] are ignorant and clearly don't understand what my complaints are.


There are many things that are fantastic about our stadium. There's no doubt it's probably the best looking stadium in the country. It's absolutely gorgeous.

As far as amenities go, it's also probably the best in the country. There's literally not another stadium in the country that's as "nice" as ours in all aspects. Lockerrooms, facilities, club area, press box, suites.... Everything is top notch.


My argument has always been and always will be based on the layout of the stadium. It's idiotic. And wasteful. And it creates an atomosphere that is far worse than what it could have potentially been. The lower bowl is only 15 rows and way too spread out. Dumb. The majority of the west side fans are in the damn nose bleed section. Dumb. They feel removed from the game, and their noise is very wasted. Dumb dumb dumb.

The argument made by TCU is that the stadium had to be designed that way in order to persuade the donors. The other argument is that in order to generate as much revenue as possible, the club level seats and suites had to be placed as close to the field as possible. There's truth to this. Revenue clearly is a main priority, but it shouldn't be such a priority that you sacrifice the well being of the majority of your fans. Compromises could have been made. They weren't. The people that make noise were put in the upper deck. We lost a huge part of our home field advantage.

Not winning a single conference home game is not completely coincidental. I promise you.


Our stadium is beautiful. It's nicest in the country. But it's also one of the stupidest layouts in the history of stadiums. When a project that big and that expensive is designed, there's no excuse for that kind of mistake.

Our stadium is great, but it's not near as good as it could have/should have been. Sorry if you disagree.

 

[JurisFrog]

Taking out the rows in the front middle was beyond stupid. Those folks look like they're in a recliner at home. The section is rarely full and the fans there rarely stand. It is an embarrassment.

The rows should be reinserted.

 

[tcumaniac]

Taking out the rows in the front middle was beyond stupid. Those folks look like they're in a recliner at home. The section is rarely full and the fans there rarely stand. It is an embarrassment.

The rows should be reinserted.

Unfortunately that's not currently an option. They can't fit an extra row of those chairs. It was originally suppose to be box type seating down there where there were waitresses that would come take your food and drink orders, but those plans fell through at the last minute, so rows with ridiculously awkward amounts of space were their only option.

 

[froghair]

Maniac made some dang good points. AGCS is the Taj Mahall and has all of the bells & whistles you could possibly want...all the way up to the 200 section. Anything above that isn't special. It's what you would find i any new stadium. Don't blindly believe that what Maniac is saying is BS. You guys come up to the 400 level sometime, watch the game and then give us your opinion.

There's a lot of game atmosphere missing up there.

 

[froggy]

I sit in 300 section, it's great, not missing any game day feel, no different than osu, or Clemson stadium is nicer than any of those two

 

[JurisFrog]

Unfortunately that's not currently an option. They can't fit an extra row of those chairs. It was originally suppose to be box type seating down there where there were waitresses that would come take your food and drink orders, but those plans fell through at the last minute, so rows with ridiculously awkward amounts of space were their only option.

Then they should reinsert benches with rentable backs or go with the tables. But as it is, it looks terrible. Embarrassing.

 

[WIN]

I miss the old wooden benches with the splinters. Dam* 1%'ers.

 

[bscttyb]

They should re-do that section. I don't know how much it would cost, but the costs would be recouped easily by selling twice as many seats in that section.

 

[cdsfrog]

Maniac may be over the top but to dismiss that we lost all 4 conference games at home and went 4-1 on the road is nuts.
Thank god we have Kansas/Baylor/WVU in 2013 so we should win at least 1, if not 2 home conference games this year.

They could still fix it easily but they won't. Like the last poster said, re do it and you can add literally 200-300 seats. Average price of $300, that's an extra 60k+ a year.

It's not a surprise the players get up more for road games.

 

[IamFroglash88]

Sounds like:
"Stadium is amazing; it's so kickass; look at my pictures; there was no security, so here are more pictures from the most perfect stadium in the country; broke in again today, wait to you see pictures of the club area and suites; we are so lucky to have CDC, he and LHCGMFP are almost finished building the most incredible stadium ever; etc"

Until:
"I didn't get the seats I wanted. The stadium sucks!!! I had a better design, but they wouldn't listen to me because I'm not a big donor."

 

[neo926]

Maniac may be over the top but to dismiss that we lost all 4 conference games at home and went 4-1 on the road is nuts.
Thank god we have Kansas/Baylor/WVU in 2013 so we should win at least 1, if not 2 home conference games this year.

They could still fix it easily but they won't. Like the last poster said, re do it and you can add literally 200-300 seats. Average price of $300, that's an extra 60k+ a year.

It's not a surprise the players get up more for road games.

A. We only had 4 conference home games, compared to 5 conference road games.
B. 2 of those games were against the two best teams in the conference.
C. 1 of those games was against an Iowa St. team three days after the freshman Boykin even knew he was going to be playing QB, let alone starting.
D. The team got up and played great in their non-conference games against Grambling St. and Virginia.

Yeah, it's a nice tale to tell, how the atmosphere sucks, the crowd sucks, blah blah blah, and it's all obviously affecting how the team plays at home. But when you actually break down the home vs. away schedule, and think about why each game played out the way it did, not sure how much you can really blame the design of the stadium.

 

[dkfrog]

Come on over to the east side...the water is warm, but the atmosphere is great. All I ever see is a bunch of empty seats on the west side...including the 300/400 level. Maybe if these "die-hard" frog fans that were displaced actually showed up, the atmosphere in west 300/400 would be better...