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Featured Fanpost: Game Day Experience and Traditions - Your Thoughts?

Is UW's Revered Game Day Experience Going Up in Smoke?

Hello, Dawg Fans!

Well, it’s Tuesday. For most of us, the win in Boulder has already started to fade into the background, because, well, let’s be honest…we were SUPPOSED to win that game. If we had lost, well, I don’t even want to think about what the coping strategies displayed on this blog would have looked like, but suffice to say, it would not have been pretty.

The win in Boulder was nice. I think in many ways, it was not the kind of win we would have liked to see this year. The fact that we have had to move arguably our best defensive player to the offense in order to do anything with the ground game is disappointing, but I credit Coach Petersen for doing what he had to do to give the team the best chance to win. I trust he will continue to do so, and if that means Shaq stays on offense, so be it. We will NEED a run game this Saturday (and the rest of the Saturdays this year, for that matter). Our offense cannot afford to be one-dimensional when the pass dimension is as tenuous as it is. While Miles looked better on Saturday, and I really was happy to see a couple long balls thrown by him, I do not think I am alone when I sort of cringe and hide my eyes every time he drops back. Continued success will help me get over that beaten puppy response. I want nothing more than for Miles to prove me wrong on my gut assessment of his abilities as a steely-eyed ninja killer of a quarterback. That being said, I am pulling for him each week that Coach Pete decides he is the best chance for our success at quarterback. I am still in the camp that trusts Coach Petersen…I do not really see another choice in that regard.

We are coming into some serious gut check football over the next four games. The DAWGS sit at 6-3, with only two wins in conference. We lost to ASU…a game that I still believe we should have won, given how well our defense was playing. We lost to Oregon and Stanford, and the only one that I am "okay" with (I NEVER like losing, but as I’ve mentioned before, it happens in sports…we have to deal with it somehow) is the loss to Oregon, who has continued to show they are a solid, top-tier team. Stanford STILL stings because they have continued to show that they ARE NOT the Stanford of the last few years, and if we could have knocked them off early in the season, well, it could have been a great springboard for us.

But, our next four games…UCLA, ‘Zona, OSU, and WSU…those next four games are all winnable. The next two will be the most challenging with UCLA looking pretty decent last week and ‘Zona, while not looking AS good, still a very potent scoring machine. But our defense is good, no, GREAT enough to keep us in those games. I saw enough at Colorado to hope against hope that the coaches can put together an offensive game plan that our players can execute and get some points on the board. So, I am confident saying that the rest of our games are winnable. If we can beat the Bruins at home on Saturday, I think that will be a huge confidence builder for our guys and really give us the boost we need to go into Tucson and take care of business.

All that being said…Saturday still seems like a long way away, and most of us are just treading water until Friday’s prediction posts and hoping that we can just wear the traditional purple and gold uniform on Saturday. So, I thought I might throw up a post about game day experience and post a link to a letter written by a fan (Max Waugh, of Husky Marching Band Sousaphone fame…oh, and he’s a pretty decent photographer as well [understatement mine]). Most of you have probably already seen this, but thought we might have a decent conversation in the comments thread about your current observations of Husky game day and whether or not you agree with Max’s position and comments.

Link to Seattle Times page with Max’s Letter:

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/take2/2014/10/31/take-2-uws-greed-and-the-selling-of-husky-football-traditions/

As I have mentioned before, I live on the east coast and have not been to a Husky game in person since the 1999 season, but I know many of you are still able to make it on game days. Is it as bad as Max describes? I know from my perspective, as a former Husky Band member, taking the playing of the anthem away from the band is pretty lame. That was always one of the biggest rushes during pregame, to be standing on the field, playing that great arrangement of the anthem, and to hear the throngs of Husky faithful belting out the words…never failed to fill me with pride and make me stand a little taller. I also know that we played in the stands…a lot. And much of the music was in response to certain things on the field. We would play Land of 1,000 Dances after a sack. We would play the Theme from the Throne Room in Star Wars to get the defense fired up for a big stand. We would play other fan favorites at the quarter breaks and during switches from offense to defense. We played a lot. It sounds like that does not happen as much anymore? From my perspective, that is unfortunate. People have commented that the change of the college game experience to look more like the NFL game experience is a natural evolution, but I do not agree. The NFL and college football should look different…they should feel different. But that is just one DAWG’s opinion…what is yours? What are some of your favorite Husky game day traditions?