From the Desk of the AD: New Postgame Initiatives

Dear Appalachian Family,

Thank you for your continued support of Appalachian State athletics! The support of App Nation is the driving force behind our football program’s longstanding success. We urge you to continue to support the Mountaineers by packing The Rock for each of our final five home games this season.

We are always searching for ways to improve Gameday at The Rock and one thing that I have heard from fans is a desire to enhance the postgame experience. Therefore, for Saturday's homecoming game versus Wyoming, we will introduce two new postgame initiatives:

POSTGAME TAILGATING
Thanks to great interest from fans and tremendous support from campus leaders, we are happy to announce that postgame tailgating will now be permitted following football games at Kidd Brewer Stadium. The postgame tailgating period will begin immediately following the conclusion of the contest and last for one hour. Please note that the postgame tailgating period does not start until clock hits 0:00 at The Rock — tailgating is not permitted at any time while the game is in progress.

POSTGAME FIELD ACCESS
As a special event in honor of homecoming and the Year of the Fan, we invite all fans to join the Mountaineers on the playing field at Kidd Brewer Stadium following the conclusion of Saturday's game against Wyoming. Fans are invited to access the field via the gate at the northwest corner (the corner closest to Owens Field House and the Appalachian sideline) and stay until the conclusion of the Marching Mountaineers’ postgame performance.

We ask that fans show great respect to both teams’ student-athletes and coaches when on the field after the game and, as with pregame tailgating, we ask that you enjoy postgame tailgating responsibly and utilize designated drivers to ensure that everyone arrives home safely.

Thank you for all you do to make The Rock one of college football's great venues. Remember to buy your tickets for the remainder of the 2015 season and Go Mountaineers!

With Appalachian Pride,
Doug Gillin
Director of Athletics

Dmanuhone wrote:From the Desk of the AD: New Postgame Initiatives

Dear Appalachian Family,

Thank you for your continued support of Appalachian State athletics! The support of App Nation is the driving force behind our football program’s longstanding success. We urge you to continue to support the Mountaineers by packing The Rock for each of our final five home games this season.

We are always searching for ways to improve Gameday at The Rock and one thing that I have heard from fans is a desire to enhance the postgame experience. Therefore, for Saturday's homecoming game versus Wyoming, we will introduce two new postgame initiatives:

POSTGAME TAILGATING
Thanks to great interest from fans and tremendous support from campus leaders, we are happy to announce that postgame tailgating will now be permitted following football games at Kidd Brewer Stadium. The postgame tailgating period will begin immediately following the conclusion of the contest and last for one hour. Please note that the postgame tailgating period does not start until clock hits 0:00 at The Rock — tailgating is not permitted at any time while the game is in progress.

POSTGAME FIELD ACCESS
As a special event in honor of homecoming and the Year of the Fan, we invite all fans to join the Mountaineers on the playing field at Kidd Brewer Stadium following the conclusion of Saturday's game against Wyoming. Fans are invited to access the field via the gate at the northwest corner (the corner closest to Owens Field House and the Appalachian sideline) and stay until the conclusion of the Marching Mountaineers’ postgame performance.

We ask that fans show great respect to both teams’ student-athletes and coaches when on the field after the game and, as with pregame tailgating, we ask that you enjoy postgame tailgating responsibly and utilize designated drivers to ensure that everyone arrives home safely.

Thank you for all you do to make The Rock one of college football's great venues. Remember to buy your tickets for the remainder of the 2015 season and Go Mountaineers!

With Appalachian Pride,
Doug Gillin
Director of Athletics

I like the initiative, but if games are not close our fans like other school's fans will depart early. The on field access will attract families to stay and the post game tailgate is nice until the November games when it's freezing cold. I don't mean to sound negative, but I feel efforts should be made to get people to come rather than get people to stay the entire game.

/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09 wrote:

Dmanuhone wrote:From the Desk of the AD: New Postgame Initiatives

Dear Appalachian Family,

Thank you for your continued support of Appalachian State athletics! The support of App Nation is the driving force behind our football program’s longstanding success. We urge you to continue to support the Mountaineers by packing The Rock for each of our final five home games this season.

We are always searching for ways to improve Gameday at The Rock and one thing that I have heard from fans is a desire to enhance the postgame experience. Therefore, for Saturday's homecoming game versus Wyoming, we will introduce two new postgame initiatives:

POSTGAME TAILGATING
Thanks to great interest from fans and tremendous support from campus leaders, we are happy to announce that postgame tailgating will now be permitted following football games at Kidd Brewer Stadium. The postgame tailgating period will begin immediately following the conclusion of the contest and last for one hour. Please note that the postgame tailgating period does not start until clock hits 0:00 at The Rock — tailgating is not permitted at any time while the game is in progress.

POSTGAME FIELD ACCESS
As a special event in honor of homecoming and the Year of the Fan, we invite all fans to join the Mountaineers on the playing field at Kidd Brewer Stadium following the conclusion of Saturday's game against Wyoming. Fans are invited to access the field via the gate at the northwest corner (the corner closest to Owens Field House and the Appalachian sideline) and stay until the conclusion of the Marching Mountaineers’ postgame performance.

We ask that fans show great respect to both teams’ student-athletes and coaches when on the field after the game and, as with pregame tailgating, we ask that you enjoy postgame tailgating responsibly and utilize designated drivers to ensure that everyone arrives home safely.

Thank you for all you do to make The Rock one of college football's great venues. Remember to buy your tickets for the remainder of the 2015 season and Go Mountaineers!

With Appalachian Pride,
Doug Gillin
Director of Athletics

I like the initiative, but if games are not close our fans like other school's fans will depart early. The on field access will attract families to stay and the post game tailgate is nice until the November games when it's freezing cold. I don't mean to sound negative, but I feel efforts should be made to get people to come rather than get people to stay the entire game.

I think efforts need to be made on both fronts. I think we have seen a little bit of both now already from DG which tells me he is hard at work. It's his first season and in almost any job, you need to go through a year, do what is normally done for that year with a few enhancements, and then develop your plan to make large scale changes. He doesn't know what works well and what needs improvement yet, but he will get there. I am really excited about Doug and the future of Mountaineer athletics!

I love the fact that Mr.Gillin is trying things that we normally don't try. He is easing away from the status quo which many have lamented over the years. I see nothing but positive coming from his willingness to try things to enhance the football experience at KBS.

Doug Gillin is showing how quickly he moves on what he thinks will enhance our product. Clemson does both of these and folks like it there (I don't know if there is a time limit @ Clemson postgame). I applaud Doug for the efforts.

I noticed the same thing at Purdue a couple of weeks ago. As we were leaving, I noticed many folks returning to their tailgate spots and picking up where they left off.

If this topic has already been discussed then I apologize for not knowing the opinion from my fellow posters. I have noticed in the past years when APP is on the road that some schools allow fans to leave at halftime to tailgate briefly and allowed to re-enter the stadium. I know this does not entice fans to come up the mountain to see the game, but I feel it would help to keep fans in their seats for the second half if they know they can re-enter at no charge. I am always disappointed to see such a mass exodus at halftime no matter if we are winning or losing at the time.

This is what almost all of us want from Doug Gillin; leadership, fresh ideas, involvement, connection, aiming high. At Clemson, fans with children began lining the aisle where we were sitting waiting for access to the field. They didn't seem to notice or care the score was 41-10. (I noticed many of these were mothers with their children; maybe dad had headed back to the car, maybe he wasn't there.)

I believe this will serve to build attendance with families with young children. Simply, it is another reason to ATTEND a game.

Anything that gets the fans feeling closer to the players and a feeling of being a part of something is good for the program. I applaud any new ideas and being able to simply walk the field after the games is a good start.

These ideas cost little to no money or resources. Well done.

Maybe move games time to 2:00. Fewer people will feel a need to leave early to head home?
Games would be completed by 5:30 ish and more might stick around and tailgate after game.

I love to tailgate as much as anybody but I do believe that a 2:30 start time might be about right ESPECIALLY in October and November.

Just got to get ESPN to grant us 2:30 start time. Do they not control that every week, or just if they show the game on a non ESPN3 platform?

ESPN does help with start times. 3:30 is a typical start time for a tranche of games, not just ours. Very few games seem to start between 12:00 or 12:30 and 3:30.

Yosef wrote:ESPN does help with start times. 3:30 is a typical start time for a tranche of games, not just ours. Very few games seem to start between 12:00 or 12:30 and 3:30.

Help or hurt? Or just control?

Hah all a matter of perspective I'm sure!

Post game tailgating is no different than it's always been. Why only 1 hr after the game?


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Bring your boats,scuba gear,etc.River St. will live up to it's name.

3pm kickoffs are great for families who can attend kids soccer games etc in the AM and still make it up the mountain for kickoff. This worked very well when my boys were growing up. It's not such a big deal for us now, though I have become accustomed to 3pm kickoff and rather like it!

Rekdiver wrote:Maybe move games time to 2:00. Fewer people will feel a need to leave early to head home?
Games would be completed by 5:30 ish and more might stick around and tailgate after game.

No, no, no. I think we should move the kickoff time back to about 3 1/2 hours prior to when people start leaving the game. That way, more people would be there to watch.