Middleton’s Musings: Miami football is back home, and students should show up

The dog days of summer, where the only sports on television are baseball and whatever niche sport ESPN8: “The Ocho” is showing, like wiffleball and professional bubble hockey, are over. Football is back to gracing our screens throughout the week, with the National Football League and college football covering Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

With college football ramping back up again, the Miami University RedHawks are set for their 2025 campaign. After falling in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) championship last season to Ohio University, head coach Chuck Martin and his staff did yeoman’s work to try to put themselves back on top this year.

Miami fans have seen their team play on the road in its first two games. Now, the RedHawks return to Oxford and will play at Yager Stadium for the first time this season against the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Rebels.

For the first home game since last November, Miami students should be there.

One of the major talking points of every athletic season here is football attendance. The average game brings in fewer than 15,000 fans per game in a stadium that holds 25,000 people.

Last season, according to Miami’s official statistics, attendance was at its highest at the final Battle for the Victory Bell against the University of Cincinnati. There were 24,717 attendants in the bleachers. On the other side of the spectrum, Yager welcomed as few as 5,328 fans in Miami’s matchup with Kent State University on Nov. 13.

The RedHawks had two other matchups with sub-10,000 fans, bringing the average for regular-season home games to 12,193 fans.

Student attendance at Yager is a complicated phenomenon to describe, especially as a student at this university. If there was a full commitment to attend football games, there’s no doubt that Yager would be packed every home weekend. We’ve seen it before. It’s not a question of whether or not RedHawks fans can do it. It’s just a matter of the alternatives.

Instead of making the walk to Yager, students can stop by one of the many bars with Saturday drink specials and watch the game with hundreds of other people in an environment that is just as, if not more, exhilarating and energetic. The college football environment that students crave from SEC and Big Ten schools feels more prevalent with a pitcher of beer in hand at Beat the Clock than it does in the hot sun (or, by the winter months, the freezing cold) at Yager.

Another factor that doesn’t help is the quality of competition. The MAC is a respectable conference, of course, but the question of, “Would you rather watch the University of Tennessee play the University of Georgia or Miami play Central Michigan University?” is fundamental to a college football Saturday in Oxford and the attendance issues.

Regardless, seeing as it’s the first home weekend of a new college football season, students should be in attendance to watch the RedHawks, and there are incentives to arrive before the noon kickoff.

As is the case with most Miami football games, tailgating will be in full force, but not just by fans in the Millett parking lot. Tailgates were also announced by the Miami Interfraternity Council (IFC), with 25 different fraternities joining forces to try to bring fans out. There will be a live DJ, food and, of course, drinks starting at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Sep. 20.

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For those who are there for more than the drinking and tailgating, the football team is sporting new names that have only been on their television screen to this point.

Saturday will be the first time fans can see sixth-year quarterback Dequan Finn with their own eyes as a veteran leader of a relatively young offensive group. The defense, despite giving up an undesired number of points against Rutgers, remains as stout as in years prior.

Miami football’s attendance conundrum is multifaceted, but in the first week, unless the game is sold out, it’s hard to find reasons why students shouldn’t make their way to Yager to support the RedHawks.

@jjmid04

middleje@miamioh.edu