My friends and I have been talking about the situation with the general apathy that our student body has for the football team. We always watch Saturday football games televised from the large state school from each state with thousands of crazy rowdy student fans who feel as if they are part of the team and feel so attached to them. I'm sure that everyone here at UB wishes that we also had that, but the problem is that everyone is going about the wrong way to get it.
True, the team is not as good as a Big Ten or Pac Ten school and because of this not too many people come to see them. But the ways that the university tries to draw fans isn't working. They schedule popular "celebrities" like Screech (Dustin Diamond) to come, or make it into a show with Tony Hawk performing at halftime. Students usually joke about these things, and although they come to the game to see it, they aren't becoming any more attached to the team.
What we need is something like a rivalry to boost school spirit, and what better team than with Rutgers, the large state school of our neighbor to the southeast, New Jersey. New York people and New Jersey always tend to think their own state is the better one, and since they are so close it would be perfect. Another big reason this would work as a rivalry is that neither team is very good at all. They both lost to D-1AA schools last week, and neither has been able to put together a decent season these past few years (I'm actually not too sure if Rutgers has ever been good, at anything else as well). It doesn't matter though if the teams are not good, just something like this, which can get people fired up for the big game. Put it at the end of the season during the night, and switch locations each year. It would become the one game that no one from either school, or state, would want to lose. (-"I can't believe we lost to Lehigh." -"Yeah, but as long as we beat Rutgers.")
That is the attitude which I believe can help boost attendance and a following for our not-so-spectacular Bulls.
