Color blindness, or color vision deficiency, is the inability or decreased ability to see color, or perceive color differences, under normal lighting conditions. Color blindness affects a significant percentage of the population....The most usual cause is a fault in the development of one or more sets of retinal cones that perceive color in light and transmit that information to the optic nerve.
Now that we know what it is, we need to figure out why it affects so many people who attended the BLACKOUT GAME. Look at the crowd, and not the ones in blue and maize. Red (yeah, at other games, folks), orange, green, brown. It's a BLACKOUT. You're supposed to wear....wait for it....BLACK! Am I being picky and petty? Students got it (although the guy in the stars and stripes outfit and the one in the Santa outfit confused me. But the other fans? B-L-A-C-K. Black.
About the students.....
Great job! They were loud and excited. They wore black! And that energy was recognized by others:
Sunday Ruminations #Rutgers The new B1G team showing some of the old B1G what a student section can look like - ON time & totally into GAME.
— Gerry DiNardo (@gerrydinardo) October 5, 2014
Which brings us to East Lansing....
Where both AD Mark Hollis and HC Mark Dantonio expressed a good deal of disappointment at the MSU students who headed out early (with the Spartans leading comfortably and a cold rain falling), only to see Nebraska come back in the 4th quarter....but without much student support to help stem the tide. And to be fair, it's been noted that a lot of other fans took off, too.
It goes back to the issue of getting students into the stands and getting them to stay. It isn't unique to Michigan State, as we noted in an earlier piece. Hollis said they would be working with students to create a more engaging atmosphere that hopefully will get students into their seats early and keep them to the end.
Attendance 'round the conference
Hey, guess who drew the second highest attendance in the conference on Saturday? We weren't going to top the Spartans because we don't have that many seats. But we filled (or sold tickets for) the ones we do have. The folks in Chicago are, I'm sure, pleased.
School | Attendance | Capacity | % Capacity | Result | Opponent |
Michigan State | 75,923 | 75005 | 101.22 | W | Nebraska |
Rutgers | 53,327 | 52454 | 101.66 | W | Michigan |
Maryland | 51,802 | 54000 | 95.93 | L | Ohio State |
Illinois | 45,046 | 65000 | 69.30 | L | Purdue |
Northwestern | 42,013 | 47130 | 89.14 | W | Wisconsin |
Indiana | 40,457 | 52929 | 76.44 | W | No Texas |
And because we love to poke them.....and they deserve it....
Syracuse drew 37,569 in their ACC opener at the Dome. And saw Louisville thump them in front of a crowd that filled only about 75% of the building. Against Louisville. In their conference opener. New York's College Team does it again!