Oaks Along Cajun Field

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Originally Posted by Million$Mullet

There were a handful of campers during bustles first year. It got bigger around 05/06 and then it blew up in huds first year. I’d say double to triple the amount that tailgated during bustles time.

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I feel like I remember some big tailgates in the ‘90s. Probably the Bama and aTm games.

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Originally Posted by Big Buds

I feel like I remember some big tailgates in the ‘90s. Probably the Bama and aTm games.

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Well yeah but those are anomalies. The week after we played A&M we got drilled by usm. Then we played houston at home and we had maybe 15k. I think it rained that game but still there was nobody tailgating like THAT. Bustle hyped the fan base enough to get to the tailgates at least. HUD just blew that batch out the water.

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Originally Posted by Million$Mullet

Well yeah but those are anomalies. The week after we played A&M we got drilled by usm. Then we played houston at home and we had maybe 15k. I think it rained that game but still there was nobody tailgating like THAT. Bustle hyped the fan base enough to get to the tailgates at least. HUD just blew that batch out the water.

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Yep. Hud was 4-5 years of solid tailgating every week . I wish we could get that energy back in the fan base




(I know the reasons why it fell off but just saying)

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Originally Posted by Big Buds

I feel like I remember some big tailgates in the ‘90s. Probably the Bama and aTm games.

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Had our camper at CF for the Bama weekend. Was funny, one of their guys rolls in with a custom Bluebird motor home. RVs weren’t what they are today, that one drew an
Immediate crowd when it parked.

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Originally Posted by facelessjonmoon

Yep. Hud was 4-5 years of solid tailgating every week . I wish we could get that energy back in the fan base




(I know the reasons why it fell off but just saying)

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That begs the question, who should promote UL football and tailgating? Hud took that all on by himself and was highly successful. Since then, no one really has. Neither Napier nor Dez have the personality that Hud has and winning alone has not excited the fan base. How did we lose that? I was at our first bowl game in N.O. with approximately 50,000 fans and we won. Tailgating was awesome. Yet, everything kind of cratered. Did the athletic department cause that with rule changes and higher fees? I still think the inside the stadium game day production continues to lose fans and never gets addressed.

UL needs someone to head this up and engage all of Acadiana and our students, make attending UL football games fun again and an experience fans want replicated every week and get our stadium filled for every game. This has got to be addressed now. A partial new stadium (we still have the east side to complete) will only be a novelty for so long if this is not fixed.

Trey Frazier is the head of RCAF with a nice resume "While at Missouri, he developed a strategic plan to optimize support for Mizzou Athletics that included operational improvements, increased donor participation and annual giving." I had to look him up because I never heard of him and I am a member of RCAF. Just what is being done to turn this around? Has he developed a plan like he did at Missouri? Or will it be business as usual averaging 15,000 a game with poor tailgating? Time for Maggard and Frazier to turn this thing around and make Cajun Field the place to be on Saturdays for students and fans and become one of the best environments in college football.

Nothing here that the majority of us here haven't been saying the last 8 years...Get used to it, Maggard and RCAF are all about one thing..$$$. They'd never want to INVEST in the efforts to solve the noted shortcomings in the above post....

Open up Cajun Field and make it a party again.

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Originally Posted by Big Buds

Open up Cajun Field and make it a party again.

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I keep hearing that we must "increase donor participation and annual giving" to Make Cajun Field Great Again, but it turned out that all we really needed was a coach who took it upon himself to get the kind of crowds we need.

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Originally Posted by Louisiana84

I keep hearing that we must "increase donor participation and annual giving" to Make Cajun Field Great Again, but it turned out that all we really needed was a coach who took it upon himself to get the kind of crowds we need.

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There's a saying used during the Courir Du Mardi Gras, "Cinq-sous pour les Mardi Gras!" Riders with their hands out beg for charity for the community gumbo at the end of the Mardi Gras ride. It feels as though this is the approach we've seen for years now, a hand out asking for more charity, but the revelry is lacking.

Not Oak related, but the work on OLOL is moving quickly....windows and glass installed, brick work is nearly done, new entrances are going up it's looking good..

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Originally Posted by CajunFun

On the 1st day of the last century, Edwin Stevens planted approximately 100 oak trees around the perimeter of the original SLII campus. He had gathered the acorns from a particularly impressive specimen he found in New Orleans.

It was an act of audacity. Stevens planted, around a tiny nothing of a school, in a dead-end backwater of a town, the slowest thing that grows in the South. He planted something he would never see grown, something that his children and grandchildren would never see grown.

He planted something that our grandchildren, and our great-great grandchildren, will never see fully grown.

When I started at USL in the 1970's, Cajun Field was new, clean, modern, impressive.

A mere 50 years later, we're tearing it down.

What will this new stadium look like in 50 years?

On the other hand, what will the oak trees look like in 500 years? Will there even be a football stadium behind them?

In 500 years, will people even play football any more?

ARS LONGA VITA BREVIS EST

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Remove the dang trees!!

Place medians in the grass and paved parking lots that are 20’ wide. Plant 75 new live oak trees in the Newley created medians and now you have an entire oak grove to tailgate in. Similar to Ole Miss.

Problem solved. Your welcome.