Middleton’s Musings: It shouldn’t take Family Weekend for fans to tailgate and attend Miami football games

College football Saturdays are a key component of what makes the United States of America unique. 

The identity around the sport is unrivaled across the globe. And while what happens on the field and in the stands is the main event, what occurs before the games at the powerhouse football schools is just as much of a factor.

Go to a football game between two teams in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) or the Big 10. Even the Big 12 schools have an abundance of it on their Saturday afternoons and evenings. 

What you will find isn’t just packed seats and bleachers inside the stadiums, but the parking lots are also filled to the brim with cars and people. 

Trunks and truck beds are open. Tents work double time as a means of shade and a marker for those lost among the crowd. Hamburgers, hot dogs and beers are aplenty. Cornhole, beer pong and a good ol’ fashioned game of catch with a pigskin are never far from anyone.

Tailgating is an art ingrained into college football culture. But for some reason, the only time it happens on a large scale at Miami University is on Family Weekend. 

The complaint I’m making isn’t one that hasn’t already been well-documented. 

While the Miami football team may be up and down this season (and the first- and second-string quarterbacks being injured isn’t going to help the team’s draw), even in the team’s best seasons, attendance (particularly student attendance) has been disappointing. The parking lot outside of Millett Hall is not even close to full. Even the fraternity tailgates are sparse with people outside of the organization.

However, that all changes when the families come to town. 

In theory, it makes sense. New blood brings new perspectives. 

The moms, dads, aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins who come out to see a football game want to tailgate beforehand, and with them come the students who might otherwise be at Brick Street Bar, The Woods + Sidebar  or Skipper’s Pub taking advantage of the weekend deals. 

I’ve been there. My family does a tailgate every year for Family Weekend.

The atmosphere is exciting. The players get off the bus and walk into Yager Stadium with the band playing the Miami fight song. Even other Miami head coaches can be seen walking around sometimes. My first year, basketball Head Coach Travis Steele, who was new at the time, walked right up to my family’s tailgate, introduced himself and chatted for a good while. 

Then, after eating great food and drinking great beverages, you walk in and watch a college football game. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s bad. But it’s still Division I college football (and a team that has a pedigree of winning in the Mid-American Conference (MAC)). 

But after the game ends and the cars pull out from the parking lot, that’s when the magic stops.

The students who were earlier seen tossing a cornhole bag or throwing a football to each other, smiling with a beer in their hand and singing the lyrics to their favorite tunes, decide not to attend the following games 

Instead, they go back Uptown to the same bars.

A free ticket isn’t good enough. A winning product isn’t good enough. Sometimes, even a rivalry isn’t good enough. 

The tailgating starts and ends with Miami’s Family Weekend, and that’s disappointing.

So how do we change this?

As a recent graduate who was intimately involved with this phenomenon through my four years as a student, I can confidently say … I don’t know. 

Oxford is a college town that has no shortage of people who love college football, and it has no shortage of people who like burgers, hot dogs and beer. But there is a disconnect between the two. 

One might argue the reason is because of the competition and level of football being played. It’s just the MAC, right?

But that doesn’t explain how other programs, such as the rival Ohio University Bobcats and University of Toledo Rockets, brought in 21,037 and 18,435 fans, respectively, in their home openers against Jacksonville State University and Central Connecticut State. 

Miami, for reference, saw 11,126 fans grace the stands, bringing the game’s capacity to a mere 46%.

“But Jeff, they might have played better competition than Miami, who played the Patriot League’s 2-4 College of the Holy Cross!”

For Ohio, you may have somewhat of an argument (not one that I would consider worth an extra 10,000 people, though), as Jacksonville State is 5-2 in Conference USA. But Toledo’s opponent is 2-3 overall in the Northeastern Conference, regarded by many as worse than the Holy Cross’ Patriot League.

One could argue alternatively that Toledo and Ohio were predicted to be excellent this season, leading to a naturally high attendance. 

However, that would be misleading, too. 

Miami was selected to finish second behind Western Michigan University in the MAC Coaches Preseason Poll. Toledo and Ohio were selected to finish third and fourth, respectively. 

So it’s not for a lack of belief that the RedHawks would be a good team this season. They were slated to be one of the best teams in the conference once again, and still have the chance to be, following a tight victory against the University of Massachusetts.

The reasons I believe most to be why Miami students don’t come to the games are, first, the lack of star power in the MAC in general, and second, the general identity of Miami football teams under Head Coach Chuck Martin.

In the world of college football today, all of the stars are in the Power Four conferences. 

The vast majority of players who will go on to play for or against a student’s favorite National Football League (NFL) teams are on their television screens. They aren’t coming to visit Oxford. And if there is a player on the RedHawks who has that kind of talent, they’re gone before you can say “Ben Roethlisberger.” 

Miami was on the national stage in 2023 when junior kicker Graham Nicholson won the Lou Groza Award for the top place kicker in college football after setting records through the regular season on the road to a MAC championship in Detroit. 

The amount of pride from Miami fans online and even at the school was tangible. 

And what happened next? He transferred to the University of Alabama. 

That’s the nature of today’s college sports, giving RedHawks fans all the more reason not to really care about what great players they have today, because they could be gone tomorrow. 

The second idea for lower fan attendance (and, as a result, tailgating) is the identity to which Martin’s teams play. 

They’re defensive-minded. They’re gritty. They force the opponent into mistakes and take advantage at the right times. 

None of this is to say they can’t score. They can. But defense is the name of the game, and for Miami fans who, for example, also grew up watching the Ohio State University Buckeyes win games by 30-50 points and compete with/holding the title of the number one team in college football, that’s a massive change that can turn people off.

Of course, if you’re winning and playing more defensive-minded football, that’s one thing. But if you’re consistently getting walloped by Power Four teams and beating only conference teams, it makes sense that fans know which games to go to and which to avoid. 

Unlike with the Miami basketball team in March Madness, the likelihood of the RedHawks football team getting an at-large bid to the College Football Playoff is extremely tough, making the program’s chance of national attention ridiculously low.

However, regardless of those factors, I believe having pride in your program and showing up for it makes it more desirable. If RedHawks fans were packing the student section of Yager Stadium instead of the Brick dance floor on Saturdays, it would start to build a culture. 

No one wants to play in front of empty seats in their home stadium. 

With the facilities, education and, frankly, the money that Miami has to offer, giving players a loud, exciting, hard-to-play-in atmosphere that everyone knows Miami fans can and will provide when they want to would make this even more of a premier program in the MAC.

Tailgating football games is fun. Watching live college football games is fun. 

The MAC isn’t the SEC, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth giving your attention to it. 

So find a parking spot on a Saturday afternoon. Bring your car or truck, a boatload of beer, hot dogs, hamburgers and even your biggest speaker. Invite your friends. If you’re a student, use your free ticket and go to the football game.

The bars aren’t going anywhere, and the team will notice. I promise.