OSU contends with ULL’s ‘horrible fans’
Published: 10/5/2010 3:38 PM
Last Modified: 10/5/2010 3:38 PM
In the Southeastern Conference, a rule prohibits its member schools from positioning student sections behind the visiting team’s bench.
There is no such rule in the Sun Belt Conference, and the University of Louisiana-Lafayette capitalizes by having its infamously vocal students watch home football games from the “Red Zone” – located immediately behind the visitors’ bench at 31,000-seat Cajun Field.
ESPN The Magazine quoted an opposing Sun Belt player as saying, “They have some horrible, horrible fans.”
When Oklahoma State plays in giant stadiums at OU, Texas, Nebraska and Texas A&M, there is crowd noise. The noise at Lafayette is different. It is choreographed and insulting, and the ULL students make sure that the visiting players hear it all. During Friday’s ESPN2-televised contest, the OSU Cowboys are the targets of the “Red Zone” venom.
This was taken from the the Daily News Journal of Murfreesboro, Tenn.: “Loud-mouthed fans in the notorious ‘Red Zone’ . . . shout offensive and well-researched comments from pregame warm-ups to the final whistle.” Opponents can expect to hear “comments about their mistakes in past games, details of their family and background and even tidbits about their high school days – many of which would take a lot of time and effort to dig up.”
Big 12 teams are accustomed to playing in televised games. For a Sun Belt program like Louisiana-Lafayette, however, a televised home game is a huge event. The “Red Zone” fans will be in attack mode, but drunk, face-painted college students don’t win football games.
Taunting will have no bearing whatsoever on the forward progress of OSU’s Kendall Hunter, Brandon Weeden and Justin Blackmon.
-- Bill Haisten
Written by
Bill Haisten
Sports Writer
