Lol, this is where people get caught up. They follow a team for years hoping that maybe this will be the year. They get fed up with the same ole crap. However, they have an inborn fear that the year they give up and quit following the team, that will be the year they turn it around or within a few years after they quit following them.
Obviously seventy thousand fans must like following a team that likely will go 7-5 every year on the average. They have money and can afford the pricey tickets. This must be nothing more than the same feeling they get with their other forms of entertainment. The Iowa fans are not made up of the same type of fans that you have at the likes of Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame, Alabama, Texas, etc. Those folks would never tolerate settling for 7-5. They may go through numerous coaches in search of a great coach. It may take them a decade or two to find that coach but the will never settle. That may be good or bad depending on how you look at things.
Also there is nothing more for the people in Iowa to do with their time. No professional teams to follow. Put Iowa in the same location as Northwestern and you would be lucky to get over 40,000 fans to the game. The Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, a hockey team and just a few hours away you have the Packers and the Bucks. What’s Iowa got. Ames and Iowa City to follow for your sporting entertainment.
So apparently most of the fans who follow ISU or Iowa sports don’t put a premium on winning and competing at a championship level. They keep coming back. Like I said to keep coming back over and over again regardless of the end result every year shows that this is just an entertainment package for their families. That’s the only way I can think to explain the IOWA fandom. Also those fans must somehow identify themselves to that type of thinking. Don’t expect to win but if you do it’s nice.
I think some of us are likely fans of a professional team or two. We are used to seeing professional teams constantly striving to become better and better each year through drafts that try to even the playing field somewhat. I personally am a Cubs, Bears, and Bulls fan along with my favorite college team the Iowa Hawkeyes. That’s a lot of self inflicted pain over a fifty year period. Yes the Bears did it in 1985. The Cubs finally pulled it off. The Bulls were the funnest of all my teams to follow back when Jordan was around.
Unless a giant earthquake strikes Iowa City and swallow Barta and/or Kirk up nothing is every goi g to change until these folks retire. We be stuck like a stuffed pig with a football in its mouth. Snort, snort, oink oink, that’s college football as a Iowa Hawkeye fan. Take it or leave it.
