FSU football: Importance of students/fans doing their part on the ‘Climb’

FSU football has a standard that hasn’t been way out of reach in the past few years. There were several games where the effort of the players came into question. I understand it, fans want to support a program that’s trending in the right direction, and clearly, the Noles were not.

The attendance at home games in 2019 fell off of a cliff. A 3:30 p.m. home game against Louisville had a reported 46,530 people in attendance. A 3:30 p.m. home game against Syracuse had just over 50,000, and a 3:30 p.m. home game against rival Miami had around 64,000. Why would a fan want to travel and spend their hard-earned money to see a football program that seemingly doesn’t care about reaching the standard set?

That has been the vibe around the program over the past few seasons. However, this offseason changed that vibe under Mike Norvell. The success on the recruiting trails and the staff’s willingness to grind and be open to the media and fans gave a feeling of transparency.

The talk of the team playing hard and showing an identity came to fruition Sunday night against Notre Dame. Mike Norvell took a huge gamble with having nearly 100 recruits in attendance. What if the Noles didn’t play well in that game?

All of the summer momenta would have vanished into thin air. The other part of that? The same thing would have happened with the fans. The atmosphere Sunday night was something absent in Tallahassee for years.

It was noticeable on the TV broadcast and something the players fed off of during the game. It looks as though they will have an opportunity to do the same thing against Jacksonville State.

It helps the game is at 8 p.m., but it’s a great sign the students and fans plan to show up again. It’s something the FSU football program needs. However, as you can tell, it goes hand-in-hand with the success of the program.

Hopefully, as long as the players continue to play with great effort and showing improvement, the fans will continue showing up. If the fans want the program to play big ball football, then the fans need to show up like the teams that play big boy football.

It looks like both are off to a great start in 2021, so let’s keep it going the entire season!