Column: This year's football team will fill stadium seats

Good job, students. You surprised me.

After making it out to the tailgate fields Thursday night, you still managed to find your way over to The Rock. Congratulations. That’s something that IU students haven’t been able to do in large part since the Michigan game in 2010.

And wasn’t it fun?

You got to see a new Memorial Stadium record for points scored, 10 touchdowns, and the second most points scored by any IU team ever, the most since 1901.

You got to see how electrifying junior wide receiver Shane Wynn is with the ball in his hands, spinning his way out of tackles and flying past everyone on the field in open spaces.

You got to see an improved defense force fumbles, intercept passes, deliver monstrous hits and generate “tapouts,” causing Indiana State to go three-and-out.

This IU team is going to give you a reason to keep coming out, too.

There’s no reason that the attendance number can’t jump from the 40,278 of you who were at Thursday’s game to 50,000 or more during Big Ten play or the Missouri game.
Heck, there’s no reason you can’t reach that number Saturday when IU plays Navy.

This team is exciting. It’s dynamic. It’s explosive.

And it’s going to be the first IU team to go to a Bowl since 2007.

Don’t you want to look back on the season and say that you were there to see it in person?

Football is actually pretty fun when you’re good at it.

Most of you who really care about sports at IU have tickets already purchased. There’s more than 15,000 of you who bought basketball tickets, and had to get football season tickets, too.

Take advantage of it. Look at it as an added bonus. Because this year, with this team, it really is an added bonus.

You probably didn’t know it before, but this could be one of the most surprising teams in the Big Ten.

Around the conference, no one expects IU to have a rowdy, packed house for football games.

But when it comes to basketball season, Assembly Hall gets praise from everyone across the country as one of the craziest atmospheres.

Why not have that atmosphere start earlier in the fall?

The students could actually be seen — and heard — at the game Thursday night. That was so cool. It made it look like IU students actually care about the team.

It didn’t look like it would happen.

About 10 minutes before the game, the student section sat about half empty. It looked like the same-old, same-old. Students still cared more about getting drunk than actually showing up to the game.

Then you slowly filled the stands higher and higher in The Quarry.

When sophomore quarterback Tre Roberson threw the first touchdown pass of the game, almost the entire student section was filled and on its feet.

I was as shocked to see a full student section as I was to see the IU offense score in three plays.

This isn’t something I should have to be writing about. It shouldn’t be a storyline, and something that the media always finds itself talking about.

But, let’s face it, you all have a bad reputation.

Show up like a real student section like you did Thursday, and this won’t be a topic of conversation anymore.

It’ll be an expectation.