The countdown is now two days until the East Tennessee State Buccaneers football team travels to Kennesaw, Georgia to take on the Kennesaw State Owls — the same team they faced for their season opener last year.
And students are gearing up for the first game of the season
“It was exciting because we got it [football] back,” said senior Greg Besley. “But now it’s time for us to work harder and do what we can do.”
Athletes are not the only ones ready to take on year number two on the gridiron. Having a 2-9 record is never something that fans enjoy, and sometimes it is hard to stay with your team when things get rough.
“I feel more excited this year than I did last,” Besley said. “Last year we witnessed a lot and it wasn’t as exciting. I stopped going to the games, but now I’m ready to see what we are going to do.”
Greg feels that although the team did endure some losses, it had little effect on the fans.
“It didn’t play a part at all,” Besley said. “We were losing, but I feel that every student was still happy for the fact that we have a football team now and we have something to look forward to.”
Students are just as anxious for the season to begin: some for the game, some for the fun and some for both. Campus culture has seemed to change since the return on football.
“During my freshman year, before the football team started, I saw a lot of people go home on the weekends,” said sophomore Salvador Ortiz. “People would go home because they had nothing to do on the weekends. Now that the stadium is being built on campus I feel that that’s going to bring a lot of people together and increase the school spirit.”
Being here for year one and year two of football must be nice, but Besley said days were not always full of joy on campus when he entered college in 2012.
“There was no football,” Besley said. “Other schools had homecomings, but we did not have an actual football game homecoming. We just had to sit around the entire day and wait on something that night. Now we have a team that we get to watch play, win or lose it’s still exciting and we have homecoming events.”
One of the most memorable activities about last year were the tailgates. Many fans came flooding in before game time to enjoy good food and even greater vibes.
“I’m pretty excited,” Ortiz said. “I have a bunch of friends in fraternities and they love to tailgate. I’m excited for that, because it’s always fun to hang out with your friends and then go into the game together and hopefully see a good game.”
