Kentucky Wildcats Football: New Football Upgrades, from a fans point of view

If you’ve followed Wildcatbluenation.com for any sort of time in the last few months you may know that I am a season ticket holder for the football games in Commonwealth. Lately, I’ve been talking about the uniforms, the upgrades and the new video boards and sound system at Commonwealth. Saturday was my first look at all of this and while it wasn’t the greatest turn out ever…Actually it was terrible, awful and I was very disappointed, but I have to say, I was impressed with a few things away from the field. Such as the new ticket policy for students. It worked perfect and the student section was full.

So this article isn’t going to contain a ton of football news and views, because let’s face it. A lot of guys on this website do a better job than me at breaking down the play, but I have to say as a season ticket holder of three years I was very impressed with the new upgrades to the stadium, so I’ll give you a few of my pros and cons of the video boards, ribbons around the stadium and the music.

Lets start off with the new video boards.

Video Boards: I’ll admit that when I first got to Commonwealth and in my seat about an hour before kick-off I was a little disappointed. It seemed a majority of the board was taken up by random ads for Drakes and random soda products, but I could handle it. This would be a complain throughout the game for me, but Commonwealth changed it up a bit later on in the pre-game.

For example, the “Cats in the NFL” was a lot better than normal. Instead of just pictures that looked like they were taken off Google Images, the graphics were set up A LOT better and when they got to Randall Cobb they actually showed his videos of his touchdown reception and his leap and his kick-off return for a touchdown. Great stuff, all while playing the NFL music in the background. It was a lot cooler than before and my first take-away from the video boards.

Also, the band got their own video before they come out onto the field, it was cool and I think a way to show off the video boards

The biggest thing that caught my attention was the opening video before the football team came out. Used to it was the old classical “DUN DUN DUN DUN…DUN DUN DUN DUN” and yeah it was okay…For the first three years. Now it’s not new, but it’s the whole Zombie Nation “Whoa oh oh oh oh” song, but before that song kicks in it’s a ton of UK highlights with Tom Leach calling the action. I like what they did here because they try and get the fans hyped by playing the same song they played that actually shook Commonwealth, so you can hear the music in the background of Tom Leach saying, “and I can feel the press box shaking, it hasn’t been like this in sometime” then the music kicks in and shows the fans jumping…Should be really interesting for big games to see if the crowd will get up.

The ribbons were a little bad and rarely updated. I remember seeing soccer scores on there forever and I could barely see the scores from around the country when I was looking for it. Nothing really cool for these like I expected and I didn’t glance at it during Touchdowns. Oh well.

Music: BIG upgrade on the music because I swear if I heard “Meant to Live” and “Sweet Escape” again I was going to lose it. Before kick off they play “Welcome to the Jungle” now and before every kick-off there is a new Wildcat call that Commonwealth only did when UK made a big play. I like that a lot more. Every kickoff has a different song and some of them were new and some were classics. Music was defiantly a plus for me. I wish more people were there to enjoy it.

Overall I’m going to say my experience in the stadium went from a 5/10 (this is besides the game atmosphere, I’m talking down time) from a 8/10. With the music upgrades, video boards. It definitely makes for a better experience in Commonwealth and I hope you feel the same way as a fan.

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