Those that went to Mobile

[o_MobileBama]

I'm curious what you thought of the stadium, tailgating, downtown Mobile, etc. Thanks for any and all replies

And great game. You guys played awesome!

 

[SSBGDog]

Awful...F minus

Due to running out of ice and water before halftime. No one was peddling drinks in the stands, so the concessions were over run. I cannot overstate how ridiculously bad it was.

 

[BigMotherTucker]

I took your advice and found a pay yard to park in. It was amazing to me how well organized that system was. Very short walk to the stadium.

I'm not going to candy coat it... The stadium sucked. It was hard to move around. Very small concourses. Lines for concessions completely cut off movement. All I bought was 6 or 8 bottles of water, all hot. Went back down middle second qtr to get more. None to be had. It looked like a mash unit on the concourse with all the people having heat related issues. Emergency services seemed to be on top of things though.

We decided to pack it in and head home at that point.

It wouldn't kill me to never go back.


I do however appreciate your help earlier though.

 

[o_MobileBama]

Sorry guys. Wish USA had an on campus stadium

 

[kired]

Would not go back. Failed miserably. In fact, after today (and Troy 2 years ago) I'll never go to another MSU game at a non-bcs stadium where they expect "record crowds". They are just too unprepared.

 

[cytubb]

Dauphin street is fun. Ladd pebbles sucks

I'm curious what you thought of the stadium, tailgating, downtown Mobile, etc. Thanks for any and all replies

And great game. You guys played awesome!

nm

 

[was21]

At the rate USA is progressing with their program, they are probably in better shape than USM, for example. The university is forward thinking and fills a void in the panhandle area...south Alabama, northwest Florida, and close proximity to south Georgia.

 

[DirtyDog]

The USA fans were generally courteous. Turf looked good. More USA fans than I thought. Looked like tailgating was fun but concessions were awful. Troy was a far better experience for me. USA looks like a good growing program.

 

[AlSwearengen]

South Alabama might be a big death nail for u.s.m. I imagine all of those alabama recruits will prefer mobile and u.s.a. over hattiesburg and u.s.m.

 

[TossedOFF Again]

People were nice. Stadium is a dump. Awful experience. Spent entire second quarter in line for concessions like warm water and warm powerade. Terrible.

 

[Imadick]

I actually enjoyed Mobile a bunch. Stayed down town at Battle Station. Night life on Dauphin was fun. Had a good time at MSU gathering at O'Dalys and many good places to eat and drink. We enjoyed band in the park(but lots of state fans enjoying also). Mobile folks were as usual very polite and was told about a 36 times how happy they were that we came there! I don't think any of their fans were delusional enough to expect to win but wanted their team to put up a good effort. Ladd sucked but so does Vaught Hemingway. Tail gating there was huge and their fans seemed to really enjoy. USM will be kicked to the curb in that part of AL/MS. Yard parking worked well and a very short walk to stadium. Frankly parking at DWS sucks!

 

[AFDawg]

Death Nail!

 

[121Josey]

The pre-game show said

the turf was crap at field level.

 

[SwampDawg]

Shuttle bus service from the shopping center to the game was horrible. No signs to tell you about the one line to buy tickets, and the second line to catch a bus, both of which were in the same area. Long, long, long lines in both cases and about 5 buses trying to transport thousands. Never again. As I said in another post, whoever was responsible for that plan should be fired. Then tarred and feathered.

 

[mcdawg22]

Thank God I found the golf cart in the NW corner selling beer. Because concessions were awful. Of course one line had 90 year old Knights of Columbus guys pouring, so the Catholics made sure there was no head on the beer. And the bathroom was so 17'n hot at 6:00, it literally felt like a sauna, except with Ebola on the floor. Luckily I didn't get any South in my mouth.

 

[barely]

stayed in Orange Beach----and Live Bait still sucks ***!! Its like the mexican discount mafia took it over. Such a shame, that was my favorite place for years.

 

[HotMop]

Like a dubmass I parked at Bell Air Mall and took the shuttle. Holy crap, doesn't Mobile have the forward thinking to rent some charter buses? The wait was over one hour to get on the bus, the people next to us in the stadium said they waited for 2 hours. After the game the line was so long I hitch hiked back to the mall. Found a mini van, picked up my 6 yo old daughter and begged. Got back to the mall in no time.

About the stadium, total cluster 17. No water, no freaking water? It's not like it the sell out snuck up on you.

We need to stop this non-BCS away game crap. Troy sucked, USA sucked, and I'm sure La Tech will suck.

 

[Hammer Down]

At the rate USA is progressing with their program, they are probably in better shape than USM, for example. The university is forward thinking and fills a void in the panhandle area...south Alabama, northwest Florida, and close proximity to south Georgia.

I wouldn't go that far. They fill a void in Mobile and Lower Alabama. USM to the west, Troy to the NE. West Florida is talking about getting a program in Pensacola, and Troy has a Fort Walton Beach campus. Troy is typically where the FL Panhandle people go, after Auburn and Florida State.

Problem for USM, is that Lower Alabama and Mobile is where they used to pull a good portion of their students/recruits back in the 70s and 80s.

 

[Salty.sixpack]

USA and Mobile missed a great opportunity. They had radio spots and billboards up all year and knew well ahead the game was sold out.
Piss poor planning. Initially, we parked at the mall for the shuttle, but had enough sense to see a line that appeared to be ~2,000 with no shuttles in sight, so we tailgated at the mall for a while and then just parked for free closer to the stadium. They missed out on no telling how much revenue if they had better vending prepared. The stadium parking was "sold out" but there were plenty of spaces available, but were not used...again missed revenue. Overall, terrible management and missed opportunities.

For those of us interested in history, they could have also publicized the history of the stadium, which I had no idea was pretty interesting. I just copied this from Wikipedia:
The stadium was constructed in 1948 with private funding from a local banker wishing to create a permanent honor to his mentor, Ernest F. Ladd. The stadium's first game was a meeting between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Vanderbilt Commodores on October 2, 1948 which ended in a 14–14 tie.[SUP][1][/SUP] From 1948 to 1968, with the exceptions of 1960 and 1962, the Crimson Tide played one game per year in Ladd Stadium. In 1958, legendary head coach Paul "Bear" Bryant coached his first game as Alabama's head coach in Ladd Stadium when the Crimson Tide fell 13-3 to LSU.

Ladd–Peebles Stadium also played host to numerous other major college games over the years. Auburn played eight games at Ladd from 1948–55, playing the likes of Clemson, Florida and Ole Miss. The University of Southern Mississippi was also a consistent Ladd Stadium tenant, as the Golden Eagles played 17 games there from 1950 through 1974. Southern Mississippi's opponents included schools such as Texas A&M, Florida State and Alabama.

 

[esplanade91]

Surely Mobile has Uber. I would have taken one within 5 minutes of waiting in line for that bus.

 

[was21]

thanks...you emphasized my point

 

[jkpz28]

We parked in a yard and had an extremely short walk to the stadium and it was only $10 I was surprised. Had it not been hot enough to cook a steak on the bleachers it would have prob been a much much better experience. All the heat sent people fleeing to the concession stands throughout the first half. My wife thought should we run and grab us some water mid 2nd quarter and didn't make it back until halftime. From here expereince there were some workers having issue just calculating change to give back and caused the service to be even slower. Maybe throw out some calculators or something to help.