re: Our west coast student body is becoming more apparent

Define old as shite because the most perpetually angry at fricking everything people these days are GenXers in their late 40s/early 50s who are highly active on social media.

Muh boomers.

Won’t have to worry about younger than millennials because old school message boards are “unc” and they’re functionally illiterate besides

Hell yeah! Wings and karaoke at that place and games on the projector. I vividly remember watching the Auburn vs Miss St 3-2 game there and a ton of games where all the Miss St fans were pissed off at Tyson Lee and I’m just keeping quiet because he was my QB when I played Oline.

There was also a cute Asian waitress who could sing any Cranberries song spot on

That was before the first Saban championship and two months before I did my first ever show(Zachary’s).

Fullback couldn’t hurt. Someone’s gotta run block.

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Bryant Denny’s stands aren’t close enough

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Always kind of pissed me off that BDS is designed this way and also not steeper. Could be one of the loudest in the country but its not architecturally designed to create a loud environment.

I don't know that it has anything to do with the composition of the student body. Trends are sometimes just trendy.

It is pretty commonplace across the SEC, and certainly in other areas.

Participate or don't, grown people can make choices.

All that said, not a fan of the black. Doesn't make sense. Not a primary or secondary university color. I don't like personal Bama attire with a black theme. Hated the hoodie on the sideline, which should be scrapped as the magic wore off. Crimson, white or some combo of the two that's it.

But, I am probably one of those grumpy Gen Xers mentioned earlier in the thread.

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Somebody with your user name probably shouldn't be the judge of message board names.

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Oh no! You got me there oh mighty person who can see in the dark.

Okrie. Southerners call it okrie.

In the early 2000s, due to the dotcom bubble, state governments were confronted with budget shortfalls across the country that would affect education funding. Since K12 is compulsory, politicians decided that higher education would bear the brunt of these cuts because it isn't universal and already had a model for pursuing payment from those who utilize it. This movement had been happening for most of the 1980s and 90s but the dotcom bubble really kicked it into high gear. Partly assisted by more favorable legislation for student loan lenders passed in the 1990s.

The decision to pursue out of state enrollment was effectively trying to replace the subsidization they lost from the state over successive tightening of state level funding. Again, UA is not unique in this respect. The growth in "student life" initiatives across the country - essentially making the university experience into a resort and spa for young adults - was happening from Oregon to Alabama and beyond. Many schools who were not already academically prestigious played the angle of being the fun backup school option if, say, you didn't get into UT-Austin or couldn't get into the college you preferred at Austin, etc. This was the Robert Witt plan in Tuscaloosa: be the fun backup school, build out cheap student housing and force everyone to use it their freshman year under hand-wavy research that says it is better for student outcomes, have a winner on the football field, ???, profit (well not in the red at least). The long term goal - something the Bell presidency really prioritized - was increasing UA's research/academic prestige thanks to generally bringing in higher quantity of quality students than Alabama can produce on its own.

Now look at the alternative: WVU. They are mocked for being a trash university because they decided to prioritize serving their state population as the flagship university. When you're a flagship university in a small state, you're simply going to have a lot of out-of-staters if you intend to increase your prestige both in terms of student quality and the ability to afford quality faculty with all that out-of-state revenue.

I'm on record that the color schedule is stupid and I suspect the buy in is going to be piss poor. So no, we should be retarded like WVU. (edit: this is sarcasm fyi).