Elon University head football coach Jason Swepson said Rhodes Stadium, the home of the Phoenix, “felt like a coffin” during last Saturday’s 31-17 loss to Furman University, a loss that knocked Elon out of any shot of playoff contention.
“We just didn’t create our own energy,” Swepson said after the lackluster performance against the Paladins. “We had to. There was no one in the stands. We had to create our own energy and hopefully we can learn from it and move forward. It felt like a coffin out there and we didn’t help it.”
On Tuesday, Swepson spoke more to the issue.
“I heard about four or five of my players mention it.” he said. “And then that’s when I was like, ‘Hey, there were no fans in your backyard playing sandlot football, and you were still very competitive.’ So, a learning experience for all of us. I was very disappointed that I even heard that. If you’re a competitor, that shouldn’t affect you.”
Swepson spoke of the crowd at the Homecoming game Oct. 20, as 10,154 people watched the Phoenix narrowly defeat Western Carolina University 42-31, as a “great” turnout. But just 6,158 fans came out to the Furman game.
Senior wide receiver Aaron Mellette said he was not disappointed in the fans, but saw how it could have affected other players on the team.
“When you come out here, you can tell,” he said. “You go from Homecoming one week and then, yeah it’s the Pink game, but it’s not as many people. For the young guys, they might struggle with it because they’re not used to it. They see the big crowd one week and then the next week, there’s almost nobody here."
Senior defensive lineman Olufemi Lamikanra pointed to the team’s 3-5 record as one possible explanation for the lack of turnout.
“We’re not winning right now,” he said. “At this point, we have to win some games. We can’t expect to have a strong fan base when we’re losing. So we have to win some games. Hopefully, we’ll win some games and we’ll have a better turn out. Right now, it’s on us and we can’t complain about a fan base until we win some games.”
Regarding the need to “create energy” Swepson mentioned, junior offensive lineman Clay Johnson said the crowd helps, but the lack of a crowd was not a reason for the loss.
“You can’t make excuses and especially can’t blame it on the crowd,” he said. “And we certainly didn’t give them a chance to root for us that much. You get a lot of your energy from the crowd. That was tough, but we’ve got to give them something to root for, and we didn’t give them anything to root for against Furman.
Although he won’t be here, Lamikanra hopes the team can finish out the season well and build the fan base up for next season. He used the 2009 season, his redshirt freshman year and the season Elon made the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, as an example.
“You always want fans in the stands,” he said. “But I’ve been on the playoff team, and every week there were fans there. It just shows that when you win some games, they’ll show up. From now on, we’ll have to win out and hopefully finish with a winning season and next year the fan base will be a lot better.”