One of the aspects that brings the student section and audience into the football games is the themes. There’s a different student section theme for each game, and participation and energy arises with each one. However, students have different opinions as to which one was their favorite.
Using a student survey, 10% of the student population chimed in on which theme was their favorite. After a long season with a multitude of themes, students had varying opinions. However, there were two themes that blew the other options out of the water.
The homecoming game dragged the most students to the stands to cheer on the Patriots. This game hosted the blackout with neon theme, a favorite of 32.8% from students in the survey. The hyped up student section seemed to help the Patriots against Watkins Mill in this game, where they dominated every quarter in a 50-3 victory. “Blackout theme was my favorite because it was homecoming so a lot of students showed up. It was the most packed the barbecue cub tailgate was the whole year and it was a lot of fun,” senior grillmaster Matthew DeLeon said.
The USA theme came second with 10.6% of votes. The student section was flooded with red, white and blue outfits against Rockville during the first home game of the season. The pregame tailgate was full of students getting face paint to match their already festive appearances. This game was one of the most attended games of the season, and provided high participation from the student section.
Coming in third was the pink out theme. The last regular season game of the year came with a lot of stakes for playoff seeding. This brought fans together to support the team while wearing pink as a tribute to breast cancer awareness. Sophomore photographer Keon Gray enjoyed this theme because of the participation it brought. “It is a theme a lot of people can do unlike camo because a lot of people own pink. Plus the photo of the crowd during pink out looks really good in my opinion compared to other themes,” Gray said.
Camo came in just one vote short of pink out to land in fourth place at 10%. As Gray mentioned, not a whole lot of people own camo. However, students still managed to follow the theme dressed in green, black and brown. The camo theme came with fun cheers and rounded out one of the closest games of the season. This game was brought to overtime, and the Patriots ended it with a game-winning field goal.
Rounding out the top five list, white out had 9.4% of votes. This was the only away game that cracked the top five, and it came against the school’s rival. While the Patriots fell to Churchill in this game, it was one of the highest attended games by fans.
