I thought I'd create a thread for us to discuss our opinions of the stadium experience, especially in relation to the cheers.

A few points:

• I remember reading comments from a UT fan that they thought we use too much 'pumped in' music and this takes away from the crowd's enthusiasm to some extent. I am inclined to agree. I understand the idea behind it, and I bet there is more research and planning that goes into it than could ever be considered appropriate or necessary, but our fans are aware enough to know when to be loud. When it is borderline deafening without the crowd even having to make a peep, there is much less motivation for the crowd to scream and get into it, so when "Hell's Bells" or whatever else cuts out, the sound level really drops off as well until (or if) the crowd makes up for it by cheering louder.
• I am not a fan of the "First down, Alabama! ROLL TIDE!" but if it is what Saban or his wife or his third cousin wants, I'll happily oblige. The part that seems to work even less for me is the little thing the band does after the crowd's "ROLL TIDE." The cheer is supposed to be ROLL...TIDE...ROLL...TIDE...ROLL...TIDE...R-O-L-L-T-I-D-E...GO! but it seems like no one outside of a few students sitting right by the band (I am one of them) and the cheerleaders know this cheer. I sat on the press box side and the cheer may as well have not happened. It is hard to master, awkward, and way too long. I say scrap it and bring back the theme from "Superman."
• "Tusk" is a great stand tune for Alabama, and I've always thought we should incorporate it in some capacity, but it is weird the way it is implemented in the pre-game show. Either make a bigger deal out of it (make it feature Big Al more or something) or just leave it as a stand tune. I liked the old-school fight song they played for the last few years better.
• Rammer Jammer. If we stopped doing it before games because it wasn't classy, how on earth does bringing it back only for the end of the games make any sense? The way I see it, any old team can cheer after they beat the hell out of you, but it really takes some cojones to say it before the game. Now that we are a national power again, and we are clearly okay with playing the Rammer Jammer Cheer, why not return it to pre-game? The first time I heard it, I thought it was incredibly intimidating, mainly because we were telling the opponent about the beatdown that was coming. Rubbing salt in their wounds is nice, but lacks the punch and swagger of having the guts to say it before the game. I'm not saying to scrap it as a post game tradition (although playing it after beating some teams just seems wrong), but rather that I think its rightful place is in pregame, with the band facing the opposing teams fans.
  
• Speaking of pre-game, to me, the cheerleaders doing the first few cheers without the band is really lame. Seems very high school, or like some cheerleading people didn't feel like they were featured enough. Let's get everyone out there for pre-game and then all do the cheers together.

Okay, I know the Rammer Jammer discussion is nothing new, but I still decided to include it, because if other people do indeed feel this way, the only way to get it changed is to continue to talk about it.

Just some thoughts. What are yours?