Victorious University of California Golden Bears head coach Sonny Dykes says he anticipates the Sydney Football College Cup becoming an annual event after Saturday’s game against University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors attracted a crowd of 61,247.
Certainly, the chance to go much closer to packing out the match venue, ANZ Stadium in Sydney, with closer to 80,000 would be there if the two teams were much higher up the list on the college rankings than the Bears and Warriors.
Overall, it was a great result for the concept of bringing what was the opening game of the college season to the other side of the world, with a big crowd that appeared to enjoy the experience and the coaches and players themselves clearly glad to have made the trip.
“I’m certain this won’t be the only time this happens,” Dykes said in the wake of his team’s 51-31 win.
“There are probably going to be more college teams, I’m sure, will come over in the future.
“It just makes sense on so many different levels and it’s such a great opportunity to experience something that is so different and special, so I would anticipate that this would become an annual event. We’d definitely come back.”
Asked how the atmosphere differed to a college game back home, Dykes replied:
“It was interesting. First of all, it’s a big stadium, it really is, and it’s a little further away because of the nature of the stadium.
“A lot of the stadiums in the US, the sidelines are on top of you, and they’re more vertical than they are kind of spread out like this. But I thought the crowd were great, I thought they were into it. It seemed like a great environment.
“When we’re coaching and these guys are playing, we’re pretty focused on our job, but at the end of the Game 1 had a chance to look around a little bit and take in the atmosphere and it seemed like people were having fun and enjoying the experience and I know our players were.”
Whether the concept does grow and eventually evolves into a full-blown NFL game being brought out here, as opposed to the NFL pre-season game that was staged at Homebush in 1999, remains to be seen.
But the fact both the trip to Sydney by two college teams and the game itself went off without a hitch and was very well received was at least a step in the right direction.
Hawaii, who were 20-point outsiders in the betting, began the game surprisingly, with an onside kick that risked giving up good field position but was a gamble aimed at trying to steal possession and potentially early momentum.
It didn’t come off, but their personable head coach, Nick Rolovich, said it was worth a shot.
“Well, I wanted to be aggressive and I wanted our guys to know we believed in them,” he said. “I told them what we wanted to do, I told the defence it could happen, it could go either way.
“I wanted to make sure the Australian fans got to see an onside kick and you only get one chance with the opening of the college season in Australia as a first-time head coach and this is your first kick-off. Nobody can take that away from us.
“I hope it sent a message to them that we were going to play aggressively and we’re not going to back down.”
Both Rolovich and Dykes were sincere in thanking the city of Sydney for kindly hosting them, and the fans for their support.
“It’s been an incredible experience for me personally and I know it has been for our players as well,” Dykes said.
“It’s a chance to come and see Sydney, such a beautiful city, and to have the opportunity to meet people of Australia and we’ve really enjoyed meeting them and it’s something I’ll remember forever.
“I’m really proud of our players, I thought they handled themselves incredibly well this week. They focused on the task at hand, which was to play well, while they also got the chance to see the city and experience some new things.”
Rolovich said that if Sydney wanted more of the same, he was sure it would happen.
“It was a great experience for our university and our kids,” he said.
“I don’t see many negatives about it, to be honest with you. It’s a trip these kids will never forget.”
The Americanisation of the match production was clear, with additions like “kiss-cam” and “dance-cam” to make the crowd a part of the action on the big screen.
“It seemed like there was a lot of enjoyment,” Rolovich said.
“I looked at the scoreboard and saw kiss-cam going on and I hoped they had a good time and enjoyed the game, it had a lot of action.
“There was one song I didn’t recognise that everybody was singing…”
Told the song was the Australian classic You’re The Voice, by John Farnham, Rolovich replied: “Yeah, I’m going to get that on my iPod.”
Makes a change from Men At Work’s Down Under, anyway.
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