North Texas Drawing Way Too Many Fans To Be Asked

[PlummMeanGreen]

Quotes come from a CoogFans.com UH poster On SMU Thread

Posted: Today 12:16 PM

SMU Player Calls Out Fans

"Our coaches and my teammates have spent countless hours in the film room and meetings getting ready (not to mention bringing national attention and thousands of new applicants each year) and this is how our community thanks us?

Don't be surprised now when I say it's more fun for us to play on the ROAD than it is at home. At least the opposing team's fans show up, and the game experience resembles what I dreamed about rather than the ***-wee football experience we have here where it seems only the players' parents are in the stands."

Guess our guys thought this, once upon a time.

http://www.smudailycampus.com/...pirit-1.2653972

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Darn it, you almost have to feel sorry for their players especially since they are presently in a win cycle with a bowl last year and their 2'nd winning season in a row and another bowl. June Jones will want to coach before larger crowds eventually unless SMU has him a "Gary Patterson-esque" salary package.

North Texas while losing needs to work on having winning crowds so that when the wins come it's all gravy from there.

What is UNT doing to get in another non-AQ upgraded conference?

Per another UNT alum, "at least SMU made noises about wanting in the Big 12" and look what all that noise may have gotten them instead.

Hopefully, there are things being done in the background by President Rawlins, our BOR's and AD/RV.

Edited October 19, 2011 by PlummMeanGreen

[EdwardRRooney]

Does suck for them. Id like to think more people would be at Apogee if we were 5-1 but I don't know.

Edited October 19, 2011 by EdwardRRooney

[rcade]

Ouch. I can't recall a college football player kicking the fan base in the nuts that hard before.

What was the attendance for SMU/UCF? That's a pretty big win for the Mustangs against a big conference rival.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Does suck for them. Is like to think more people would be at Apogee if we were 5-1 but I don't know.

If we're not playing Sister Mary's Nunnery U we'll be OK.

Yet Jeez--Louise, the larger UNT, Denton, Denton County and DFW NT Exes become has to translate at the Apogee Stadium gate sooner or later; that is, unless aliens are kidnapping each generation of Mean Green fans whereas we have to replace a whole new set of em' every 10 years. (OK already, too much late night 570 AM KLIFF radio show Coast to Coast for me--they come up with some weird subjects nightly).

GMG!

[MCMLXXX]

Ouch. I can't recall a college football player kicking the fan base in the nuts that hard before.

What was the attendance for SMU/UCF? That's a pretty big win for the Mustangs against a big conference rival.

It was nowhere near what was reported. A friend of mine (SMU grad and diehard fan) told me that attendance was pathetic. I didn't ask him to estimate the size of the crowd. He does not believe that membership in the Big East will improve attendance. He is convinced that only a new SWC (i.e. SMU, UNT, UH, UTEP, Rice, La Tech, Tulsa, and a few others) with a tight footprint can make a difference.

[PlummMeanGreen]

It was nowhere near what was reported. A friend of mine (SMU grad and diehard fan) told me that attendance was pathetic. I didn't ask him to estimate the size of the crowd. He does not believe that membership in the Big East will improve attendance. He is convinced that only a new SWC (i.e. SMU, UNT, UH, UTEP, Rice, La Tech, Tulsa, and a few others) with a tight footprint can make a difference.

It won't...CUSA membership did nothing for their attendance. Most of the private schools in the old SWC (even TCU at one time before) had no large home crowds until the Horns, Ags, Hogs and Red Raider fans came to Dallas and Fort Worth respectively. T'would be nice to be able to have padded our attendance with about 15,000 visiting fans, too.

Tulane U is in the same boat as SMU and posters on other boards laugh about how TU's attendance counter exagerates a bit himself.

GMG!

[Arkstfan]

What did the kid expect?

It is hard for privates to draw well in football. Most don't turn out huge numbers of alums, a lot tend to leave the area after graduation, the casual fan tends to not feel any tie to those schools because they are so often seen to be snobbish.

I've not checked the numbers but I suspect the worst drawing team in the SEC is the only private school. Probably the case in the Big XII, pretty sure that is the case in the Big 10. I think UAB is the only public that gives the privates a run for the worst attendance title in C-USA. I know the privates drag the bottom in the ACC.

BYU led the MWC in attendance before they left but they are a special case being the most popular school in a state with no NFL presence. USC usually leads the Pac-10 but they are a very large school with a great winning history in the second largest city in the country and no NFL team. Notre Dame is well Notre Dame.

Of the top 30 schools in attendance USC, Notre Dame, and BYU are the only private schools. Miami drew 52,000 last year. They are the only four privates I see skimming last year's attendance list that outdrew the CUSA attendance leader ECU.

[TIgreen01]

They've been replaying the UCF-SMU game all week on the regional Fox sports outlets. The student/visitor side was pretty sparse, the endzone was all but empty. But from the few shots they showed of the alumni side, it looked to be 70% full? It's hard to say b/c they have those aluminum bleacher seats with backs painted red and blue....so the crowd kind of blends in, but it didn't look empty. Maybe about as full as our alumni side was for the Indiana game. Count it all up and I'd guess they had 9-10k in attendance...

The game that was really bad was their home opener against UTEP. Caught a few minutes of a replay on FoxSW one day. I never saw a shot of the home/alumni side, but the endzone and student side was positively empty. Not sure what happened there.

[PlummMeanGreen]

They've been replaying the UCF-SMU game all week on the regional Fox sports outlets. The student/visitor side was pretty sparse, the endzone was all but empty. But from the few shots they showed of the alumni side, it looked to be 70% full? It's hard to say b/c they have those aluminum bleacher seats with backs painted red and blue....so the crowd kind of blends in, but it didn't look empty. Maybe about as full as our alumni side was for the Indiana game. Count it all up and I'd guess they had 9-10k in attendance...

The game that was really bad was their home opener against UTEP. Caught a few minutes of a replay on FoxSW one day. I never saw a shot of the home/alumni side, but the endzone and student side was positively empty. Not sure what happened there.

But 9K or 10K is not what was reported in the Sunday AM boxscore.

TCU has turned the corner with drawing fans when they could not before, but TCU has not had a string of losing seasons in quite awhile, either. I am still curious to see how UTSA sells seasons tickets between a long string of losing seasons.

North Texas should adopt the TCU model of "NOT" having a string of losing seasons and then lets stretch out our legs and see what our (much larger constituency than when many of us were UNT students) can do then.

All our present frustrations have 7 losing seasons as the main vehicle pushing all of those frustrations to the forefront of our minds. We see great things happening to almost everyone around us it seems.....everyone but us (yet). . It even has some on this forum almost wanting to get rid of a coach who hasn't even finished his first season. (Wasn't June Jones 0 & 12 his first season at SMU-- I stand to be corrected on that).

Drawing while losing should be our UNT community wide goal because that will make the winning part of turnstiles count a piece of cake. Not sure why most every part of the USA can do this except DFW it seems.

Edited October 20, 2011 by PlummMeanGreen

[TIgreen01]

But 9K or 10K is not what was reported in the Sunday AM boxscore.

They are cooking the books.

[NT03]

CAN WE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NOT HAVE A NEW SMU THREAD STARTED FOR MORE THAN A WHOLE WEEK !!!!

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

CAN WE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NOT HAVE A NEW SMU THREAD STARTED FOR MORE THAN A WHOLE WEEK !!!!

---We need a comedy thread. ... They are a joke..

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

It was nowhere near what was reported. A friend of mine (SMU grad and diehard fan) told me that attendance was pathetic. I didn't ask him to estimate the size of the crowd. He does not believe that membership in the Big East will improve attendance. He is convinced that only a new SWC (i.e. SMU, UNT, UH, UTEP, Rice, La Tech, Tulsa, and a few others) with a tight footprint can make a difference.

---He isn't wrong...Crowds would represent both schools... How many fans from FAU and FIU and Troy and etc. show up at our games... Attendance might not be good but it would be better and there would more interest from fans within the state... There was a very representation of Houston fans at our NT/Houston game. Throw in a few games with the Big XII and things would be better for all of us. The idiots (SMU) should want to schedule us because we would bring fans and a decent crowd. Big East teams will bring about no one to their games in Dallas. Membership would bring a lot more travel expense to them.

[GrayEagle]

I flat do not understand the penis envy for SMU. They are counting tickets sold; not butts in seats. Until the NCAA puts some teeth in the actual attendance by certifying counters there won't ever be a reasonably accurate count. They don't even enforce their own rules on the mandatory 15.000 necessary to stay in the FBS. Besides, we don't have a lot of room to talk about attendance after our last home game. Embarrassing.

I guess our next thing to say is that their wins are fictitious. I'm pretty sure that UCF doesn't think that they are a joke.

[FireFightnJoey]

They are counting tickets sold; not butts in seats. Until the NCAA puts some teeth in the actual attendance by certifying counters there won't ever be a reasonably accurate count.

Technically speaking, the students pay for their tickets through the student fee. In this scenario, wouldn't we have a sell out every week if we used the same method? Brilliant! Someone send this to AD!

[TIgreen01]

I flat do not understand the penis envy for SMU. They are counting tickets sold; not butts in seats. Until the NCAA puts some teeth in the actual attendance by certifying counters there won't ever be a reasonably accurate count. They don't even enforce their own rules on the mandatory 15.000 necessary to stay in the FBS. Besides, we don't have a lot of room to talk about attendance after our last home game. Embarrassing.

I guess our next thing to say is that their wins are fictitious. I'm pretty sure that UCF doesn't think that they are a joke.

You may not like it, but surely you understand where it comes from? All we hear on the board is how our fate in realignment largely depends on them clearing out so we don't get blocked by them. It's all a moot point if UNT starts dumping 10s of millions of dollars into the program, ala TCU, and picks itself up out of the ashes....but without a few donors stepping up, we're going to have to take the long road. In the meantime, all we hear is how we need SMU to get out of the way so we can have a shot at getting into a better conference and hoping that the better competition equals more fan support.

Personally, I think we have the recipe for success in place right now. The timing of things is a bit unfortunate. I wish we could have had a more competitive team in place for the inaugural year in Apogee...but the doubling of the football staff budget + incredible new facilities will eventually payoff.

[GrayEagle]

Technically speaking, the students pay for their tickets through the student fee. In this scenario, wouldn't we have a sell out every week if we used the same method? Brilliant! Someone send this to AD!

It's a nice thought but the student fee is not earmarked for football whereas season tickets are. When we returned to Division 1A our Thai benefactor (whose name escapes me at the moment) bought several thousand tickets, all of which counted in the season average that qualified us for the then 17,000 requirement for a 30,000 seat stadium. So we've been guilty of counting season tickets sold; we just haven't had anyone willing to buy large blocs as SMU has.