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I'm not so sure the current P 5 model is working the way television/cable execs, college presidents, and P5 alum associations envisioned these super conferences. In fact, I know people in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida that do not care for it at all. They miss close away games (and so do I) and always playing everyone in the conference.

While they like the playoff situation (although they want a 6 or 8 team scenarios because they are under the delusive hope that the SEC will have multiple teams in the bracket), the fact is that normal "working people" fans don't have access to the games due to cost constraints. College presidents are hearing about it everyday.

They also do not like their conferences spread across the country (Missouri to Florida is too far).

IF this thing falls apart, SMU needs to do everything in its power to improve and increase it's Dallas footprint. This includes having 5,000 students at games (a combination of grad and undergrad students), finding 5,000 non related SMU fans, double current season tickets, and improving the over all game experience. Our recruiting has already improved immensely. Which is the most important variable for success.

Remember, SMU has way more to offer than at least a 1/3 of the SO called P5 schools now.

Arkansas to Florida is just about as far as Missouri to Florida. And 5000 grad and undergrad students would be almost 50% of the total student population. No school has that percentages of students going to games. As far as 5000 tshirt fans, that is possible if we win and market properly.

that's not true and I've posted several articles over the years that show that both TCU and Baylor have had much higher percentage of students pick up tickets. In fact just go to a TCU or Baylor game and look at the student sections-its pretty damn obvious.

I have to give a lot of credit to the SMU fans that do show up for the games. I can only compare them to ASU, UA. Went to SFSU so that don't count. % wise, ASU should draw 400,000 to it's games. They have 90,000 students. UA has 50-60,000 students.If either of these 2 P5 programs had gone through what SMU has gone through, over the last 30 yr.s, they would ave. 15,000 in the stands, or less. I have seen ASU 3/4 empty, or less, on losing seasons (Erickson). So you guy's have 11-12,000 students, and somehow get that many people to show up. So give yourselves credit. Yes, it looks bad on TV. No school is going to draw a big crowd after 30 years of losing. Just do outreach and win. It is not rocket science, it is very simple.

The 2002-2008/9 TCU student sections were basically identical to ours. They filled their stadium with camo-jacket Fort Worthies. TCU and Baylor probably have +70% attendance now but not prior to their inclusion in the BigXII and focused school programming to heavily incentivize their attendance.

"basically identical"?

You obviously have never attended a TCU or Baylor away game-SMU has never had any where close to TCU or Baylor's student attendance during any of those years either by total numbers or percentage of enrollment

Just turn your TV on and watch it that's your P5

I occasionally stood in the TCU student section with my sister who went to TCU from 2006-2010. I stood in the SMU visitors section as a student 2002-2006. You could swap our student home crowds from SMU-TCU and it would make little difference. Student involvement only really picked up after the 2008 Poinesstia Bowl. Student attendance only peaked after their windfall of successes and glories.

SMUer wrote:I occasionally stood in the TCU student section with my sister who went to TCU from 2006-2010. I stood in the SMU visitors section as a student 2002-2006. You could swap our student home crowds from SMU-TCU and it would make little difference. Student involvement only really picked up after the 2008 Poinesstia Bowl. Student attendance only peaked after their windfall of successes and glories.

You are full of [deleted]

Stallion the king of ponyfans.
I am still your Pony Boss.

It's now (1 PM Saturday) 56-0 at the HALF against MEMPHIS STATE, not in our favor. How does that affect our chances of our joining the the P5 group?

Stallion wrote:

SMUer wrote:I occasionally stood in the TCU student section with my sister who went to TCU from 2006-2010. I stood in the SMU visitors section as a student 2002-2006. You could swap our student home crowds from SMU-TCU and it would make little difference. Student involvement only really picked up after the 2008 Poinesstia Bowl. Student attendance only peaked after their windfall of successes and glories.

You are full of [deleted]

I watched TCU play and beat a Stanford team and some freshman named Andrew Luck during a rainy morning in 2008 and at half-time half of the students left the stadium to go drinking and find something better to do. Sound familiar?

Oldmins wrote:It's now (1 PM Saturday) 56-0 at the HALF against MEMPHIS STATE, not in our favor. How does that affect our chances of our joining the the P5 group?

Unchanged

SMUer wrote:

Stallion wrote:

SMUer wrote:I occasionally stood in the TCU student section with my sister who went to TCU from 2006-2010. I stood in the SMU visitors section as a student 2002-2006. You could swap our student home crowds from SMU-TCU and it would make little difference. Student involvement only really picked up after the 2008 Poinesstia Bowl. Student attendance only peaked after their windfall of successes and glories.

You are full of [deleted]

I watched TCU play and beat a Stanford team and some freshman named Andrew Luck during a rainy morning in 2008 and at half-time half of the students left the stadium to go drinking and find something better to do. Sound familiar?

Attendance: 25,531

So you were WILDLY exaggerating a rainy morning kickoff and characterizing that as normal TCU student attendance. Well then I can wildly exaggerate and say that SMU only has about 91 students that attend games because there were less than 100 SMU students in the stands for about 5 SMU games in the second half in just the last couple of years. Heck I can even claim that TCU has had more TCU students at SMU games in Dallas than SMU fans routinely have at many SMU games. See I can make wild exaggerations of the truth even though there might be a fact in there