Saturday's Scrimage & Open House

[Boston Pony]

How did the open house and scrimage go on Saturday? The SMU site said the players were not in full pads... Good idea based on how thin we are. Give us out of towners an update...

[DallasDiehard]

The open house and scrimmage were great. There weren't as many people there as I'd hoped, but the stadium is unbelievable. For those of you on the East Coast, make a trip to Charlottesville, Va., and you will see a larger version of Ford Stadium -- Ford looks like a carbon copy of the stadium at Virginia.

There were speeches made and the Mustang Band played, and the cheerleaders were out there. The one I felt sorry for was the student inside the Peruna costume, who must have been dying from the heat.

The only thing I thought could have been done better was that with estimates of 1,000 people turning out to see the new stadium that has gotten so much attention, I think very little thought was put into making the event fan-friendly. It was hot enough to fry people alive out there, yet they put the fans on the east side of the stadium, facing into the evening sun. They also had only one drink stand open, and ran out of promotional T-shirts .... and made no effort to locate more. It seems to me that if you're trying to make the fans think this is the only place they want to consider being on Saturday afternoons, they ought to put more effort into making the experience as pleasurable for the fans as possible. These are the people who are expected to buy tickets to pay the bills, and I thought we got a little short-changed in that regard.

With that said, the facility is as nice as any I've seen across the country, albeit not as big as many. There's a very intimate feel, with the field sunk below street level and the fans fairly close to the action. I understand the fans not being allowed directly behind the bench Saturday .... the assistant coaches were there, practicing their radio communication with the coaches on the sideline, and they needed to be able to hear .... but more could have been done to accomadate the fans who braved the heat to watch practice.

The fans all sounded excited, and I can't wait for next Saturday! Ford Stadium will be rocking in its debut, as the Ponies stomp the Jayhawks. See you there. (And wear your PonyFans.com shirts!)

[SMUPonyFan]

One thing I noticed, the band played and the stadium was practically empty, but it was still loud. We have a small band, so if 1,000 people and a small band made that much noise, I can't wait to see 32,000 people.

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Go Red, Go Blue, Go Mustangs, S M U