The Good News from the UH Game

[HTownTakeover]

UH has 33,000 undergraduates. It is a glorified community college, their students are considerably less engaged with their athletic program than SMU students. Imagine if we routinely had announced attendances below our undergrad enrollment (7,000)? We'd be relegated to the Southland Conference or something

You say the students aren't engaged and then you infer they should all show up for football games. What about city population? SMU has millions of people within 50 miles of campus. Why won't they support a top-rated academic institution with exciting sports? UH hosting SMU is like SMU hosting Rice.

Not sure what point you're trying to make here. I said the fact that so few UH students show up to their games relative to their enrollment number shows their student body is less engaged in the athletic program than SMU's. Also I think Houston is a pretty big city too and UH has a lot more alumni living in Houston than SMU does in Dallas

You're all over the map Cain! You guys just had you're homecoming and got handled by JMU!!! You were on this very topic complaining about where the students were at! You guys talk out of both sides of your collective mouths.... UH is 90 years old and it will take 50 more years for UH to even remotely resemble what UT and TAMu have as far as engagement.... Right now, I saw 7000 kids show up on a crazy sports night and were loud and engaged. I saw 9,000 kids show up for tx state game and 36,000 in total....

When has smu ever had 9,000 students period show up and stand for 3/4 of an entire smu game!!!

[Charleston Pony]

both our programs have very little fan support and that is why we play in the AAC instead of the Big XII. If I'm Houston, I'm not bragging about 25k attendance no matter who the opponent or what the competition for fans might be. I agree SMU would do well to have Ford at more than 50% capacity if we were competing with our MLB/NFL teams, but the bottom line is that neither school enjoys much support from it's students & alumni. General rule of thumb is that you should be able to draw 3 times your undergraduate population and while SMU comes closer to doing that than Houston, the cougars do at least appear to have more t-shirt fans than SMU. Both schools have serious issues with student/alumni support for our programs.

[HTownTakeover]

both our programs have very little fan support and that is why we play in the AAC instead of the Big XII. If I'm Houston, I'm not bragging about 25k attendance no matter who the opponent or what the competition for fans might be. I agree SMU would do well to have Ford at more than 50% capacity if we were competing with our MLB/NFL teams, but the bottom line is that neither school enjoys much support from it's students & alumni. General rule of thumb is that you should be able to draw 3 times your undergraduate population and while SMU comes closer to doing that than Houston, the cougars do at least appear to have more t-shirt fans than SMU. Both schools have serious issues with student/alumni support for our programs.

Fair criticsm on all accounts... The demand will continue to grow but every Houston fan believes that Houston will grow at a faster clip than smu ever could...

Last night's attendance was abysmal and a poor reflection of what UH is.... But sadly as that number is, we've more than doubled that figure since 2003 and tripled since 1999-2001 where UH almost cancelled football and basketball

[tristatecoog]

"General rule of thumb is that you should be able to draw 3 times your undergraduate population"

Sounds like a good goal for top FBS schools. Exceeding it are Alabama, TCU, Michigan, Notre Dame... Below it are Minnesota, Ohio State, Purdue and Kansas. Community support is key.

[blackoutpony]

"General rule of thumb is that you should be able to draw 3 times your undergraduate population"

Sounds like a good goal for top FBS schools. Exceeding it are Alabama, TCU, Michigan, Notre Dame... Below it are Minnesota, Ohio State, Purdue and Kansas. Community support is key.

Ohio state sells out every game. That's an awful comparison.

[Pony147]

I was at the game. Thought it was a pretty good crowd considering it was a Thursday and the Texans and Astros were playing. Pretty loud. Poor SMU fan showing

[SWC_76]

Houston is a joke! Calling it a Community college is generous. More like a high school next to a crack house.

[ALEX LIFESON]

Maybe 25000 tickets distributed, but less than 20,000 in the stadium.

[PonySnob]

I was at the game. Thought it was a pretty good crowd considering it was a Thursday and the Texans and Astros were playing. Pretty loud. Poor SMU fan showing

Outside of the band and players families, maybe 100 SMU fans

[gostangs]

We can suspend all whiny discussion about attendance until the W/L improves. Take any program in America and put them through what we have been through, and oh yeah make them a small university to being with - and you would have a worse result.

[Charleston Pony]

We can suspend all whiny discussion about attendance until the W/L improves. Take any program in America and put them through what we have been through, and oh yeah make them a small university to being with - and you would have a worse result.

I'm glad you added that "small university" comment because I watched and marveled at South Carolina packing their 75k stadium as they were going 0-11 in Lou Holtz's 1st year there. As a neighbor of mine said: "we go for the party (which includes long tailgate sessions) and if we actually win, that's just a bonus". SMU would be viewed very differently if we packed 30k plus into Ford for every game no matter who the opponent or what our won/lost record might be

[StallionsModelT]

35,000 undergrads in the fourth largest city in the nation. Over 300,000 UH alums living with the Houston metro area.

24K attendance. We have zero room to talk attendance smack but wow.

[mrydel]

So now I know. Houston is the only school in the USA that does not lie about attendance. I knew there was one but did not know where.

[gostangs]

actually we are pretty dead on. What you don't realize is that we have a couple thousand in boxes and stadium club where we don't have to mix with the state school people.

[sbsmith]

We can suspend all whiny discussion about attendance until the W/L improves. Take any program in America and put them through what we have been through, and oh yeah make them a small university to being with - and you would have a worse result.

How much does the W/L need to improve before we can whine about attendance? Clearly 7-8 wins won't do it, so what 9+?