The worst performance I've seen out of SMU in years.

[rich59]

An interesting parallel. Reading the Denver Post this morning and as most know, the Broncos got wiped out by the Raiders Sunday in Invesco by 59-14. A sportswriter speculated that perhaps the Broncos defense played so poorly because the week before they had an all out effort against the Jets and still lost.

I felt like the SMU defense played well against Navy with almost a kamikaze effort. Perhaps a hangover from the Navy game caused the seemingly poor effort by the Mustangs against UH. The Broncos had a few key defensive players absent also which parallels the Mustangs.

Regarding attendance for SMU football. Obviously it would be difficult to draw 50000 at Ford since capacity is around 32000. What SMU must try to do is build a program that is attractive enough that in order to get good seats a fan must purchase season tickets. In other words create a shortage of good seats so that the urgency is there to buy season tickets. With a relatively small stadium that is possible. If you want a good seat to see the TCU or Texas Tech game you have to also buy the tickets for Marshall and Memphis, etc. Once the season ticket sales are around 20000, then the students and opposing team fans will assure a good turnout.

[San Antonio Mustang]

they play on diff days, inaccurate to assign blame to the cowboys for pour attendance

You may be right, but as one who was here before the Cowboys I can tell you we routinely put 30 K plus in the Cotton Bowl. Once the Cowboys came to town we lost our corporate support. We never had the average guy support us. Dallas ( and SMU Alums in Dallas or no different) loves to support a winner and will not support a loser. Perhaps we are witnessing a down time for the Cowboys and an up time for SMU. This will help attendance. But put yourself in the place of an average joe. Would you prefer someone give you a ticket to the Cowboys or SMU. The Cowboys have been responsible for diverting financial and fan support.

[San Antonio Mustang]

Any college playing in a city with a pro football franchise, much less one as successful as the Cowboys will have problems with attendance. Even the University of Miami, with it's national championships has problems filling it's stadium. Whether they play on the same day or not has nothing to do with it. Prior to the emergence of the Cowboys as a perennial power in the NFL, SMU generally played before large crowds in the Cotton Bowl. However, as the Cowboys grew powerful, interest in SMU waned and the news media quit covering SMU as it once had. Even in the 1950s when SMU began to have trouble competing in the SWC, there were two newspapers in Dallas and each had a beat writer who wrote about SMU every day during the season and spring practise.

In the first half of the 1980s, SMU won more games than any college team in the US and they could not fill Texas Stadium except when teams with a large fan base came to town, Ark., TU, A&M. When playing Baylor, TCU, etc. it was hard to get more than 30000 to 45000 ticket purchasing fans in the seats.

TCU has had similar problems even with a winning program. I could not get all the attendance numbers for TCU but here is an example.
Average attendance at Amon Carter in 2006 was 31926 and that included a sell out for Texas Tech.
Their W-L records leading up to and including 2006.
2006-11-2
2005-11-1
2004-5-6
2003-11-2
2002-10-2
2001-6-6
2000-10-2
1999-8-4
1998-7-5
One can see that success on the field does not quickly lead to full stadiums for TCU and SMU will have the same problem if the program becomes successful. Part of the problem is the small alumni base for both schools. Part of the problem is that when playing schools like BYU, etc. or Marshall, etc. there are few fans of those schools in the area. There is no doubt though that pro football in a city plays a big role in the disinterest in college football.

Rich you have said it well. In fact I do not think you can point to a city where there are pro and college teams that both receive great fan support. Pro teams kill college attendance.

[RGV Pony]

Any college playing in a city with a pro football franchise, much less one as successful as the Cowboys will have problems with attendance. Even the University of Miami, with it's national championships has problems filling it's stadium. Whether they play on the same day or not has nothing to do with it. Prior to the emergence of the Cowboys as a perennial power in the NFL, SMU generally played before large crowds in the Cotton Bowl. However, as the Cowboys grew powerful, interest in SMU waned and the news media quit covering SMU as it once had. Even in the 1950s when SMU began to have trouble competing in the SWC, there were two newspapers in Dallas and each had a beat writer who wrote about SMU every day during the season and spring practise.

In the first half of the 1980s, SMU won more games than any college team in the US and they could not fill Texas Stadium except when teams with a large fan base came to town, Ark., TU, A&M. When playing Baylor, TCU, etc. it was hard to get more than 30000 to 45000 ticket purchasing fans in the seats.

TCU has had similar problems even with a winning program. I could not get all the attendance numbers for TCU but here is an example.
Average attendance at Amon Carter in 2006 was 31926 and that included a sell out for Texas Tech.
Their W-L records leading up to and including 2006.
2006-11-2
2005-11-1
2004-5-6
2003-11-2
2002-10-2
2001-6-6
2000-10-2
1999-8-4
1998-7-5
One can see that success on the field does not quickly lead to full stadiums for TCU and SMU will have the same problem if the program becomes successful. Part of the problem is the small alumni base for both schools. Part of the problem is that when playing schools like BYU, etc. or Marshall, etc. there are few fans of those schools in the area. There is no doubt though that pro football in a city plays a big role in the disinterest in college football.

Rich you have said it well. In fact I do not think you can point to a city where there are pro and college teams that both receive great fan support. Pro teams kill college attendance.

Seattle

[PonyTime]

Atlanta (GA Tech), Miami (The U), Denver (Colorado - in the 90s), Pittsburgh (Pitt), ...

[PonyTime]

Oh - and almost forgot: Los Angeles (USC=pro, UCLA=College)

[NickSMU17]

Neither Miami nor USC draw for home games....

[San Antonio Mustang]

Thanks for pointing out that 3 out of 30 NFL cities have colleges that draw good crowds. In 2009, UW averaged 64K, Ga Tech 51K, & Pitt 53K. So I will rephrase my statement. Very few colleges can draw big crowds when they coexist with a professional team. These three schools are in AQ conferences and either were ranked or played ranked schools. I did see a study on Ga Tech that found their best attendance was when both GT and the opponent were ranked. That certainly is not a surprise. None of these schools are consistently selling out their stadiums. Also, in terms of public perception I do not believe most of the public would consider SMU and any of these 3 to be equal. The simple fact is the Cowboys took and continue to take money and fans from SMU. What we need is to get all of our employers to buy large blocks of tickets and give them to their employees and customers.

[Stallion]

TCU draws twice as much as SMU in the same market AFTER SMU's best season in 25 years. When this argument gets turned toward the realignment issue will the excusers and rationalists have the consistency to point out the same facts? BOTTOM LINE-its a 50 year problem that puts a ceiling on the future of this program if it is not remedied. TCU has no such problem and has never had a comparable problem as SMU. Why would a conference pick SMU over TCU if this problem isn't solved.

[rich59]

I don't believe that anyone is trying to compare SMU with TCU especially not in a detrimental way. I view TCU as a model for SMU. They show how a small private school can compete. It is ridiculous to compare attendance at SMU now with TCU. Look at the Frog's record. From 1998 to 2006 they lost a total of 30 games. An average of around 3 a year. How good was their attendance after the 1998 year when they began to turn it around. I know that Stallion is an authority but I happen to have a close friend who was a TCU great, a former SWC coach and is a very active alum and very very close to the program in every way. He and I over the years have discussed the attendance problem at TCU, in spite of their success and only very lately has he begun to feel a little more upbeat about their attendance and he still feels the Fort Worth media does not give the Frogs the coverage they deserve because they are too busy covering the Big 12 and the Cowboys.

[Bergermeister]

Wow!

The coaching was terrible!
The play calling was terrible!
The defensive formations were terrible!
The defenders were out of position constantly!
The offensive line couldn't block the UH blitz once!
Padron kept lofting the ball up for the UH defenders to go get!
The special teams was horrendous! (allowed a KO TD, dropped a punt and had one punt return where Thomas got hit while trying to make the catch!

This effort was truly embarrassing. And on top of all that, David Piland was a true freshman, 3rd string QB! Even the UH fans were nervous we were going to smear them.

If SMU were the Dallas Cowboys, there would be some pinkslips in lockers tonight my friends. This was simply atrocious. If SMU can't play better than today, there is NO way we are even coming close to a Conference USA championship.

Oh and one other embarrassment...there were some MAJOR recruits on campus to witness that effort. You'd think the players would be a little more cognisant of what was on the line today... Guess not.

June Jones had better get things together FAST.

idiot.