Ouch from the Daily Campus

[Nacho]

i'm glad it came from a football player. i like knowing how they truly feel.
it hurts me as a die-hard fan because i care deeply about the team. i have lived and died with them for a long time.

hopefully we will draw better playing the be teams and some name ooc teams-even some bad ooc name teams will draw. about half of all bcs teams are pretty bad. schedule them for ooc opponents. at least people will know who they are.

[ponyscott]

Whoever it came from, player or not, it had to be said and every SMU student should take heed and take the hint. Show pride in your decision to come to SMU and come to and also stay for the whole game. The parking issue should be assisted when Sophomore housing is completed on campus and Sophomores are required to live on campus in 2013.

[PonyKai]

It's also waaaay to soon for this. Certainly not going to stand up and say we're great- we're actually pretty flipping awful, but it's going to take a while to overcome lay-an-egg syndrome.

How much actual excitement was there before TCU last year and TAMU this year? A whole lot. What happened? We went and laid an egg. The overwhelming response after was "Oh, no...we suck again! Why should I ever even bother going again?!"

Not defending it, it's not even rational. It's just going to take a little bit to overcome building up a bunch of flavor-of-the-week socialites for a big event only to have us lay a big ol turd.

[JesuitPony]

What is beans?

My ten year old told me that they were the magical fruit.

[Wuba]

How many students live off campus and how difficult does the University make it for them to park? Use to be a pretty significant number of students lived off campus and parking has always been a challenge. Why go to a game that is televised when one has to face parking issues on their own school campus?

And even if every kid showed up, the stadium would still look lean. The key isn't the students but the other fans. Pack the house and the students will come cause there will be the excitement and buzz they seek without sitting in front of a TV.

For TCU, The House was packed and the student section was rocking. After that, even the students can look across the way and see weak attendance from the non student fans.

It isn’t the students. It has been the product. And after decades of Pye inspired ineptitude, it will take time for the students to buy back into the football team.

You HAVE to be kidding about the parking. Many campuses have parking issues. I went to UT for grad school and the parking there is a pain, yet many students managed to show up for their games. Plus, and this undermines your point completely, many students manage to make it to the Boulevard on game day, but do not make it into the stadium. How is parking an issue for the game but not the pre game?

That said, I agree it is not just a student problem, need more attendance by every aspect of the SMU community, plus many that are currently unaffiliated with SMU. However, you are letting the students off the hook by saying we need to pack the house with other fans and then the students will come, both need to happen in concert.

[LA_Mustang]

It needed to be said by a student or player. He could've called out the other 80% of able alums in the DFW that don't come out too. It was perfect weather, very kid friendly and we are actually good - no excuses.

[GiddyUp]

Parking: Does the shuttle bus still run from the DART to moody? I know most have to move cars to law school lot.

As a fan, I almost prefer road games too. Sad. We have had the same conversation for 20yrs. Will the Big East magically make people come?

[Nacho]

the best fan experience i have had in a long time was with the smu crowd at tcu. the very best fans tend to go to oot games.
the fans that do show up to our home games are also good fans but there aren't enough of them.

not only did we lose a generation of fans but we lost a lot of fans from the previos generation after the dp. i know one guy who was crazy about smu but hasn't been back since the dp.

as ron meyer once said, smu is the toughest nut to crack in college football.

[PonyKai]

Parking isn't a problem.

[ponyte]

As a rule, blaming the customer for not buying a product is a dismal marketing strategy. If students aren't buying football, why? Are there barriers? If so what are they and how to remove them? If parking isn't an issue, then what is? And it isn't just students it's an entire fan base. No doubt the #1 issue is winning and regaining the fan base's trust that SMU football is for real. Until we have a product folks want, how do we address their purchase decision with significant substitute products in competition.

That generally means market research and that isn't the #1 priority at this moment. If we move to the Big East, then we all hope SMU commits the resources need to improve market demand for our product

[PerunasHoof]

Parking is not bad at all. Pay the $10 or $20 and you're set. That is a pathetic excuse.

Also, do you all really not know what Beans is? It's the song the band plays in the 4th quarter...

[SMUer]

"Beans" is the dance where the students stomp their feet and say "Whoo!". I think it used to be called "Cadence". The point is, the band only plays it late in the game, 4th quarter.

[PonyKai]

If you hear from anyone the excuses "It was hot" "I was drinking last night and was too limp wristed to go drink more and watch college football," or "I couldn't park" words in a paper aren't enough. You have a moral duty to beat the wuss out of them and give them a chance at actually succeeding in the real world.

[RGV Pony]

But Ponyte, I thought when we hired a new chef and waitstaff that the days of an empty dining room at dinner time were over. We've got our health dept inspection up and everything. But to be honest I'd rather eat at ozonas than our half full place.

[RyanSMU98]

Parking isn't a problem.

You are right, parking availability is not a problem. From a student's point of view, perhaps having to pay for parking is an issue, especially since they already paid for it as part of their student fees. Easily solved: show your student ID, you get to park in any of the pay lots no charge. Don't think that is a good enough excuse, nor do I think offering that cuts too much revenue from game day, so let's eliminate that excuse.

I think the rest of the article is dead-on; somebody has needed to call out the student community for a long time. They are not just apathetic about football, though that is a glaring example. People need to get their lazy, drunk @sses into the damned stands. The "culture of losing" mentality is getting as old as the DP excuse as to why we don't have good attendance. This team is a quality product, and they deserve to be recognized for it. And it had to come from a player; anyone else and the message is too easy to dismiss because the messenger is not as credible.

As much as it was mocked in an earlier post, I really liked Rice's idea of getting international students out to a mock practice with the team, though I would expand it to any student who wants to attend. We have inspirational, engaging coaches and players that clearly want to connect to the student body; it can't be that hard to setup an event to expose students to that atmosphere and get them excited to be a part of SMU Football. Couple that with countdown to kickoff-type signs all week all over campus and in the DC to keep it highly visible, and you have two low-cost, minimal effort ways to engage students. As for the Dallas community at large, that is a much larger, longer-term investment to get them to identify with an SMU program that has largely been perceived to have looked down on them for decades. Joining the BE doesn't magically solve this, but it gives us the resources to make a serious push to turn the tide. Winning conference this year and being a ranked team will help as well.