If SMU was 9-0 would Students start coming to game?

[whitwiki]

Why don't we start by giving the students good seats on the 30-40 yard line. It's not like they're being sold out

[tristatecoog]

I don't think students are allowed to be on the lower level between the 20s behind the visiting bench.

[Charleston Pony]

I agree with the comment regarding our relatively small number of undergrads and the percentage who actually attend...not really that bad. You could do the math and find that we compare pretty favorably with plenty of larger public universities. The issue is the rest of the students that hang out on The Boulevard pre-game but have no interest whatsoever in actually stepping foot into Ford. SMU students (and alumni as well) will come out when it is "the thing to do". Moody is a case in point. Once it became "cool", bball tickets became harder to obtain. Understandably, the numbers are far different in bball vs football but Ford will never be packed consistently until we have a product that is good enough to bring out the bandwaggoners (meaning our alumni who once again are proud to be associated with SMU) and DFW area college football fans

[indianmustang]

why cant we go after grad alumini.

[PonyPlayer4]

Yes they would.

[Rebel10]

they are showing up.

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[PoconoPony]

Let me throw out another element in the failure of students to take an interest or attend games. My experience with millennials is that they are far more interested in them selves and they have greatly diminished interest in group activities and sports. Almost no younger person today is interested in joining any organization or volunteering any time to any activity other than their self interest. Virtually every national organization ( Elks, Moose, Lions, Knights of Columbus, Masons, Amvets...etc.) are barely existing for lack of membership. As a result, sports is not a high priority or special interest for most. Continuing the party on the Vard is more of their self interest and that is what they do.

A second opinion is that as SMU has become academically more competitive the more scholarly type students are far more interested in their studies and personal achievements than having any great interest in sports. Their focus in life and matters of their interest barely includes sports. I can remember 50 years ago attending a Saturday night game at Rice ( high academic caliber students) with the library located adjacent to the football stadium. The library was full and few of the student body showed up for the game. In fact, a Rice French language professor sat next to me and translated a novel into English for most of the game. Not making excuses for our students, but I have concluded that the cultural changes of younger people plus the academic attitudes/priorities of higher aptitude students is a major contributing factor in their interest in sports as reflected in football attendance.

I do not think this is solely an SMU problem. I think you will find this same issue with the high academic private colleges. Also, remember that even Alabama had a huge problems last year with thousands of students either not showing up for the game or leaving in droves during the game and never returning. Saban and the University President ended up threatening the kids with removal of tickets and other sanctions.

[sacklunch]

It's all about quality of competition...tough to expect people to come to the game when we are playing Memphis. If we can ever get into the big 12 we will sell out every game


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[whitwiki]

Oh hey look it's not [deleted] football it's another millennial bashing thread.

Maybe millennials don't join those lodges because they are connected via technology and join community service on their own without having to deal with a bunch of old white guys. So long to the boys clubs.

I think like three quarters of millennial volunteer at a service or charity. I wouldn't say we are selfish.

[whitwiki]

Also sports is entertainment and not a community service event. I don't want people to show up just cause they think they have to, I want them to show up because it's fun as hell.

[PonyLawExpress]

It's going to take time for students to show up. Someone mentioned it earlier, it is going to have to be a culture change just like in hoops. Once we get consistently good students will start getting into it and then the new students will start going from day one because the older ones do. It will take more than 2 straight wins and 4-4 coming off 3 wins in the past two years to draw out a ton of students.

[smusic 00]

If we combined all the threads on this topic it would reach to the moon and back three times. So many fresh angles and ideas.

[No Quarter]

Charleston Pony said, in part:

SMU students (and alumni as well) will come out when it is "the thing to do".

That pretty well nails it. I remember a newspaper article back in the Meyer era where the SMU goal was exactly that - make the Pony football game the place to be in Dallas on fall Saturdays - and become another Southern California.

sacklunch said, in part:

If we can ever get into the big 12 we will sell out every game.

Maybe so. Certainly if we played big state schools including traditional rivals and maybe also Baylor - if they fix things - we would see a lot of THEIR fans, win or loose. But it wouldn't be fixing our program and it keeps coming back to winning games so as to be attractive to a more desirable conference.

I remember reading some years back that the UT position was never to have a conference affiliation with SMU again.

Has that changed?

[SMUstangs22]

Maybe millennials aren't showing up because since they were BORN we have been terrible. We finally got to bowl games, ended in complete disaster.

[PoconoPony]

It's all about quality of competition...tough to expect people to come to the game when we are playing Memphis. If we can ever get into the big 12 we will sell out every game


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Alabama was ranked #1 last year and thousands of students were leaving during the games and not returning. Saban and the University President threaten to take their seats away and imposed other sanctions to keep them in the stadium. Hence, I do not think your quality of competition is the sole and correct answer.