Worst Student Attendance for Football

[SMU_Alum11]

I’m sorry but if SMU even suggested going to D2; i would start a petition to get the whole thing shut down. That would truly be a disgrace.

Our attendance matches our historical performance. We basically are .500 team and therefore we should be drawing a 1/2 of the stadium or less. We actually need to get to 3 year consistent 9 win, conference
championship team before we go around saying this is a lost cause. If we do the aforementioned and still draw the same attendance on year 4 then sure shut it down. I truly believe if we were UCF getting Top 25 every year and winning big games like Auburn, we would have 33k butts in seats.

[Pony ^]

Moody could mirror Ford this year thanks to the AD

[mtrout]

The students got out of the sun and sat in the home side. Simple as that.

Also this team is much better than many predicted. What the hell are we complaining about again? I can see complaining about Van Malone but I don’t get this thread.

[Insane_Pony_Posse]

Tell me the conference mates (Rice would seem a natural), tell me the quality of the athlete and the product compared to todays' team and most importantly, tell me the average home attendance.

SoCal if we dropped down to a lower football division of course it would be different...but I actually think if the choice came down to dropping down to a lower division or ending the SMU football program entirely...I would prefer at least at first to see how we do in a lower division.

As far a conference mates it would probably yes include schools like Rice, SFA, Sam Houston State, James Madison, Lamar, McNeese State, Houston Baptist, Abilene Christian, UTA....if we started winning in the lower division and many of our conference mates were closer regional foes...who knows maybe our crowds would be about the same?

To be honest I dont see how it could be much worse than last weekend when we had what looked like less than 250 students at kickoff and even far less students in the 4th quarter of a tight game. We can pretend all the students "moved to the shade" and I am sure a few did....but in reality we have abysmal student participation.

Look I have no desire to see us drop down to a lower division, but I now see it as in the realm of possibility...do we embrace it if it happens? or do we cry and take our toys home?...what are you going to do on Saturdays? watch SMU beat Lamar or watch no SMU football ever again?..like gostangs stated....the system is now designed to run the small struggling schools out of big-time football. I don't like this reality, but look at our stands, look at our students, look at our record, look at 3 coaches in 5 years, look at basically the last 25 years.....are we living in a ticking time bomb fantasy land?

[mtrout]

Woe is the G5. UCF is 20-0.

[Insane_Pony_Posse]

Woe is the G5. UCF is 20-0.

if only the exception made the rule!

but maybe "in just a few years" SMU can be 20-0!

[PonyTime]

If it's a diverse student body SMU wanted; then mission accomplished. Like I said earlier, walk through some of these buildings, you will have to remind yourself, that you are still in Texas. Most of these kids haven't even heard of American football.

I'm not completely sure what you are talking about, but when I watch UCLA or some of the other West Coast games I see the stands full of Asian-American or at least ethnic-Asian students.

There are two distinct groups.

1. Asian students who grew up in SoCal or Bay area are just as likely to be football fans as any other population.

2. Asian students who grew up in mainland China could care less about American Football.

UCLA (and every California school) has a lot of Group 1. We have more of group 2 than group 1 at SMU.

Badminton, Volleyball, Tennis, Golf and Basketball are much more popular in China than Football.

[Charleston Pony]

With all the talk of SMU football dropping to a lower level we should all be reminded that we ALREADY have been dropped to a lower level...that being our G5 status in the D-1 FBS. Next level down is D-1 FCS where they have run a successful playoff system for years to determine a champion at that level.

My feelings are simple. I just want to play at a level that at least gives us a chance to once again compete for a national championship. If UCF was to run the table and enough P5 schools suffer losses to get UCF into the current 4 team playoff, I will believe that even at the G5 level, we at least have that opportunity. As things now stand, Bama, Clemson, Notre Dame and several one loss P5 teams would be in before UCF. I get that. I just want those one loss teams to all lose again (and I would love for Notre Dame to lose 2 games as well) to see whether a 2 year undefeated UCF team would be given an opportunity. Failing that, I want the FBS playoffs to be expanded to 8 teams with the top ranked G5 team extended an auto-bid.

As for comments that all it will take to fill Ford Stadium is fielding a consistent winner, I would suggest going back and looking at SMU's attendance history. Even during the Pony Express era of the early 80's when we dominated the SWC, SMU struggled to draw crowds if we weren't playing the larger public schools that brought half the crowd.

[SMU_Alum11]

I think there is enormous pressure for an 8 team playoff. I think even the big leagues know that for ratings sake that they need to expand and allow some 1 or 2 team access to the G5. People love an underdog story and people actually are rooting for UCF to get into the playoffs. I'm glad UCF did the publicity stunt of putting "National Champions" on their stadium. It's that kind of stuff that gets people excited. Eventually they will break or they will suffer rating loss.

[ponyte]

I remember a Tulane game over TG weekend where theye where only about 20 students in the stands. ONe was a daughter of mine that had graduated and another was a high school kid from California attending his first college game.

I remember the ice bowl game against UCF where nobody could even get to the game. Once again ove the TG weekend. They didn't even have a student section that game! And who can forget the 1977 Rice game were there were only 6000 total in the stadium and very few students (I was one of them).

[Charleston Pony]

I think there is enormous pressure for an 8 team playoff. I think even the big leagues know that for ratings sake that they need to expand and allow some 1 or 2 team access to the G5. People love an underdog story and people actually are rooting for UCF to get into the playoffs. I'm glad UCF did the publicity stunt of putting "National Champions" on their stadium. It's that kind of stuff that gets people excited. Eventually they will break or they will suffer rating loss.

The primary reason the playoffs would be expanded to 8 teams is for each P5 conference champion to be able to compete for the title. It would still allow two "close 2nd place" teams from a strong conference to get at-large bids, but we will NEVER see the day that more than one G5 team is invited. I'm hopeful that expansion to 8 will an auto-bid for the highest ranked G5 team and will motivate G5 programs to continue building/improving their programs and scheduling P5 opponents in their non-conference schedules.

[Charleston Pony]

I remember a Tulane game over TG weekend where theye where only about 20 students in the stands. ONe was a daughter of mine that had graduated and another was a high school kid from California attending his first college game.

I remember the ice bowl game against UCF where nobody could even get to the game. Once again ove the TG weekend. They didn't even have a student section that game! And who can forget the 1977 Rice game were there were only 6000 total in the stadium and very few students (I was one of them).

And boy did that 6,000 in the Cotton Bowl look ugly! I wish we would always be scheduled on the road Thanksgiving weekend because we may never have any kind of student turnout for those games.

[SoCal_Pony]

As for comments that all it will take to fill Ford Stadium is fielding a consistent winner, I would suggest going back and looking at SMU's attendance history. Even during the Pony Express era of the early 80's when we dominated the SWC, SMU struggled to draw crowds if we weren't playing the larger public schools that brought half the crowd.Even during the Pony Express era of the early 80's when we dominated the SWC, SMU struggled to draw crowds if we weren't playing the larger public schools that brought half the crowd.

Don’t know why posters still cling to the belief that winning will solve attendance woes against our conference mates (absent UH).

In 1983, SMU played Rice at Texas Stadium. Members of the elite SWC, coming off a Cotton Bowl winning season, ranked in the Top 10, the only team we had lost to in our past 30 games was UT.

Beautiful Saturday fall afternoon day.

Attendance could not have been more than 24,000.

[Insane_Pony_Posse]

Don’t know why posters still cling to the belief that winning will solve attendance woes against our conference mates (absent UH). In 1983, SMU played Rice at Texas Stadium. Members of the elite SWC, coming off a Cotton Bowl winning season, ranked in the Top 10, Beautiful Saturday fall afternoon day. Attendance could not have been more than 24,000.

that's depressing SoCal!

[mrydel]

Just look at the history. During the hey days we averaged around 35,000 a game and that was with SWC teams in Texas plus Arkansas that probably had more alumni in Dallas than SMU. Only times we filled Texas Stadium was UT and A&M and it was mostly them.

During my time our average had to be in the 20,000 range.