DiamondM75 wrote:Can we get EWU freshman quarterback to transfer to SMU? He made a game of it.
I know you are joking, but if you need any clearer example of the enormous difference between fcs and fbs, look no further than blm and kp looking like all-Americans all of a sudden after leaving the hilltop.
or maybe the RnS is useless and overly complicated
DiamondM75 wrote:Can we get EWU freshman quarterback to transfer to SMU? He made a game of it.
I know you are joking, but if you need any clearer example of the enormous difference between fcs and fbs, look no further than blm and kp looking like all-Americans all of a sudden after leaving the hilltop.
RnS disaster Bo Levi recently got snaps in the Canadian football Superbowl
mrydel wrote:As just an aside, Padron did last week for EWU what the Frosh QB did for them yesterday. They now both hold the school record for 6 TD passes in one game.
You are kidding me that a coach actually changes QBs during a game.
SMUer wrote:Win and the fan situ will take care of itself
I have a hard time believing that. Seriously. The students who DO show up - for the most part - stay until halftime and leave even if the Mustangs are winning by a HUGE margin at the midpoint (see: University of Houston game). And the non-students (the 'fans' who sit on the press box side) usually leave at the end of the 3rd quarter, no matter what the score. Here's a sampling of the excuses I've heard for leaving a game before the final gun sounds: "We want to beat the traffic home" (Hello? What traffic?) "Our babysitter can only stay until 9." (Get a new babysitter!) "It's a boring game" (perhaps but you might miss school/NCAA history like Margus Hunt setting the NCAA record for blocked FGs), etc.
My wife and I don't leave Ford Stadium until the Mustang Band sings "Varsity" a capella after the game is over. And yes...we're usually the last ones in the stadium except for the band. And what little 'traffic' there was has diminished by the time we leave. We've taken friends to the games with us and we've told them "We don't leave until the band finishes". They all loved it!
and those who think winning will cure our attendance problems...well, they haven't followed SMU football very long. We won in the 80's and that didn't change things very much. Ask the guys who played back then. Plenty of poorly attended games with fans leaving early. We've always relied on our opponents to fill the seats but we no longer get to benefit from Texas, A&M, Arkansas, etc...as conference mates. We are what we are and I don't see it changing in my lifetime.
I'm not totally pessimistic, though, because I think it could change in bball and we could bring back Moody Madness pretty quickly with a top 25 caliber team that isn't afraid to "schedule up"
Also, the sports landscape has significantly changed since the early 80s. Sports are much more visible now, and people will come see a winner.
Look at historic TCU attendance. They were where we are now until they had LT and ten win seasons. That is what it will take: a ten win season and a special player, before we get on the Dallas landscape. And at that point we will easily sell out our games.
Also, with the new residential commons opening in 2 years, that is 1500 more students living on campus who will come to the game for the first half .
Arkpony wrote:I attended most of the home games in the pony express days and I guarantee you we had good crowds. Far superior to today.
I was there, too and agree corwds were good when we played our state school rivals. Not so good when we played Rice, TCU, Tulane, UNT, etc...unless we were giving away lots of tickets. Long live Russ Potts and Mustang Mania! And that was top 10 caliber football
go back and look up our attendance figures in the archives; we were all over the board; there was the "from 6k to 60k" against Rice success stories and yes, I remember some good crowds against TCU as well. I also remember "crowds" of 30k against Arkansas of all teams. No question w drew slightly better than we do today, but after all, we were a legitimate top 20 prgram and we were competing for SWC Championships several years in a row. The simple fact is that we have NEVER in the modern era consistently drawn strong home crowds
When we lived in Dallas in the 1970s and went to SMU games, the Mustangs were typically drawing crowds of 13,000 to the Cotton Bowl and Texas Stadium. I remember seeing a 1973 game between an undefeated Mustang team and an unbeaten Mizzou team that didn't even draw 20,000. So we haven't progressed much in 40 years.
What solves that is winning consistently and playing at a higher level than we are right now. the way TCU and Boise State have done.
But the Dallas Cowboys will always be a problem for SMU football.
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