The fans don't care so why should the team?

[couch 'em]

It's not that the fans don't care, it's that after sucking for so long, there aren't many fans. Only idiots like those on this board who keep getting beaten down by losing year after year. At least we have hope now.

[Nacho]

I totally agree with all the opinions that this isnt an excuse and the players need to get it out of their heads that they can just stop playing because of attendance. Guess what players? If you dont play good, no chance at NFL. If we go or dont go to the game, we still get jobs when we graduate either way. So its ridiculous that players can just use an excuse rather than say hey we sucked but we are going to make an effort to improve ourselves.

Here is our biggest problem with attendance, its purely driven on alumni and the city. 6,000 undergrads even 100% attendance will look like a joke and if you can convince a grad student to not support their undergrad team but ours good luck so assume 40% retention so thats 1600. Thats 7600 people at the game that are current students 36,000 - 7600 = 28,400 that we have to market to come to the game. As you all know our marketing department is a big fat joke. If we want to do anything, Ponyfans should start a donation pot that could be sponsored by the school and simply gather funds from donations over the year and rent out billboards along 75 and 35 with signs that say "Dallas' only college team is SMU. Or Battle for the Iron Skillet fought for 94 years, 2011: SMU > TCU, come support Dallas' college team. Just something like that so people can feel part of the community.

we could say we're sorry some walk-on wrote a letter to the daily campus that has killed morale on the team.

[whitwiki]

Junior is exactly right. The fans on this board are the fans who are at the games.

When I go to work each Monday, people don't need to ask how my weekend was. All they have to do is check the score of the SMU game. If we win, I had a great weekend. If we lose, I had an awful weekend. It is literally that simple.

So I have had two crappy weekends in a row. Please, for the sanity of those who work with me and for me, BEAT THE HELL OUT OF TULANE!

What do you do during the off season?

[Diamond Girl]

The fact that one of the players wrote that op ed piece in the Daily Campus a couple weeks ago suggests the players want students to show up. Why should they care about playing for the alumni? They want to play for their peers.

[smubrooks]

The school, or Mustang Club, should pay 100+ students (preferably popular kids within their frat/soroity) under the table to convince other students that it is "cool" to attend football and basketball games..... They do realize they can smuggle booze in right?

[moanin'matty]

"if the SMU community doesn't give a damn why should we?"

The team "gives a damn" because they're "the team." And... the fans DO give a damn... the non-fans don't... so they don't mean much to the program anyway.

[SMUer]

"if the SMU community doesn't give a damn why should we?"

The team "gives a damn" because they're "the team." And... the fans DO give a damn... the non-fans don't... so they don't mean much to the program anyway.

Awesome throwback username.

[Charleston Pony]

we have a group of among the most hard core fans supporting any college program in the country...we just don't have many. Those who have stuck with this program through the post death penalty era are truly hard core fans. it's easy to jump on the winning bandwagon but suffering thru winless seasons and back to back 1 win seasons will test anyone's loyalty.

these players came here to turn this program around...and they are doing their part. let's hope (more than the normal number of) their fellow students support them against Tulane and that the hard cores all show up and are rowdy.

our lack of numbers is what it is

Long live the 1500