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So thankful to have Ford Stadium which fits SMU so much better than the Cotton Bowl or even Texas Stadium in the Pony Express era did. Just hope the program continues to improve and can fill Ford regularly before the new end zone project adds more seating

23,045 announced, 16,047 actual.

ALEX LIFESON wrote:23,045 announced, 16,047 actual.

Probably not far from the truth and optically it will look terrible.

To me, that’s all on Rick Hartless.

SoCal_Pony wrote:

ALEX LIFESON wrote:23,045 announced, 16,047 actual.

Probably not far from the truth and optically it will look terrible.

To me, that’s all on Rick Hartless.

Little Ricky?

Help me understand why is it his fault? Good product on the field, pre game concert, great boulevard.

If they can't get the ticket website back up and running, may have less than 1000. Apparently has been down since this morning.

docabel wrote:If they can't get the ticket website back up and running, may have less than 1000. Apparently has been down since this morning.

Didn't anticipate the massive demand for tickets

Terry Webster wrote:Help me understand why is it his fault? Good product on the field, pre game concert, great boulevard.

Why is it his fault????

Sure, I’ll give you plenty of reasons.

Since his hire over 10 years ago, SMU has ALWAYS been interested in ΓÇÿmoving up’ into a better conference. Our biggest Achilles Heal has been our attendance. Tell me again the efforts he’s made to boost our biggest weakness over the past decade???

Great coaches is not enough. June Jones and Chad Morris were top-notch hires at the time, Sonny we got on a discount. June most definitely got turned off by the lack of fan support, I suspect it had an impact on Chadster and Sunny as well. It says we’re not serious about attaining P5 status.

Try SOMETHING, see what works and what doesn’t but constantly fine-time it and constantly try new things.

As a kid at the Cotton Bowl i remember Band Day, FCA day and Methodist Day. Those should be a yearly staples at Ford until we know for certain they are failures. I don’t think they are and i don’t think we’ve put in the effort.

I leave you with this…if Russ Potts could fill up 66k Texas Stadium, we should be able to add even 7k more to our games at Ford…that was 40 years ago…this region has grown substantially, plus we are now on campus with all its perks, most notably The Boulevard.

And of course the stakes can’t be any higher with an obvious deadline to either become relevant or go home. There are hundreds of millions of $$$ at stake.

I’ve seen virtually nothing during his reign. He’s the AD. The buck stops with HIM.

The top 5 games in attendance (Ford Stadium) were during the JJ and Steve Orsini era. The funny part is that everyone hates JJ and Orsini.

I do not believe attendance has anything to do with conference selection. If our stadium was empty but all of Dallas had their TVs on our game, we would be in great demand. We need the good product more than butts in seats.

mrydel wrote:I do not believe attendance has anything to do with conference selection. If our stadium was empty but all of Dallas had their TVs on our game, we would be in great demand. We need the good product more than butts in seats.

This ^^
Also, SMU has to appeal to and embrace the t shirt fans. Make games as cheap as possible to attend. But quality of opponent has a lot to do with attendance. Not saying it’s an ok excuse, but there’s a lot of time, effort, and money that goes into attending a football game. Hard to sell that experience nowadays as being better than watching on TV while grilling steaks, eating gumbo on the couch, and grabbing beers from the fridge, and I could go on

The ESPN+ coverage is garbage. One of those guys just tried to relate to dropping a pass based on his high school football experience.

Some of you people love to live in your negative echo chambers. I don't believe I've seen that many people sitting in our grassy knoll and standing above it. And yeah, I'm not Paul Layne but I've been going to the home games well before Ford was built and since.

Nedward wrote:Some of you people love to live in your negative echo chambers. I don't believe I've seen that many people sitting in our grassy knoll and standing above it. And yeah, I'm not Paul Layne but I've been going to the home games well before Ford was built and since.

The students in the end zone looks awesome, now, if you could find a way to get them to stay more than a quarter and a half, you would really be on to something. They always have a mass exodus at halftime. But again, it looks great for the second quarter.