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Which sections in Ford are the student sections and which are usually full?

Guess who has something to say about the band if we beat a&m? No one.

Guess who has something to say about our student section if we beat a&m? No one.

Guess who has something to say about our crowd if we beat a&m? No one.

Talk all you want about ratios, student body size, geographically diverse alumni, whatever. I completely understand student body ratios when comparing us to state schools. That's common sense. To those of you who are making excuses for our numbers compared to TCU or Baylor, I have a piece of advice - put down the slide rule and face the truth. We aren’t even close.

There is good news and bad news. I'm not sure which is which, so I'll just lay it out. Our crowd size is a direct reflection of the product on the field - sucks so far. When/if we start stacking wins, the crowd will improve. Bad news, it's out of our hands aside from donations (unless you're COC). More bad news - Dallas won't notice until we win consistently for several years.

Look at TCU, Baylor, the Mavericks, and the Rangers. How was attendance 10 years ago? Guess what changed? Marketing? Music? Jump Houses? No, it was WINS.

I remember a few years ago when TCU started mowing through MWC, but they still weren't selling out. I'm sure DeepEllumFrog & Barrister will attest to how frustrating that was to the longtime die-hards. Amazing what winning the Rose Bowl will do for a program. Now they are the darling of Tarrant County.

You MUST win first. Then you must win consistently. Then you must consistently beat quality opponents. Then and only then will Ford Stadium start to look and sound the way we all want it to. That is the fact of the matter.

Want the student section to grow, show up on time, and stay for the whole game? Win.

Want the rest of the crowd to grow, be engaged, and stay for varsity? Win.

Want Corby & the Gray Wolf to stop making fun of our students & band? Win.

And dont just beat Tulane and Rice, beat the big boys, at home...our CUSA schedule has been as crippling as our performance

would have given my left toe to be a bottom feeder in teh Big12 vs. bowl eligible in CUSA

peruna11 wrote:Guess who has something to say about the band if we beat a&m? No one.

Guess who has something to say about our student section if we beat a&m? No one.

Guess who has something to say about our crowd if we beat a&m? No one.

Talk all you want about ratios, student body size, geographically diverse alumni, whatever. I completely understand student body ratios when comparing us to state schools. That's common sense. To those of you who are making excuses for our numbers compared to TCU or Baylor, I have a piece of advice - put down the slide rule and face the truth. We aren’t even close.

There is good news and bad news. I'm not sure which is which, so I'll just lay it out. Our crowd size is a direct reflection of the product on the field - sucks so far. When/if we start stacking wins, the crowd will improve. Bad news, it's out of our hands aside from donations (unless you're COC). More bad news - Dallas won't notice until we win consistently for several years.

Look at TCU, Baylor, the Mavericks, and the Rangers. How was attendance 10 years ago? Guess what changed? Marketing? Music? Jump Houses? No, it was WINS.

I remember a few years ago when TCU started mowing through MWC, but they still weren't selling out. I'm sure DeepEllumFrog & Barrister will attest to how frustrating that was to the longtime die-hards. Amazing what winning the Rose Bowl will do for a program. Now they are the darling of Tarrant County.

You MUST win first. Then you must win consistently. Then you must consistently beat quality opponents. Then and only then will Ford Stadium start to look and sound the way we all want it to. That is the fact of the matter.

Want the student section to grow, show up on time, and stay for the whole game? Win.

Want the rest of the crowd to grow, be engaged, and stay for varsity? Win.

Want Corby & the Gray Wolf to stop making fun of our students & band? Win.

love the post. dead on. everyone wants to whine about marketing this and student attendance that. this really is the bottom line.

peruna11 wrote: I remember a few years ago when TCU started mowing through MWC, but they still weren't selling out. I'm sure DeepEllumFrog & Barrister will attest to how frustrating that was to the longtime die-hards. Amazing what winning the Rose Bowl will do for a program. Now they are the darling of Tarrant County.

Attendence issues for a small private university that plays D1 football come with the territory. So don't get riled up about attendence because it is never ending.

The TCU student section was jammed beyond capacity last game. I've never seen it like that before. It appears that going to a TCU game is a cool thing for students to do now-a-days, which is a far cry from when I went to school there in the 80s. The attendence police at TCU have now turned their wrath on the richy-rich blue hairs that buy multiple season tickets for the best seats and then don't bother to show up.

One big development for TCU are T-Shirt fans. We never used to have any and now we have many. A friend who went to the Grambling game told me that the crowd seemed like it belonged more at a Mavericks game then at TCU.

Considering a trip to Cowboy Stadium would cost a family of 4 close to $1000 before all is said and done, I believe there is a market in Dallas for football fans that can't afford the cowboys.

Let's see how many of them are at the UVA game.

peruna11 wrote:Guess who has something to say about the band if we beat a&m? No one.

Guess who has something to say about our student section if we beat a&m? No one.

Guess who has something to say about our crowd if we beat a&m? No one.

Talk all you want about ratios, student body size, geographically diverse alumni, whatever. I completely understand student body ratios when comparing us to state schools. That's common sense. To those of you who are making excuses for our numbers compared to TCU or Baylor, I have a piece of advice - put down the slide rule and face the truth. We aren’t even close.

There is good news and bad news. I'm not sure which is which, so I'll just lay it out. Our crowd size is a direct reflection of the product on the field - sucks so far. When/if we start stacking wins, the crowd will improve. Bad news, it's out of our hands aside from donations (unless you're COC). More bad news - Dallas won't notice until we win consistently for several years.

Look at TCU, Baylor, the Mavericks, and the Rangers. How was attendance 10 years ago? Guess what changed? Marketing? Music? Jump Houses? No, it was WINS.

I remember a few years ago when TCU started mowing through MWC, but they still weren't selling out. I'm sure DeepEllumFrog & Barrister will attest to how frustrating that was to the longtime die-hards. Amazing what winning the Rose Bowl will do for a program. Now they are the darling of Tarrant County.

You MUST win first. Then you must win consistently. Then you must consistently beat quality opponents. Then and only then will Ford Stadium start to look and sound the way we all want it to. That is the fact of the matter.

Want the student section to grow, show up on time, and stay for the whole game? Win.

Want the rest of the crowd to grow, be engaged, and stay for varsity? Win.

Want Corby & the Gray Wolf to stop making fun of our students & band? Win.

Not sure why more people don't understand this

peruna11 wrote:Guess who has something to say about the band if we beat a&m? No one.

Guess who has something to say about our student section if we beat a&m? No one.

Guess who has something to say about our crowd if we beat a&m? No one.

Talk all you want about ratios, student body size, geographically diverse alumni, whatever. I completely understand student body ratios when comparing us to state schools. That's common sense. To those of you who are making excuses for our numbers compared to TCU or Baylor, I have a piece of advice - put down the slide rule and face the truth. We aren’t even close.

There is good news and bad news. I'm not sure which is which, so I'll just lay it out. Our crowd size is a direct reflection of the product on the field - sucks so far. When/if we start stacking wins, the crowd will improve. Bad news, it's out of our hands aside from donations (unless you're COC). More bad news - Dallas won't notice until we win consistently for several years.

Look at TCU, Baylor, the Mavericks, and the Rangers. How was attendance 10 years ago? Guess what changed? Marketing? Music? Jump Houses? No, it was WINS.

I remember a few years ago when TCU started mowing through MWC, but they still weren't selling out. I'm sure DeepEllumFrog & Barrister will attest to how frustrating that was to the longtime die-hards. Amazing what winning the Rose Bowl will do for a program. Now they are the darling of Tarrant County.

You MUST win first. Then you must win consistently. Then you must consistently beat quality opponents. Then and only then will Ford Stadium start to look and sound the way we all want it to. That is the fact of the matter.

Want the student section to grow, show up on time, and stay for the whole game? Win.

Want the rest of the crowd to grow, be engaged, and stay for varsity? Win.

Want Corby & the Gray Wolf to stop making fun of our students & band? Win.

I only have one thing to add to this list.

GET A COACHING STAFF THAT GIVES A F...

HB Pony Daughter called me this morning and I asked her how the game was from the student's perspective.

She said she and her friends were in the student section and were continually harassed by the aTm fans adjoining them.

She and her friends were determined to stay until at least SMU scored even though many students had left to go to the Barley House so that at least they could drink while watching the nightmare unfolding before them.

She had only ill will towards the Aggie fans and their arrogance; her only solace was to point out to the Aggie fans to laugh now because they all would be working for her soon enough.

If you can't put up a semblance of a fight or that you at least care, you can't blame the students for their cavalier attitude.

HB Pony Daughter graduated in May and had flown in for the game. As a young alumnae she was bitterly disappointed at the performance on the field.

HB Pony Dad wrote:HB Pony Daughter called me this morning and I asked her how the game was from the student's perspective.

She said she and her friends were in the student section and were continually harassed by the aTm fans adjoining them.

She and her friends were determined to stay until at least SMU scored even though many students had left to go to the Barley House so that at least they could drink while watching the nightmare unfolding before them.

She had only ill will towards the Aggie fans and their arrogance; her only solace was to point out to the Aggie fans to laugh now because they all would be working for her soon enough.

If you can't put up a semblance of a fight or that you at least care, you can't blame the students for their cavalier attitude.

HB Pony Daughter graduated in May and had flown in for the game. As a young alumnae she was bitterly disappointed at the performance on the field.

I was on the other side of the stadium, but the Aggie fans almost without exception were polite and intelligent football fans and generally complimentary of our stadium and campus, and what we are attempting to do to improve our team. The ones I encountered ranged in age from early 20s to mid 50s so maybe she had some jackwagon students on her side. One of them even went so far to tell me he wished we would have been in the Big 12 instead of TCU. I had to admit to him that based on at least a decade's worth of results, they were more deserving than us, but thanked him for the gesture anyway.

HB Pony Dad wrote:HB Pony Daughter graduated in May and had flown in for the game. As a young alumnae she was bitterly disappointed at the performance on the field.

She was not alone.

To Ponyfan11 - thanks much for that analysis. I live in NYC so I can't make it down for many games, but last year I made it down for the UCF game that came on the heels of that fantastic win against TCU (which I watched on TV and probably had my Brooklyn neighbors thinking a murder was occuring). I was SO excited and expecting the stadium to be full, and it was pretty durn disappointing to see all the empty seats. That was when the attendance issue hit the press, if you remember.

You are so right about TCU suddenly being the Toast of Tarrant County - I am originally from there and I am jealous about it and hate it at the same time.

Your post gives me hope, if we can just somehow turn the second corner: the first was finally winning more games than were lost, the second will be to compete with and win against our old rivals from the SWC.

Go Mustangs!

Gerald Ford stadium: 32k capacity
TOTAL student population (as of 2009): ~10.8k
Even if every student showed up, that's only 33% capacity.

Small school, small population, requires more than just SMU students to show up.
Particularly when you're competing against a nearby (now) Big 12 school that's not only ranked, but producing wins.

Relax..

we have 6500 undergraduates. Grad students dont go to the football games so when comparing, just use undergrad to undergrad as a comparison. For example we are half the size of Baylor - and we get about half as many students as they get. Not that different.

The only way we make it up is to become the "thing" by winning consistently, and occasionally winning a big game. That will bring in the Dallas college football fan, and make up the difference.

We have gotten better at winning a bit - but we rarely win big games.

gostangs, that's my point... even if all students (grad/undergrad) did go... it still wouldn't fill up the stadium.
Thus, case in point, we're agreeing with each other.