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College football is about 100000000x more popular and accessible now than it was in the early 80's. If SMU were to go undefeated playing an exciting and engaging brand of football we would play in front of a packed house. There would be features about us on ESPN, local news stories and radio, etc. People would jump on the bandwagon. Same thing happened to TCU. You see this year with a mediocre product just how many TCU fans are showing up in the stands (before Stallion climaxes over tickets sold I totally get it) but that image of the halftime shot against Kansas and the 4th quarter against WVU were pretty damning.

StallionsModelT wrote:College football is about 100000000x more popular and accessible now than it was in the early 80's. If SMU were to go undefeated playing an exciting and engaging brand of football we would play in front of a packed house. There would be features about us on ESPN, local news stories and radio, etc. People would jump on the bandwagon. Same thing happened to TCU. You see this year with a mediocre product just how many TCU fans are showing up in the stands (before Stallion climaxes over tickets sold I totally get it) but that image of the halftime shot against Kansas and the 4th quarter against WVU were pretty damning.

You would have to qualify that undefeated part for it to be applicable for getting large amounts of fans. If we went undefeated by beating Baylor, AM, TCU and Tech, then trouncing our AAC schedule, then yes we would most definitely get hype and poll rankings. However, going undefeated with NTCC, Texas State, TCU, FCS team and skimming by our AAC schedule would not yield that much hype. Sure, people would see the 12-0 and it would be mentioned on ESPN. However, most people are smart enough to look at the schedule played by that 12-0 / 11-1 team, and if they see throw in wins, we might as well be 8-4. We need solid, quality wins that TCU was able to obtain. If we ever by some miracle make it to the big boy bowls like TCU did in the Rose bowl, we would have to win. We could not pull a Hawaii under JJ and go to the Sugar bowl and get exploited on how mediocre of a team we really were.

The numbers from Tulane were 1998, so it wasn't very long ago. Now, they didn't have an on-campus stadium and we do --- but that may actually work against us (SMU). Everyone knows where the Superdome is and how to get there.

How many casual sports fans in Dallas know where SMU is, let alone where we play football? I bet if you took a poll, a large % of Dallas residents would think we still play in the Cotton Bowl! People who would like to attend may not know where to park, where the Blvd is and how it works, etc.

Hopefully, a marketing campaign would help with that - if we ever have the problem of getting that type of ticket demand!

"Going undefeated" is not a plan it's a result. Will all the fans know SMU is going to "go undefeated" so they will fill the stands early in year? Better "plan' to "go undefeated" for 2 years. Now what are you going to do in Year 3 and for every year after that-"go undefeated"? Some of us have actually seen SMU have the best record in the Country for a 5 year period. Think about that for a minute-the best record in the country for an extended period. Problem not solved even in SWC. The problem with "the Plan" is that SMU's ghost crowds do have a strong negative effect on recruiting which is how you improve a team to "go undefeated". Russ Potts addressed that before Ron Meyer could recruit the players needed to "go undefeated" making Meyer's job a thousand times easier

Stallion wrote:"Going undefeated" is not a plan it's a result. Will all the fans know SMU is going to "go undefeated" so they will fill the stands early in year? Better "plan' to "go undefeated" for 2 years. Now what are you going to do in Year 3 and for every year after that-"go undefeated"? Some of us have actually seen SMU have the best record in the Country for a 5 year period. Think about that for a minute-the best record in the country for an extended period. Problem not solved even in SWC. The problem with "the Plan" is that SMU's ghost crowds do have a strong negative effect on recruiting which is how you improve a team to "go undefeated". Russ Potts addressed that before Ron Meyer could recruit the players needed to "go undefeated" making Meyer's job a thousand times easier

Exactly. Very recently, we could have had an 11-1 season.. But sitting at 4-1, with a big win over rival TCU - no one showed up for our next game against UCF. That was a pretty big indictment of our fan base - as that was about the pinnacle of our upward climb. Not suprisingly, we fell back to earth after that.

Seems like multiple 9, 10, 11 win seasons would be needed on the Hilltop to sustain any type of attendance momentum!

I think an informational pamphlet would suffice, however Im not sure how it is possible for a Dallas resident to not know where SMU is. I mean mockingbird street is a pretty high traffic street. However, it is sad a boss of mine that came from outside of texas drove by on Mockingbird thinking it was a large private school...

Anyways, I think its better to save the marketing money till we get a new coach that can bring excitement back to SMU. We might as well market Larry Brown everywhere and hopefully new fans see the football stadium along the way and think wow thats a pretty big stadium, they must be a FBS team. Sadly though, until we get a better, more exciting product on the field, there is really no point in advertising.

Now obviously Stallion you will have better insight than me on the past. I definitely do not think going undefeated will cure out attendance problems unless they are quality wins and we have a quality coach. I think it will reinspire the alumni base if we had a reputable team that people can brag about. Its shocking that there werent more people showing up to the games when we top in the nation. However, I do think it is a much different climate where people put more value on a team thats winning and winning big. I think Baylor will be a good case study on attendance to performance measurements. Even if undefeated doesnt bring record breaking crowds, i think going 7-5 or lower is a fan killer especially when the 7 wins come from what people see as gimmie-wins.

SMU Powerhouse (Ranked, 5 or 6 10+ win seasons in a row, Engaged coach) = Packed House

It's a small thing, but I think it illustrates in a minor way the issues we have attracting fans. We have the best QB we have had in 25 years or more and it hasn't any effect on the casual football fan. the DMN has written about him a lot, but it isn't bringing fans.

I think we might need to change our mindset. Focusing on attendance is only going to frustrate us. We are in a winnable league now with good TV exposure (compared with where we were). There are plenty of clubs in the world who have great atmosphere with crowds of 15-20K, even less, we just need to look at the things that they do. Personally, I think we have to start by changing the culture among the students. Having 100-150 students at a game in the second half is just sad, and it reflects their apathy, and that apathy does not exist just on gameday, it surrounds our student athletes every day.

Mustangsabu wrote:It's a small thing, but I think it illustrates in a minor way the issues we have attracting fans. We have the best QB we have had in 25 years or more and it hasn't any effect on the casual football fan. the DMN has written about him a lot, but it isn't bringing fans.

I think we might need to change our mindset. Focusing on attendance is only going to frustrate us. We are in a winnable league now with good TV exposure (compared with where we were). There are plenty of clubs in the world who have great atmosphere with crowds of 15-20K, even less, we just need to look at the things that they do. Personally, I think we have to start by changing the culture among the students. Having 100-150 students at a game in the second half is just sad, and it reflects their apathy, and that apathy does not exist just on gameday, it surrounds our student athletes every day.

GG has been good lately but he sputtered vs. Texas Tech (7-5 team), TCU (4-8 team) and Texas A&M...didn't score more than 23 points on any of those games and threw a bunch of picks vs. mediocre TCU. People wrote him off coming into Rutgers...

Mustangsabu wrote: Personally, I think we have to start by changing the culture among the students. Having 100-150 students at a game in the second half is just sad, and it reflects their apathy, and that apathy does not exist just on gameday, it surrounds our student athletes every day.

The crazy thing is that student apathy was like this when I was in school from 1995-99 and in grad school in 00-03. I always chalked it up to a very bad product on the field combined with no drive from the admin to make changes. I always said how can you blame students for not getting behind a losing team that is confined by the admin? And we also complained about having to make our way over to cotton bowl as well.

But this new crop of students have experienced winning seasons for their ENTIRE collegiate career! And they have a beautiful on-campus stadium to boot! And yet attendance looks no different than it did when we were 1-11?? It just baffles the mind.

The problem remains the same - when I was in school, we were confined to our little bubble, worried about rush and the social scene and plegding and chapter meetings and crush parties and blah blah blah. Our school is so GREEK- focused that it becomes a detriment to athletics. That has to change. Sorority girls need to do their part and be at games. Same with dudes. It needs to be mandated by IFC and such that all greek members must attend X many athlrtic events in order to remain an organization. Same with all other campus groups.

ponyinNC wrote:

Mustangsabu wrote: Personally, I think we have to start by changing the culture among the students. Having 100-150 students at a game in the second half is just sad, and it reflects their apathy, and that apathy does not exist just on gameday, it surrounds our student athletes every day.

The crazy thing is that student apathy was like this when I was in school from 1995-99 and in grad school in 00-03. I always chalked it up to a very bad product on the field combined with no drive from the admin to make changes. I always said how can you blame students for not getting behind a losing team that is confined by the admin? And we also complained about having to make our way over to cotton bowl as well.

But this new crop of students have experienced winning seasons for their ENTIRE collegiate career! And they have a beautiful on-campus stadium to boot! And yet attendance looks no different than it did when we were 1-11?? It just baffles the mind.

The problem remains the same - when I was in school, we were confined to our little bubble, worried about rush and the social scene and plegding and chapter meetings and crush parties and blah blah blah. Our school is so GREEK- focused that it becomes a detriment to athletics. That has to change. Sorority girls need to do their part and be at games. Same with dudes. It needs to be mandated by IFC and such that all greek members must attend X many athlrtic events in order to remain an organization. Same with all other campus groups.

The SMU Student Life Office is such a [deleted] joke that they'll never be able to impose a fix such as this- although it wouldn't be the worst idea. What if every fraternity/sorority that had 2/3 attendance at all home games (maybe exclude the game on Thanksgiving holiday) got $1,000 (or whatever amount would be a likely incentive) for their social budget? Instead, our student life office will be busy mandating seminars on combating transphobia or some other BS

EDIT: Wouldn't have to be limited to Greek organizations. Could also apply for groups like RUF, Young Republicans/Democrats, whatever

Stallion wrote:SMU fans don't come out the woodwork ever

That's the thing. There is no woodwork.

We do need to get more tshirt fans -- winning would help as would Ross Potts style marketing ingenuity. But the base is so small since we've got a relatively tiny number of active students, further compounded by the fact that half of them leave Texas after graduation. Add to that the exclusive country club atmosphere, and far away, unknown and therefore uninteresting to the common fan conference mates, and you have a recipe for attendance nightmare.

Mustangsabu wrote:Personally, I think we have to start by changing the culture among the students. Having 100-150 students at a game in the second half is just sad, and it reflects their apathy, and that apathy does not exist just on gameday, it surrounds our student athletes every day.

In the 80's almost half our team was Greek. A lot of us were very integrated into the general student body, had best friends that were not players, and dated sorority girls. It was pretty easy to get the Greeks to go to games.

Today I notice much more separation between the athletes and the general student body. I wonder if the students even look at athletes as fellow SMU students...or friends.

And it seems crazy to think we can make students go to games as an obligation...like making them go to the dentist. They are going to have to want to go.

dbone wrote:

Mustangsabu wrote:Personally, I think we have to start by changing the culture among the students. Having 100-150 students at a game in the second half is just sad, and it reflects their apathy, and that apathy does not exist just on gameday, it surrounds our student athletes every day.

In the 80's almost half our team was Greek. A lot of us were very integrated into the general student body, had best friends that were not players, and dated sorority girls. It was pretty easy to get the Greeks to go to games.

Today I notice much more separation between the athletes and the general student body. I wonder if the students even look at athletes as fellow SMU students...or friends.

And it seems crazy to think we can make students go to games as an obligation...like making them go to the dentist. They are going to have to want to go.

Agreed- there is definitely a schism between athletes and the rest of the student body at SMU. I was friends with several players while at SMU but as a whole it's like two separate communities

They'd be more likely to stay all game if their friends were the one's playing...that's the thing that jumps out at me watching ESPN All-Access...other schools have athletes that are inter-connected with the student body...SMU seems to seperate and shelter them...