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texasmustang10 wrote:It is the commuter students/GDI's that largely don't attend the athletic events

lol. So much lol.

Hate to end the frat boy circlejerk, but the greeks, which people seem to forget are a minority on campus, are only good at attending the boulevard. The games? Not so much. I graduated a year ago and in my experience the student section was not a primarily greek affair.

Even though I'm not a current student, here are my reasons for not going to the bowl game:
1. It's in Birmingham
2. At this point in our slow climb, we stand no chance of filling a 70k seat stadium
3. The team is not fun to watch
4. This matchup is completely irrelevant
5. I've worked hard to bring many of my young alum friends to games and I've gotten rewarded by being trashed in the Daily Campus and having June talk [deleted] about the fan base. Won't be making the same effort in future.

BigT3x wrote:Hate to end the frat boy circlejerk, but the greeks, which people seem to forget are a minority on campus

That may be true, but I'm willing to bet that 80% of the money donations are from people that were in the Greek system.

BigT3x wrote:Hate to end the frat boy circlejerk, but the greeks, which people seem to forget are a minority on campus, are only good at attending the boulevard. The games? Not so much. I graduated a year ago and in my experience the student section was not a primarily greek affair.

Even though I'm not a current student, here are my reasons for not going to the bowl game:
1. It's in Birmingham
2. At this point in our slow climb, we stand no chance of filling a 70k seat stadium
3. The team is not fun to watch
4. This matchup is completely irrelevant
5. I've worked hard to bring many of my young alum friends to games and I've gotten rewarded by being trashed in the Daily Campus and having June talk [deleted] about the fan base. Won't be making the same effort in future.

#5 is not a good reason. Only proves June right.

Being trashed in the daily carcass was a considerable source of pride for me back when I was an undergrad.

Pony ^ wrote:That may be true, but I'm willing to bet that 80% of the money donations are from people that were in the Greek system.

And I'm willing to bet that's not true, but until either of us has hard numbers we're just pulling things out of our [deleted].

BigT3x wrote:Hate to end the frat boy circlejerk, but the greeks, which people seem to forget are a minority on campus, are only good at attending the boulevard. The games? Not so much. I graduated a year ago and in my experience the student section was not a primarily greek affair.

Even though I'm not a current student, here are my reasons for not going to the bowl game:
1. It's in Birmingham
2. At this point in our slow climb, we stand no chance of filling a 70k seat stadium
3. The team is not fun to watch
4. This matchup is completely irrelevant
5. I've worked hard to bring many of my young alum friends to games and I've gotten rewarded by being trashed in the Daily Campus and having June talk [deleted] about the fan base. Won't be making the same effort in future.

If you want someone better than June to be our coach in the future, you really need to go to the game. Great coaches do not want to come to SMU. They want to play in front of solid crowds. Hopefully we will get there some day, but unfortunately too many of our fans/alums have to remove a chip from their shoulder like you. While I fault JJ for his approach, the fact is our attendance is extremely embarrassing and for all those that are bashing Rice, we probably have 50 more fans than they do at this point.

Speaking of rush, can we get the houses ranked again as we did back in the day? Ralph? Paul Hugg? Rich alum? I'm looking at you guys.

mustangxc wrote:

BigT3x wrote:Hate to end the frat boy circlejerk, but the greeks, which people seem to forget are a minority on campus, are only good at attending the boulevard. The games? Not so much. I graduated a year ago and in my experience the student section was not a primarily greek affair.

Even though I'm not a current student, here are my reasons for not going to the bowl game:
1. It's in Birmingham
2. At this point in our slow climb, we stand no chance of filling a 70k seat stadium
3. The team is not fun to watch
4. This matchup is completely irrelevant
5. I've worked hard to bring many of my young alum friends to games and I've gotten rewarded by being trashed in the Daily Campus and having June talk [deleted] about the fan base. Won't be making the same effort in future.

If you want someone better than June to be our coach in the future, you really need to go to the game. Great coaches do not want to come to SMU. They want to play in front of solid crowds. Hopefully we will get there some day, but unfortunately too many of our fans/alums have to remove a chip from their shoulder like you. While I fault JJ for his approach, the fact is our attendance is extremely embarrassing and for all those that are bashing Rice, we probably have 50 more fans than they do at this point.

the match up is not irrelevant and we are not expected to fill up the stadium. I believe out ticket allotment is in the 2000-5000 range. And yes no matter how you spin it, our fan base sucks. Be a part of the solution rather than the problem.

Students will do what they want to.

As a whole maybe we can act like real fans at some point. Cities and dates should be irrelevant. Loyal fans dont nitpick those things

I think buses are the ticket if you are going to get students to travel to away games. You've got to make it as easy on them as possible. Park buses in front of Boaz, Shuttles and McElvaney so that all they'd have to do is literally stumble out of their dorm-rooms with a game ticket in-hand, at a certain time. Couldn't they charge a marginal "Athletics Fee" to each student's tuition to cover bus trips like these? Do they charge one? I know some schools do.

On that note, RBA is STILL trying to organize a bus trip to Birmingham but by now this is a dying, if-not dead, idea. RBA has 100 members but I haven't been able to generate enough interest in the BBVA to fill either a 38- or 57-seat bus. I just wrote sort of a "Hail Mary" email to Brad Sutton, hinting that if he could find an appropriate way to let students know about the RBA bus-option, we'd appreciate it. I doubt he'll be able to but it's worth a shot. On that note, if there are 30-40 Ponyfans/students who are interested in going to the BBVA Bowl but 1) haven't yet bought their airfare or 2) would go if travel was cheaper, email me at [email protected]. If I can get enough interest, we'll charter a bus to leave from SMU or near-SMU on Friday night, drive over-night to Birmingham and leave after the game and arrive back in Dallas early Sunday morning, about $100 per person.

SMUer wrote:On that note, RBA is STILL trying to organize a bus trip to Birmingham but by now this is a dying, if-not dead, idea. RBA has 100 members but I haven't been able to generate enough interest in the BBVA to fill either a 38- or 57-seat bus. I just wrote sort of a "Hail Mary" email to Brad Sutton, hinting that if he could find an appropriate way to let students know about the RBA bus-option, we'd appreciate it. I doubt he'll be able to but it's worth a shot. On that note, if there are 30-40 Ponyfans/students who are interested in going to the BBVA Bowl but 1) haven't yet bought their airfare or 2) would go if travel was cheaper, email me at [email protected]. If I can get enough interest, we'll charter a bus to leave from SMU or near-SMU on Friday night, drive over-night to Birmingham and leave after the game and arrive back in Dallas early Sunday morning, about $100 per person.

seems like Brad would be able to help as they bussed students down to A&M. You'd think they would have the same email list of those that took that trip

SMU Pony Mom wrote:dorms opening Jan. 10th.

Seems like part of the problem. If you take a bus to/from Dallas to B-ham, you can't get into the dorms. Why doesn't the Univ. open the dorms two days early for those that they can confirm are leaving/returning to Dallas for the game?

That said, every student knows at least one friend with an apartment and a couch to sleep on, so the dorms being closed isn't an insurmountable issue.

Student council president can help with bus maybe? Young alum association?