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Either three straight bowl seasons doesn't qualify as "winning," or the myth is the myth.

It's about creating a winning environment, a supportive infrastructure, a flawless in-stadium gameday experience and marketing beyond Park Cities Plaza.

It starts at the top. The President. The AD. The Head Coach.

We are off the mat now, at the very least, but need to build from here. We are told that the kids love to play for June, although it didn't show on the field the last half of the season. But that's a good building block. Time to invest in things other than new lights.

And, to borrow from the Mavs, "The Time Is Now." Let's win that bowl game and keep the momentum going! Pony Up!

Totally agree. We need to spend time in the off season taking several things up a notch - the biggest thing being marketing. We cant afford to be silent hope people notice anymore. We need to add ourselves to the list of what Dallasites value - if they adopt a team in this city it has to be us. We dont need that many more (5-7k a game) to get us up to repectable.

6 or 7 wins in CUSA does not qualify as winning in Dallas. Its barely better than Bennett did when he got fired. FIRED. 8 wins is winning. 9 wins is good. 10 wins is getting it done. 11 gets serious respect. 12 is BCS contention. 7 with wins over Tulane and Rice over the past 6 weeks aint cutting it. This is grim, but without Hurricane Katrina causing Tulane to fall off signficantly from where they were, how much improvement have we really done ourselves? TCU win was great though.

Didn't we lose to Tulane after Katrina during Bennett's watch?

RockStang wrote:Didn't we lose to Tulane after Katrina during Bennett's watch?

Eeeeyup

It goes WAY beyond Dallas. North to Frisco, Allen and McKinney. South to DeSoto. East to Mesquite and Rockwall, West to Grand Prairie and Arlington. There are college football fans all over this area, who would gladly come see a game for 20-30 bucks a seat -- still, by far, the best sports bargain in town. Most of these people did not go to UT or A&M and still love football. These are the people we need to "adopt" SMU.

But I drove up to the campus today and never saw ONE sign for the game or for parking until I was actually on campus. All I saw was stern guards, arms folded, boldly protecting the Park Cities Plaza lot from wayward parkers. Really? It's gotta better than that. Just has to be. You could have driven down Hillcrest right along campus 20 minutes before kick and NEVER known there was a game to be played 500 yards away. That cannot continue.

As for marketing the surrounding area, many of those people -- and we're talking tens of thousands of people -- never normally come the way of campus and probably 80 percent of them couldn't find the campus on a map. Plus, for some reason, the perception is that tickets are expensive and hard to get. Whenever I invite "new" fans, the first question is, "Well, can you get us tickets? And, geez, how much are they." We have to kill that stigma, which comes from pro sports and Cowboys tickets in the upper deck that go for $150.

It's time to step up. Invest in the program, not just the head coach or his whimsical wishes.

RockStang wrote:Didn't we lose to Tulane after Katrina during Bennett's watch?

yes, but they still had some guy named Matt Forte then. Programs fall off over several years because of recruiting. Tulane didn't go into the tank immediately. Katrina really caught up with them in 2009 through today.

newshound wrote:Either three straight bowl seasons doesn't qualify as "winning," or the myth is the myth.

It's about creating a winning environment, a supportive infrastructure, a flawless in-stadium gameday experience and marketing beyond Park Cities Plaza.

It starts at the top. The President. The AD. The Head Coach.

We are off the mat now, at the very least, but need to build from here. We are told that the kids love to play for June, although it didn't show on the field the last half of the season. But that's a good building block. Time to invest in things other than new lights.

And, to borrow from the Mavs, "The Time Is Now." Let's win that bowl game and keep the momentum going! Pony Up!

Playing in 3 straight irrelevant bowl games doesn't qualify as winning, we haven't won any championships or spent any time ranked. We haven't seen the high-powered offense people thought June Jones would develop. We haven't done anything that any casual fan should care about. Once we do some real winning, the casual fans will come because they'll finally have a reason to and the infrastructure/environment will be improved. Winning cures everything.

Insane_Pony_Posse wrote:one great new addition this season is the fresh corny dogs!
these are made right while you wait just like Fletchers.
tasty treats, food, food, food...is one piece of the gameday marketing puzzle.
if anybody is listening please keep the new large corny dog stand next season.
the flavored roasted nut stands are good too.

I would like to 2nd this. The corny dogs were tasty - had one during halftime. Seems like we've slowly gotten the idea on adding more portable stands for food.

Love the corn dogs and nuts! Can we have them in Moody?

Another marketing thread. yes, its the little things that push you to a higher level program: banners along hillcrest, banners in plaza lot, banners along mockingbird, surveys, direct mail, etc etc - I am hoping with BE money we can do this.

Banners are truly the key...MORE BANNERS!! Actually, banners with our corn dog and nut menus...

Vomit

Marketing!!!

Three seasons of barely eking out .500+ is not winning. That doesn't even equate to one freshman to senior cycle.

And barely over .500 is insufficient for newcomers if it is insufficient for most of us.

Winning has to become a culture. Attendance was lower under Bennett and Cavin but the marketing spend was a lot higher.

I want to increase marketing dollars but the right way.