Are we back in Dickey days

greenminer · September 29, 2015

Stop making excuses! The 100k local alumni should demand better for this program PERIOD NO MORE EXCUSES.

I think you've gotten so caught up in your point that you have overlooked our common agreement, that we all think UNT has the resources to win now. Resources that it did not have back when.

(Dickey had it much harder ;p)

Edited September 29, 2015 by greenminer

CMJ · September 29, 2015

Where and when did UCLA and USC play i a half empty non-conference road game? I am calling bullshit. No organization here plays below .500 ball for an extended about of time and draws fans. And the only team that can get away with extended runs of .500 mediocrity is the Dallas Cowboys. But 5 Championships buys that kind of loyalty. The Ranger's season barely over laps ours and until very recent history they were a laughing stock with an empty ball park every August and September. Mavericks played in empty arenas in all with long periods of crappy basketball ball here. And even the Cowboys before Jimmy Johnson turned thinks around had local blackout due to unsold tickets. If you don't win and are not even competitive on the rare occasion you get a team that generates local interest to Denton you aren't going to get fans. "There are school near ......." More bullshit and sorry excuses. Let check the numbers and facts.
Boston College 30k average home attendance 2013 Record a power house 7-6 season
Temple 2014 Season average attendance 23.2 k
I won't even address Miami cause if you are talking about any other school than the U it is insulting to this University and it current resources FIU didn't have D1 or D2 football before 1999. FAU didn't start till 2001. So comparing your school's position to them and making excuses base on what FAU & FIU can't do is like comparing a child to an adult.
Phoenix - calling more bullshit. There are 3 count them 3 public universities in the state of Arizona. Northern Arizona play in Flagstaff, AZ a long way from Phoenix. Plus the Lumberjacks play FCS ball. Arizona State (Tempe AZ) 20 minutes for Phoenix, they average well over 50k a game. Stop making excuses! The 100k local alumni should demand better for this program PERIOD NO MORE EXCUSES.

I said a half empty non conference home games. Much like inflated figures that schools like SMU report -- don't believe every "official" number you see. USC played before about 50K against Idaho this year in a stadium that seats over 93K.

Boston College averages 30K in a stadium that seats 45K. So, that's about like us averaging 20K in Apogee...in a MUCH more high profile conference

I was talking about the Miami Hurricanes. have you WATCHED one of their non-FSU/Florida home games. They don't dry flies! They did not come close to selling out their game against Nebraska.

Arizona State is basically in Phoenix. Tempe sits right on top of it. Trust me on that -- my folks lived there for about ten years. ASU's ten year average of about 58K is again not really legit. I think you'd have to watch their games consistently (which given I am on the west coast in Pac12 country, I do often), but even their fans admit they rarely get that many there unless they're playing a ranked team. Most of their non conference games are nowhere near full. They usually play very late in CDT because the start times are 8 or so on the west coast (both AZ schools tend to play night games early in the season because of the heat).

ASU shares the market with all of the Phoenix teams, and it more or less shows. Every watch a Sun Devils basketball game on TV? You could probably fire a cannon in their arena and not hit anyone. Even when they had James Hardin they struggled to draw people.

Mike Jackson · October 1, 2015

I said a half empty non conference home games. Much like inflated figures that schools like SMU report -- don't believe every "official" number you see. USC played before about 50K against Idaho this year in a stadium that seats over 93K.

Boston College averages 30K in a stadium that seats 45K. So, that's about like us averaging 20K in Apogee...in a MUCH more high profile conference

I was talking about the Miami Hurricanes. have you WATCHED one of their non-FSU/Florida home games. They don't dry flies! They did not come close to selling out their game against Nebraska.

Arizona State is basically in Phoenix. Tempe sits right on top of it. Trust me on that -- my folks lived there for about ten years. ASU's ten year average of about 58K is again not really legit. I think you'd have to watch their games consistently (which given I am on the west coast in Pac12 country, I do often), but even their fans admit they rarely get that many there unless they're playing a ranked team. Most of their non conference games are nowhere near full. They usually play very late in CDT because the start times are 8 or so on the west coast (both AZ schools tend to play night games early in the season because of the heat).
ASU shares the market with all of the Phoenix teams, and it more or less shows. Every watch a Sun Devils basketball game on TV? You could probably fire a cannon in their arena and not hit anyone. Even when they had James Hardin they struggled to draw people.

Very important distinction home games. And no 30k is 30k not 20k in a major metro area with 100k alumni. The Raiders even during their good run in LA rarely sold out 93k stadium so that is an awful comparison. Selling out Apogee for a game against SMU speaks to apathy and losing consistently nothing else. And I don't know what an ASU Basketball game has to do with anything here. We are talking about football in Texas and there are high school football games locally that out draw UNT every year and that is garbage. Every example you named beside BC doubles the attendance for a Mean Green game. I am ready for UNT to "struggle" with 25K plus average attendance which with our resource is not unreasonable. Here another tidbit why comparing Miami to UNT is a horrible comparison (Sun Life Stadium seats 75,540. The undergraduate enrollment at the U is about 10,000. ) So using Miami "Math" Apogee should at least be 50K capacity with 40K average. If you could get just half of the undergrads to show up Apogee is half full. Conference doesn't make a difference if you don't win. Even if we were in the Big 12 as a door matt the stadium would be full but only with fans of visiting teams.

CMJ · October 1, 2015

Very important distinction home games. And no 30k is 30k not 20k in a major metro area with 100k alumni. The Raiders even during their good run in LA rarely sold out 93k stadium so that is an awful comparison. Selling out Apogee for a game against SMU speaks to apathy and losing consistently nothing else. And I don't know what an ASU Basketball game has to do with anything here. We are talking about football in Texas and there are high school football games locally that out draw UNT every year and that is garbage. Every example you named beside BC doubles the attendance for a Mean Green game. I am ready for UNT to "struggle" with 25K plus average attendance which with our resource is not unreasonable. Here another tidbit why comparing Miami to UNT is a horrible comparison (Sun Life Stadium seats 75,540. The undergraduate enrollment at the U is about 10,000. ) So using Miami "Math" Apogee should at least be 50K capacity with 40K average. If you could get just half of the undergrads to show up Apogee is half full. Conference doesn't make a difference if you don't win. Even if we were in the Big 12 as a door matt the stadium would be full but only with fans of visiting teams.

All I am saying is even "big name" schools in "big" cities struggle with attendance unless they win because they have to share their markets with pro teams that are always first draw. We are NOT in a big name conference, so we will certainly struggle with attendance if we are not doing well. Perhaps even IF we win.

Edited October 1, 2015 by CMJ

Mike Jackson · October 1, 2015

Our struggling is on a whole different level when you look at the numbers. And if you look at our west division CUSA rivals it is even worse because we are the biggest school in the conference with one of the longest football histories as well. We are not a "big name football" school but we aren't a back water pond school either. Our school is on par with all the schools you named except national name recognition. Just look up the numbers.

CMJ · October 1, 2015

Our struggling is on a whole different level when you look at the numbers. And if you look at our west division CUSA rivals it is even worse because we are the biggest school in the conference with one of the longest football histories as well. We are not a "big name football" school but we aren't a back water pond school either. Our school is on par with all the schools you named except national name recognition. Just look up the numbers.

Size of school by students doesn't mean anything. If it did, small privates like Duke or Baylor wouldn't even be in power leagues. much less excel in sports. Cal-State Northridge (over 40K students) would have a national presence in athletics instead of having arguably the worst arena in college basketball.

Mike Jackson · October 1, 2015

Size of school by students doesn't mean anything. If it did, small privates like Duke or Baylor wouldn't even be in power leagues. much less excel in sports. Cal-State Northridge (over 40K students) would have a national presence in athletics instead of having arguably the worst arena in college basketball.

School size is resource to work with so it definitely isn't nothing. Basketball in California again really? You clearly have no appreciation of how big football is in Texas. Baylor and Duke were the door matts of their leagues for many years. Baylor Football was the opportunity for other Big 12 school to have a conference game homecoming. The Duke program success in Basketball is solely due to their Hall of Fame coach. So if Haden Frye has stayed here 20 years UNT would have had even more resources than Duke to build a powerhouse program. But again you are mentioning basketball which is totally different animal. In basketball 2 blue chip recruits that pan out spend 6 years on your basketball team collectively can transform a program. Why do you insist in binging basketball programs up when talking about football? You find me another college with 30k students, in the center of 5 star recruiting oasis, and 90+ history in football that does as bad as UNT. You won't find it. If the BOR, AD and alumni make bad decisions or worse demonstrate object apathy towards the program it will not succeed. If we still played at Fouts Field and did not have a brand new athletic complex I would point solely at those things as the reason. Everything is in place hear at UNT except a captive audience without other sport entertainment choices. But even that does not excuse football attendance being routinely below 20k.

CMJ · October 1, 2015

School size is resource to work with so it definitely isn't nothing. Basketball in California again really? You clearly have no appreciation of how big football is in Texas. Baylor and Duke were the door matts of their leagues for many years. Baylor Football was the opportunity for other Big 12 school to have a conference game homecoming. The Duke program success in Basketball is solely due to their Hall of Fame coach. So if Haden Frye has stayed here 20 years UNT would have had even more resources than Duke to build a powerhouse program. But again you are mentioning basketball which is totally different animal. In basketball 2 blue chip recruits that pan out spend 6 years on your basketball team collectively can transform a program. Why do you insist in binging basketball programs up when talking about football? You find me another college with 30k students, in the center of 5 star recruiting oasis, and 90+ history in football that does as bad as UNT. You won't find it. If the BOR, AD and alumni make bad decisions or worse demonstrate object apathy towards the program it will not succeed. If we still played at Fouts Field and did not have a brand new athletic complex I would point solely at those things as the reason. Everything is in place hear at UNT except a captive audience without other sport entertainment choices. But even that does not excuse football attendance being routinely below 20k.

I grew up in Texas. And I do not agree with your assessment of Hayden Fry building up NT to be a Duke of Football or whatever your implication is. Even if we have the numbers advantage....so do tons of schools. That doesn't mean much.

Duke made several Final Fours before Coack K was there - including 1978 which was just a handful of years before his arrival. They might not have been what they are now, but it's not like they were irrelevant. Ever.

You may be talking about just football. I was talking about athletic support of universities in or near metro areas having a tough road to hoe BECAUSE they have to compete with PRO teams. The idea that they have some built in advantage because they are near major cities I believe is more than taken away by the fact that they will never be the first choice of most who circle around to follow the city's NFL, NBA, NHL, or MLB teams.

Yes, you get some who do...but most would rather follow the Cowboys than us. In true college towns that are not absorbed by the big city there is not that sort of divided attention...which means it is easier for them to draw. Like say Boise State which is where I believe this debate started in the first place. They have a total monopoly on that area's attention. We won't and never will.

greenminer · October 1, 2015

Take a look at our endowment and tell me again how size automatically equates to resources.

Edited October 1, 2015 by greenminer

risinggreen · October 1, 2015

School size is resource to work with so it definitely isn't nothing. Basketball in California again really? You clearly have no appreciation of how big football is in Texas. Baylor and Duke were the door matts of their leagues for many years. Baylor Football was the opportunity for other Big 12 school to have a conference game homecoming. The Duke program success in Basketball is solely due to their Hall of Fame coach. So if Haden Frye has stayed here 20 years UNT would have had even more resources than Duke to build a powerhouse program. But again you are mentioning basketball which is totally different animal. In basketball 2 blue chip recruits that pan out spend 6 years on your basketball team collectively can transform a program. Why do you insist in binging basketball programs up when talking about football? You find me another college with 30k students, in the center of 5 star recruiting oasis, and 90+ history in football that does as bad as UNT. You won't find it. If the BOR, AD and alumni make bad decisions or worse demonstrate object apathy towards the program it will not succeed. If we still played at Fouts Field and did not have a brand new athletic complex I would point solely at those things as the reason. Everything is in place hear at UNT except a captive audience without other sport entertainment choices. But even that does not excuse football attendance being routinely below 20k.

Texas State. We've played at a higher level for much longer than they have, but we've both been playing for around the same number of years without a lot of consistent success. Although it can certainly help in certain ways, there's not a whole lot of correlation between enrollment size and success in college football. There are a bunch of high enrollment schools in good recruiting areas across the country that can't even find a way to field a D1 football team.