Column: North Texas football needs its students in attendance

Ryan Munthe · September 28, 2017

16 minutes ago, bleedgreen4ever said:

Right...I think talking points like this would start to make at least some students think twice about UNT football as a just a "loser program" and start paying more attention and feeling more pride eventually for their school. The easy conclusion everyone falls back on is "until we win consistently"...and I think there's much more to it and that's a lazy argument. There are losing programs in FBS that still bring in solid crowds solely because people have school pride coming from tradition beyond the "Ls" and "W's" and have fun while they're at it, ie tailgating, etc.

Interestingly enough, I feel like school pride is higher than ever. You never see other schools clothes and there’s just a lot of pride. That hasn’t translated to sports.

This is a student section that WAS SO savage multiple schools complained to the conference resulting in moving the student section. A student section so loud that (not looking to start an argument) screamed “MF’ing Eagles” so loud ESPN moved their mic (versus Rice.) Not to mention the old Pit Crew. While student spirit is up, student attendance is down and that stumps me. I think it probably boils down to wins and losses.

Cerebus · September 29, 2017

On 9/27/2017 at 3:43 PM, Mean Green 93-98 said:

2. The Rice game was a Halloween night game . . . and a Thursday night game. I know alumni in Dallas and Fort Worth hate those games, because it is difficult to make it up for those. But for a student population that has a large contingent leaving town every weekend, Thursday night games are perfect. Having one of those every year (but just one) is good for getting the students into Apogee.

That is not really as big an issue as it was 10+ years ago. Yes a percentage of the students still commute, but student housing has expanded, freshman stay on campus mostly, a lot more students now live in Denton, and housing in the surrounding communities has greatly expanded.

I would guess the vast majority of students are in town, or live nearby north of the Lake Lewisville bridge now. Mainly because I35 got so congested, and then the I35 project made everything worse. The student population that in years past used to commute from Arlington/Grapevine/Etc now just goes to UTA/UTD. That is why you have seen their enrollment explode the last 10 years.

It's just damn difficult for most people to live south of the bridge and commute to school north of it.

southsideguy · September 30, 2017

i watch a little of the denton hs vs denton ryan game on espn2 last night. Didnt seem to be a lot of fans at the game. Is it just Denton?

UNTexas · September 30, 2017

Dirt cheap beer.

Green P1 · September 30, 2017

Just don't suck for a couple seasons in a row. We haven't tried that since 2004. If people thought a losing record and a Bowl Game loss would rile up the students....

Edited September 30, 2017 by Green P1