Sporting News pre-season mag

SUMG · June 21, 2005

They have us ranked 61st in the nation. MTSU is 65th (as I recall).

Anyway....anyone who has been following us for a while, knows that 61st is pretty high for us in one of the pre-season mags. I can remember years, when every Belt team was ranked between 90-117.

It's a good pre-season mag, but I wouldn't buy it. I think you can get whatever you want out of it, just by perusing it at your local bookstore.

Edited June 21, 2005 by SUMG

PlummMeanGreen · June 21, 2005

They have us ranked 61st in the nation. MTSU is 65th (as I recall).
Anyway....anyone who has been following us for a while, knows that 61st is pretty high for us in one of the pre-season mags. I can remember years, when every Belt team was ranked between 90-117.
It's a good pre-season mag, but I wouldn't buy it. I think you can get whatever you want out of it, just by perusing it at your local bookstore.

Thanks for that find from TSN 2005 College Football, SUMG. #61 is not so bad a ranking for the Mean Green.

#61 is closer to where we want to be and (in my heart of hearts) I feel our new football stadium coupled with continued winning will make us a permanent fixture in the NCAA D1-A Top 50. We need to start having Top 50 attendance numbers very soon and think we can if we merely utilize all our marketing & advertising talents on campus.

GrayEagle · June 21, 2005

Jim, several rating services have us somewhere in the 60s so TSN is not doing something brave and bold. Having said that, I think that's much too high for the beginning of the season. By season's end, I'd hope that's even a little high.

Now, a permanent Top 50 on attendance is another matter. Even with a new stadium, the only way that we can accomplish that is to be admitted to the Big XII. Attendance averages for #50 are between 40 and 50 thousand each year. I'd settle for half of that. Oh, the first year we might average 30 thousand but from that point on we'd have to consistently be in the Top 20 or so to maintain that.

I love your optimism, though.

SilverEagle · June 21, 2005

Jim, several rating services have us somewhere in the 60s so TSN is not doing something brave and bold. Having said that, I think that's much too high for the beginning of the season. By season's end, I'd hope that's even a little high.
Now, a permanent Top 50 on attendance is another matter. Even with a new stadium, the only way that we can accomplish that is to be admitted to the Big XII. Attendance averages for #50 are between 40 and 50 thousand each year. I'd settle for half of that. Oh, the first year we might average 30 thousand but from that point on we'd have to consistently be in the Top 20 or so to maintain that.
I love your optimism, though.

Jack, do you remember what the attendance at North Texas games was averaging right before they built Fouts? I know that the student population during that time was somewhere around 6K.

They must have had pretty good attendance at that time to build something that holds 20K fans. They must have been anticipating a lot of attendance growth as well.

At that time they were building something that would hold triple their student population. If we did something similar today, we would have to build a 90K seat stadium.

PlummMeanGreen · June 21, 2005

Jim, several rating services have us somewhere in the 60s so TSN is not doing something brave and bold. Having said that, I think that's much too high for the beginning of the season. By season's end, I'd hope that's even a little high.
Now, a permanent Top 50 on attendance is another matter. Even with a new stadium, the only way that we can accomplish that is to be admitted to the Big XII. Attendance averages for #50 are between 40 and 50 thousand each year. I'd settle for half of that. Oh, the first year we might average 30 thousand but from that point on we'd have to consistently be in the Top 20 or so to maintain that.
I love your optimism, though.

Success is a journey...not a destination.

Yes, we do have a ways to go on our journey of getting our attendance numbers up.

My warmest regards to your lovely wife, Jessica, Jack. See yall soon!

GrayEagle · June 22, 2005

Bill, the old Eagle Memorial Stadium had a listed capacity of 10,000. When Fouts was built we had a student enrollment of about 5,000. The normal crowd was about 75-90% capacity. Homecoming was pretty much a sellout so I'd say that the average attendance was around 8,500. Bear in mind, 45,000 was an excellent crowd for a SWC game; many were in the 20s. In fact, I believe that the Cotton Bowl only held 45,000 then although it was expanded to 65,000 just after the Doak Walker era.

NT91 · June 22, 2005

Any photos of old Eagle Memorial Stadium ?

DeepGreen · June 22, 2005

Bill, the old Eagle Memorial Stadium had a listed capacity of 10,000. When Fouts was built we had a student enrollment of about 5,000. The normal crowd was about 75-90% capacity. Homecoming was pretty much a sellout so I'd say that the average attendance was around 8,500. Bear in mind, 45,000 was an excellent crowd for a SWC game; many were in the 20s. In fact, I believe that the Cotton Bowl only held 45,000 then although it was expanded to 65,000 just after the Doak Walker era.

I remember attending a Texas-TAMU game in College Station in the early '60's. Kyle Field was at capacity that day, 33-35,000 fans. This was the old horseshoe shaped Kyle Field.

PlummMeanGreen · June 22, 2005

I remember attending a Texas-TAMU game in College Station in the early '60's. Kyle Field was at capacity that day, 33-35,000 fans. This was the old horseshoe shaped Kyle Field.

Saw Gene Stallings coach his last game as Aggie head FB coach in the early 70's (vs DKR's Texas Longhorns--UT won)) in a Kyle Field that at the time had 45,000 capacity (and it was full, of course).