BEEP BEEP

meangreenbob · November 20, 2011

But a Roadrunner just ran right pass our Beloved UNT!

Understand one thing, there is absolutely no excuse for only 17,000 at last nights game, PERIOD!

Stop making excuses!

MeanMag · November 20, 2011

But a Roadrunner just ran right pass our Beloved UNT!

Understand one thing, there is absolutely no excuse for only 17,000 at last nights game, PERIOD!

Stop making excuses!

But, But, But. Frats.

NT03 · November 20, 2011

UTSA passed us by the minute they decided to build a program & hire Larry Coker.

UNTLifer · November 20, 2011

UTSA passed us by the minute they decided to build a program & hire Larry Coker.

Let the first year wear off and see what happens.

Green Mean · November 20, 2011

UTSA passed us by the minute they decided to build a program & hire Larry Coker.

If they have the same numbers and attendance 3 and 5 years from now then I will give them credit. In the meantime we'll be improving and getting better as well.

MeanGreenDan · November 20, 2011

If they have the same numbers and attendance 3 and 5 years from now then I will give them credit. In the meantime we'll be improving and getting better as well.

And hopefully playing them every year. We would not see a 17k night against them, good or bad teams, frats or no frats.

Rudy · November 20, 2011

UTSA passed us by the minute they decided to build a program & hire Larry Coker.

So have you already put in for your 2012 Roadrunners season tickets yet? They even get to play in the WAC! :rolleyes:

NT03 · November 20, 2011

So have you already put in for your 2012 Roadrunners season tickets yet? They even get to play in the WAC!

Who do you honestly think will sell more season tickets in 2012 ,UTSA or UNT ?

bleedgreen4ever · November 20, 2011

Who do you honestly think will sell more season tickets in 2012 ,UTSA or UNT ?

UTSA by a little. They have an advantage right now, let's get real. San Antonio is a city that has been craving for a football team and now they have one. They have the entire city backing them. We have....Denton...oh wait, not even Denton supports the Mean Green as it should.

Rudy · November 20, 2011

Who do you honestly think will sell more season tickets in 2012 ,UTSA or UNT ?

Let the new football team smell wear off first.

wardly · November 20, 2011

UTSA average football attendance this year is 35,500.UNT average for past 10 years, including 2011 ytd, is 1/2 that, and includes our 4 Sun Belt championships, 4 New Orleans Bowl appearances,amd last 3 winning seasons. i don't have a clue how to expand our fan base, but what ever we are doing is not working. being in a regional conference would certainly help, but it's our responsibility to put N.T. fans in the stadium and not count on visiting teams to add much. i don't think Houston brought more than a few thousand fans, and if we did obtain membership in Western Division of CUSA,Tulane,Rice,UTEP,Tulsa,LA.Tech,or UTSA are not going to bring more and maybe even less.

aztecskin · November 20, 2011

Trying to be as objective as possible I come to this conclusion: UTSA has the better shot at filling the stadium while UNT has a better shot at fielding a better team.

The UNT program is so much further than UTSA in facilities and alumni support that UTSA would need to have a series of miracles to pull make up the difference.

There are no practice buildings and the basketball team plays in a terrible, hard-to-get-to facility. The Alamodome is awesome for football games, though. It is centrally located (down-effing-town) and has hotels, restaurants and stuff within walking distance. Gameday is fun because of all that stuff. The city has had twenty years of practice to get people in and out and entertained at that place. Students can hop on a bus from campus and get dropped off in front of the building, drink all day and get bussed back. It is kinda cool.

Since we cannot do much about changing the football program, all we are left with regular citizen-type stuff. Ideally I would raze the Denia neighborhood (I got a BBA --so I have cold-blodded, evil business man thoughts in my head occasionally) and put destination-type stuff there. All that stuff around the Cinemark Denton should be closer to the Stadium.

The good news is that developers are always looking to do that type of stuff. You as Denton Citizen can help it happen by voting in a city government willing to make it happen.

If you'd rather Denton not be a sprawling mess with stripmalls on the southern side, clogging up your streets, and drunk off it's ass then well, keep doing what your doing.

As is, we have to rely on the audience drawing force that is the Sun Belt residing UNT football team. We've already argued and discussed the (in)ability of the team to outdraw the Rangers, Texas-OU, TTU, cold-ish weather, nice days, Mexican Liberation Day, Shiny Things, and Twilight: I Was A Teenage Vampire Volume 1, Issue 6.

Maybe we have to make it so no one has to drive around Denton to enjoy gameday (lazy bastards). Whatevs. If that can get people to make the trip up from Arlingame (inside joke) then let's do it, yo.

SilverEagle · November 20, 2011

And hopefully playing them every year. We would not see a 17k night against them, good or bad teams, frats or no frats.

I'm not sure if you are saying that we would never get above 17K vs UTSA. If you are, then I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. I didn't do an official count, but I'm guessing that WKU brought about 20 fans to a very important game.

Plus do an unofficial survey of students. Would they be more interested in attending a game vs UTSA or WK-who? Does anyone think that UTSA would bring any less fans than WKU?

Here's a little historical perspective. From the 2005 official football guide.

Highest attended games at Fouts.

1. Baylor (2003) 29,437

2. Baylor (2000) 28,315

3. TCU (2001) 22, 837

4. SMU (1990) 22,750 (1-AA years)

5. McNeese (1994) 20,733 (1-AA years)

6. Montana (1994) 20,730 (1-AA years)

7. SFA (1989) 20,252 (1-AA years)

8. NMSU (2002) 20,064

9. ULL (2003) 19,271

10.UNLV (1999) 19,011

Yearly average attendance (selected years)

During our "Bowl run"years

2001, 14,769

2002, 15,260

2003, 18,694 (boosted in large part by the Baylor game attendance)

2004, 15,184

Averages during our 1-AA days when we were nationally ranked on a fairly regular basis.

1986, 12,730,4 home games (record 6-4)

1987, 13,764,4 home games (record 7-5)

1988, 15,319,5 home games (record 8-4)

1989, 14,289,5 home games (record 5-6)

1990, 14,783,6 home games (record 6-5)

What I'm seeing by looking at these numbers is that there was not a whole lot of difference in our attendance from our 1-AA days and our bowl run days. THIS STATEMENT DOES NOT MEAN I'M ADVOCATING A RETURN TO 1-AA.

Opponents with better name recognition helps somewhat, but not all that much. So, I'm not the least bit inclined to sneer at the prospect of being in a conference with Texas St. and/or UTSA. They will bring in a hell of a lot more of their fans than FAU, FIU, WKU and Troy. ArkSt. and ULL do alright, but I would be willing to bet that UTSA and

Tx St. fans would travel to Denton in much higher numbers on a regular basis than either of them.

What I have advocated all along is that North Texas look at it's CULTURE as much, if not more, than it's conference affiliation.

gruu · November 20, 2011

Silver Eagle speaks wisdom.

VideoEagle · November 20, 2011

Oh no, not the dred "passed us by" argument. And we're being passed by "buy a pizza and get 4 free tickets to the UTSA game.

See Silver Eagles post above.

We lost to a team that is a little, not a lot, ahead of us. The football world is not ending.

NT03 · November 20, 2011

We lost to a team that is a little, not a lot, ahead of us. The football world is not ending.

So you're saying that the little FCS program that moved up only a few years ago has already passed us ?

PlummMeanGreen · November 20, 2011

If after UTSA's 4'th losing season in a row they are bringing in these kinds of turnstile numbers, then the freakin' Big 12 should be knocking on their doors, but I don't think that will be the case.

There are several CUSA schools not getting UTSA's kind of attendance numbers at this time in their history.

MeanGreenDan · November 20, 2011

I'm not sure if you are saying that we would never get above 17K vs UTSA. If you are, then I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. I didn't do an official count, but I'm guessing that WKU brought about 20 fans to a very important game.

Plus do an unofficial survey of students. Would they be more interested in attending a game vs UTSA or WK-who? Does anyone think that UTSA would bring any less fans than WKU?

Here's a little historical perspective. From the 2005 official football guide.

Highest attended games at Fouts.

1. Baylor (2003) 29,437
2. Baylor (2000) 28,315
3. TCU (2001) 22, 837
4. SMU (1990) 22,750 (1-AA years)
5. McNeese (1994) 20,733 (1-AA years)
6. Montana (1994) 20,730 (1-AA years)
7. SFA (1989) 20,252 (1-AA years)
8. NMSU (2002) 20,064
9. ULL (2003) 19,271
10.UNLV (1999) 19,011

Yearly average attendance (selected years)

During our "Bowl run"years

2001, 14,769
2002, 15,260
2003, 18,694 (boosted in large part by the Baylor game attendance)
2004, 15,184

Averages during our 1-AA days when we were nationally ranked on a fairly regular basis.

1986, 12,730,4 home games (record 6-4)
1987, 13,764,4 home games (record 7-5)
1988, 15,319,5 home games (record 8-4)
1989, 14,289,5 home games (record 5-6)
1990, 14,783,6 home games (record 6-5)

What I'm seeing by looking at these numbers is that there was not a whole lot of difference in our attendance from our 1-AA days and our bowl run days. THIS STATEMENT DOES NOT MEAN I'M ADVOCATING A RETURN TO 1-AA.

Opponents with better name recognition helps somewhat, but not all that much. So, I'm not the least bit inclined to sneer at the prospect of being in a conference with Texas St. and/or UTSA. They will bring in a hell of a lot more of their fans than FAU, FIU, WKU and Troy. ArkSt. and ULL do alright, but I would be willing to bet that UTSA and
Tx St. fans would travel to Denton in much higher numbers on a regular basis than either of them.

What I have advocated all along is that North Texas look at it's CULTURE as much, if not more, than it's conference affiliation.

Long reply...I was actually saying the same as you. Attendance would be in the 20k's for every game, no matter what the circumstances are. So yea, same as you said, except much (much) more concise.

MeanGreenWithEnvy · November 21, 2011

UTSA will do well attendance-wise because they're the only game in town in San Antonio. The closest college football team to San Antonio is Texas State up the road in San Marcos. UTSA has that whole city...the eighth largest in the U.S...all to themselves.

It seems like there's a certain segment of folks on here who are dead set on comparing apples and oranges when it comes to what they think our attendance ought to be versus the empirical reality of our situation. Yes, we're the fourth largest public university in Texas by enrollment. I'd venture that we also have the largest percentage of commuter students of any public university in Texas (Houston might give us a run for our money here). So, we may be the fourth largest public university, but we don't have he fourth largest public university enrollment living in Denton.

We're essentially a suburban commuter university (35,754 Fall 2011). If you're going to compare our athletic attendance to other universities, compare it to universities that are like us: Texas State (34,114 Fall 2011), UT Arlington (33,449 Fall 2011), and Houston (39,820 Fall 2011). In my opinion, Texas State is the most comparable; like UNT, it's essentially a suburban commuter university even though San Marcos is no more a suburb of Austin than Denton is of Dallas. It's very close to us in enrollment and, though not as much of a commuter school as UNT, it still has a strong commuter contingent.

Our attendance is better than Texas State's. They're FCS and their stadium isn't new and shiny and awesome like ours, but our attendance is better.

In my estimation, the big problem is that there's no model for doing what we're trying to do here. I proposed an equation earlier in another thread, but that's simply something that I cobbled together out of observation. We didn't just build a new stadium to add more seats to accommodate more fans. We rarely ever filled our old stadium, a place where we had capacity to burn more times than not. We built a newer, bigger stadium to try to lure more fans with the new stadium factor in the short run and give us room to grow attendance under the expectation that as we become more successful in the long run that more fans would show up.

I think that's the solid, conservative model we've created that we're working from, and I think it's a good one. If I had access to game-by-game attendance demographic numbers, I could build you as good a model of attendance as you will find anywhere. What kind of student shows up to games? I'd wager more freshmen and sophomores than juniors and seniors. Why? The freshmen never knew anything of Dodge Ball and the sophomores were only subject to half a season of it. Who comes to one or two games versus who comes to every game and why every game versus why only one or two? Focus group a random sample of each group and find out. Use those findings to inform policy.

We can figure this out, but right now we're sailing in uncharted waters. The one thing I'd implore folks around here to think about, though, is stop and consider who you're comparing our attendance to before you do it. Yes, UTSA draws more people. That's because our situation isn't comparable to theirs. Apples and oranges.

Edited November 21, 2011 by MeanGreenWithEnvy

rcade · November 21, 2011

I'm impressed with what UTSA has done so far. I hope UNT is scheduling a home and home against them and considering one with Texas State as well.

Green Mean · November 21, 2011

So you're saying that the little FCS program that moved up only a few years ago has already passed us ?

They're a little better than we are right now yes. Passed us by...well in what terms? I mean the board is bitching about losing this game to WKU and yes we had some good chances but at least give them a little credit. They've won 6 of their last 7 games...I don't care what conference you're in but that is pretty darn good especially after going 2-14 their previous 16 games.

In the end I guess you can say that WKU is a better team than we are. But I still say in the beginning of the year you were going to tell me that we were going to win 4 or 5 games then I would have taken it in a heartbeat considering where this thing has been the past 7 years.

shaft · November 21, 2011

Really, were talking about an fcs team that just beat something called minot state to get to 4-6?

UNT will finish in the middle of the Belt, losing to the top half of the conference, but beating the bottom half.

There are no bad losses on the schedule, every team we've lost to is bowl eligible.

MeanMag · November 21, 2011

Really, were talking about an fcs team that just beat something called minot state to get to 4-6?

UNT will finish in the middle of the Belt, losing to the top half of the conference, but beating the bottom half.
There are no bad losses on the schedule, every team we've lost to is bowl eligible.

For fans like you and me, we understand that it isn't terrible. For a casual observer, getting beat by a Western Kentucky Hill Topper is comedy.

untgirl04 · November 21, 2011

D

For fans like you and me, we understand that it isn't terrible. For a casual observer, getting beat by a Western Kentucky Hill Topper is comedy.

Speaking of which... I haven't seen this posted yet, but props to the band last night for the sign and "what's a hill topper" chant. That was awesome.

SilverEagle · November 21, 2011

So you're saying that the little FCS program that moved up only a few years ago has already passed us ?

Well, I'm not saying that UTSA is passing us by. But I haven't forgotten that Boise St. was a junior college until 1964 and didn't achieve University status until 1974. They did not join D-1 football(in the Big West Conf) until 1996.

I also haven't forgotten that South Florida was created in 1956, and that their first football game was against Kentucky Wesleyan.......in 1997.

Let's see, where are they both now.