If we win at ODU and win at UAB, we will have 25k at home for Buffalo.
20K crowds are not our end goal, but if we could average 20K for this year, that would be huge. If you only measure your success at every step of a process on if you are at the end goal, you are setting yourself up for a lot of failure. There were some positive changes made on Saturday. We need to improve on those and fix the things that didn’t work well.
Until the university understands that the future health of this program is on campus right now, we won’t grow the fan base. The adversarial relationship Martin Hall has had with students and Greek organizations for the past 30 plus years is resulting in what you see now.
It will take decades to grow the fan base. Decades! That will only happen if the morons in Martin Hall start cultivating that base now.
We don’t have bandwagon fans like a P5. We are completely different in that regards.
I don’t disagree with that being the goal. I just don’t see it as the reality of where we are today. 2021 was our most successful season (on field) in program history, and we still averaged below that 22K mark. That season was actually an improvement of where we were pre-Covid. To get where we want to be, it’s gonna take both aspects (gameday operations and on field success) being up to snuff at the same time. For most of the Napier era, we seemed to be operating under the assumption that winning would solve all of our problems. It helped, but we underestimated how bad our gameday experience had become. In a similar vein, I am hoping we aren’t betting the house on the stadium renovation curing all our ills like we did with on field success.
It has to be a combination, winning without a gameday experience will lift it up more than a great game day experience for an 0-12 team. But when the gameday experience and the winning occur at the same time and couple that with someone in the administration or coaching staff as a promoter that is when everything comes together.
We had nice crowds with Hud (Cheerleader extraordinaire) and 9-win seasons. Think about this, what would those seasons look like had we gone 13-1, had a new stadium with all the extracurricular activities and amenities. I think the other piece is getting the surrounding area of Cajun Field to be a gathering place. With the exception of Legend's (which is not family friendly), there is not a good hang out place pregame within walking distance of Cajun Field. I get that we want everyone to be in the tailgate area, but that is not realistic, unless you make the tailgate area filled with businesses. I think the area that is Rouses should have tons of restaurants and bars that people can go and have drinks and lunch/dinner before they head over to the tailgate area.
The other thing about the early Hud years was that it was a lot of firsts. First modern bowl game, competing for a first conference championship, the long winning streak in year 1…it was a first of its kind attraction. That drew a lot of people in.
Now that we’ve done all those thing, and done them relatively consistently, the only remaining “first” is competing for a CFP spot…
Y'all do realize we have ODU this weekend and we're not playing the Demons again for a little while
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