TCU and Houston looks to be leaving for Big East

[Wyokie]

To get this thread BACK on track.... :roll:
In my mind, here are the three possible scenarios for the Big East....

1. Add TCU and Houston (totally destroys the MWC and makes everyone in the WAC happy knowing we'll have to merge with them - get ready for trips to Honolulu, Las Cruces, etc... :roll: )

2. add Villanova and Central Florida. Allows a current basketball school to have a football team in it i.e. 'Nova. Problem is the stadium and $$$. UCF would be a natural rival to USF.

3. add Memphis and Central Florida. Adding Memphis would make the basketball schools happy.

 

[fromolwyoming]

I think that should Villanova accept (already a member in all other sports anyways, so makes the transition that much easier), they would more than likely look to a team closer to home than TCU. Memphis or UCF would be my guess. UCF, like TCU, is in a recruiting hotbed in the middle of Florida, huge student body (I think it's around 50,000), and far away enough from the other major Florida schools that they control their own market. TCU would be even more of an outlier than now, but the Big East is looking more towards football only members, of which I have heard UCF is willing to do. TCU would then be forced to find ANOTHER conference for their other sports.

 

[ELKMT]

And Bingo there's the problem. You can't blame our attendance purely on our performance on the field. 1988. Back to back undefeated conference champions and we still only averaged a little under 75% capacity. Pathetic.

Only takes one bad weather game to bring down that average that far. I was only four during that season but I would expect something like that was the cause. Also was the war 33,000 seat back than or did that go up a bit in later years?

Sorry to get the thread off track with my questions.

 

[Wyokie]

And Bingo there's the problem. You can't blame our attendance purely on our performance on the field. 1988. Back to back undefeated conference champions and we still only averaged a little under 75% capacity. Pathetic.

Only takes one bad weather game to bring down that average that far. I was only four during that season but I would expect something like that was the cause. Also was the war 33,000 seat back than or did that go up a bit in later years?

Sorry to get the thread off track with my questions.

To answer your questions, at the time the War had 33,500 seats, the most ever for the stadium. It went down with the removal of the North (?) endzone stands in the mid-2000s. Someone correct me if I'm wrong!

Wonder when the Big East will hand out the football-only invites.

 

[ELKMT]

espn is saying that UCF and Houston have not recieved bids as of yet.

 

[Wyokie]

espn is saying that UCF and Houston have not recieved bids as of yet.

Big East is taking Houston over TCU?! :shock:

 

[ELKMT]

said they have NOT recieved a bid as of yet.

 

[ELKMT]

I think the only way houston goes is if TCU says no we're staying in the mountain west. Do you think they would want houston as an instant rivalary for TCU or will they take UCF to get into florida?

 

[calpoke25]

Only takes one bad weather game to bring down that average that far. I was only four during that season but I would expect something like that was the cause. Also was the war 33,000 seat back than or did that go up a bit in later years?

Sorry to get the thread off track with my questions.

It's not bad weather. WYO fans don't show up generally outside of several games a year, mostly against top-ranked OOC. Its the sad truth. I too was only 3 for the 88 season so I can't speak from memory, but I do remember the 1996 team playing in sunny skies in front of only 15K. Also many other good late 90's teams (by today's standards) playing in front of half empty stadiums.

None of the excuses in the world (1 bad weather game, hunting, other stuff, etc. etc.) can deflect the truth. Our attendance sucks.

Sorry this thread is really two threads in one.

 

[ELKMT]

None of the excuses in the world (1 bad weather game, hunting, other stuff, etc. etc.) can deflect the truth. Our attendance sucks.

I agree with you for the most part, but that 88 year had to have one bad weather game right? My point being that when a Wyo team is favored to win a championship fans come out. Fans came out for record amount that year for our record amount and it has to correlate with us being competive for a conference championship. I 100% agree with you that Wyo needs to get some more hardcore fans that support the team even when we are semi competive, and there is no execuse for 15,000 fans for a 96 team that was nearly a WAC champion.

 

[Fullback41]

Highest average attendance in a normal 6 game home slate....
23,753 in 1988

And Bingo there's the problem. You can't blame our attendance purely on our performance on the field. 1988. Back to back undefeated conference champions and we still only averaged a little under 75% capacity. Pathetic.

Again i am back to numbers and population density. The fans at Clemson dont have to travel 3 hrs one way to get there(some might but they fill it with locals). If I want to see a game it is a whole day affair so if any conflicts arise i can't go and i am a pretty dedicated fan, i would be at every game if i lived closer. I will say football is a bigger part of the culture in SC than it is in wyoming, so in that regard i agree with you and i would love to see Wy at that level. I travel to SC twice a year and it seems like EVERYONE follows football, you are either a clemson or sc fan and you know thier record and the qbs name. I would say laramie is that way, but not the whole state.

 

[kansasCowboy]

None of the excuses in the world (1 bad weather game, hunting, other stuff, etc. etc.) can deflect the truth. Our attendance sucks.

I agree with you for the most part, but that 88 year had to have one bad weather game right? My point being that when a Wyo team is favored to win a championship fans come out. Fans came out for record amount that year for our record amount and it has to correlate with us being competive for a conference championship. I 100% agree with you that Wyo needs to get some more hardcore fans that support the team even when we are semi competive, and there is no execuse for 15,000 fans for a 96 team that was nearly a WAC champion.

This is exactly what I was talking about in a previous thread when someone stated that we need to schedule like SDSU. Our SOS in 96 was atrocious! We had a great team, but the best team we played was in conference (BYU)(lost) Best ooc team? Anybody? Idaho 6-5 that year! This what i was saying, nobody comes when we play a bunch of nobodies, then we have loser fans who complain and say we need to up the comp! Then we do start playing good comp and we hear complaints like this year, "I'd rather be in sdsu's situation.","I'd rather have a manageable schedule." But history proves that no one show's up for the Western Michigan's or Idaho's.

 

[laxwyo]

I would say that first, we can't predict how good a team will be when we schedule them. When we scheduled Nebraska, I said yeah, they aren't very good lately, but now they look like they might be a monster next year when we play. We caught Tenn at a low and beat them. I wouldn't mind scheduling some of the mid tier teams from some of the bigger conferences, but you just never know.

I've never heard as much buzz about the football team as I was hearing when Texas was coming to town. Now with BYU and Utah leaving and BSU joining, I say schedule one big game and try to get them to come here once. I don't care if we have to go there twice.

 

[Cornpoke]

Highest average attendance in a normal 6 game home slate....
23,753 in 1988

And Bingo there's the problem. You can't blame our attendance purely on our performance on the field. 1988. Back to back undefeated conference champions and we still only averaged a little under 75% capacity. Pathetic.

Again i am back to numbers and population density. The fans at Clemson dont have to travel 3 hrs one way to get there(some might but they fill it with locals). If I want to see a game it is a whole day affair so if any conflicts arise i can't go and i am a pretty dedicated fan, i would be at every game if i lived closer. I will say football is a bigger part of the culture in SC than it is in wyoming, so in that regard i agree with you and i would love to see Wy at that level. I travel to SC twice a year and it seems like EVERYONE follows football, you are either a clemson or sc fan and you know thier record and the qbs name. I would say laramie is that way, but not the whole state.

Clemson really isn't in a part of the state where you think they could draw 80k fans. That's why Clemsons attendance fascinates me. Greenville is the only Big city nearby that they draw from and it's the same size and distance as Cheyenne comparably. Spartunburg is comparable to Casper in population and distance as well. Clemson is in the northwest corner of SC surrounding NC, TN, and GA. Any cities nearby in those states probably aren't Clemson fans. Atlanta = GT, To close to Knoxville to pull any fans from TN. Asheville? Well they are most likely UNC-A or just UNC fans. Anderson is the only other city with a population of 20+ in the surrounding area but I'm not asking UW to fill 80k. I think 40k would be very obtainable with our surrounding areas. My Clemson comparison proves that.

You hit a on a good point Fullback. Everyone in the state of SC follows football and is either a Tiger or Cocks fan. Would an instate rivalry help our attendance? How do we change the culture in the state to be exicted about cowboy football more? Or are we a better state because we don't live and die by football? I have many friends here in Laramie that just don't care about football or attending the games. Me being born in the south couldn't fathom someone not taking interest in football, at least a little bit. Working for the University in the Union and Ticket office, I get the chance to speak with many students and fans. I get the impression there are many "fans" who expect us to be consistently bad and take it for granted if we were to start winning.

 

[Kougar78]

I thought this years attendance was surprisingly good. We've been getting our butts beat and we had more than 20,000 for each game except this last one. Wasn't that long ago since we were worrying that we might lose D1 status because we couldn't draw 15,000 a game.
Does the weather hurt hurt the averages, you bet. Every other season there are road closures that keep fans from making the game. This has been a great weather year. Reminds of the seasons we had when Roach was coaching. Those were great weather years, too.

I calculate that I've been to more than a hundred home games and quite few on the road. Thurman Thomas, Marshal Faulk, Jamal Anderson, Brian Urlacher (the best college football player I have ever seen perform in person), Joe Nedney (longest field goal I've ever seen) are some of the great college players I've had the priviledge to watch. Among that group a bunch of QB's who found their way to the NFL. I don't have to squeeze into my seat, I don't have to spend 50 dollars per game for a ticket, I don't have to pay to park and with noon starts I can get home by 6 o'clock. Would I give that up to have 40,000 in the stands?...I can't say I would.

I contend that if you go undefeated for two consecutive years, then a championship is possible no matter what conference you are in. You have to have at least one major foe on your schedule when you have that magic season. I've been going for 24 years and we haven't had it, yet. I'm not going to worry about conference changes.