Mr. Yurachek, could you discuss the Universities prospective upgrade to a Power conference outside the Big 12? We are all ready to move past the Big 12 discussions.
Chad, our mindset has always been to put the University of Houston in the most competitive position for national success and that will not change. We are currently in a very strong Power 6 conference in The American Athletic Conference and as our league has shown across all sports, we are a conference to be reckoned with.
As a whole, we have to focus on being at the top of The American, on and off the field, including fan support in the stands. Currently we are sixth in The American in football average attendance, fifth in men’s basketball average attendance, seventh in total donors and fifth in annual donations. We are constantly pushing to increase all of those numbers to make the University of Houston an attractive conference member.
These are the areas we, as alumni, should be working to improve. When meeting someone for the first time, I always find a way to ask where they went to school. If the answer is UH, I encourage them to be an active supporter, even if athletics isn’t their thing, I encourage them to find an academic area to support or the general scholarship fund. There are lots of ways as we know.
So let’s keep talking and encouraging others to follow our example!
11 AM games are terrible. Do we get more $$ for playing at 11; can the number of 11 games be limited; Games at 11 in September and October are always insanely hot in Houston. Not good for the fans,players, ticket sales or concessions.
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11am just so hot Sept/Oct and not enough tailgate time.
UH has zero choice in the matter due to TV contracts.
Hopefully we kick ass next year and get that top AAC timeslot that USF has this year.
Tailgating is no argument against early starts. Not that many people do it so the schedule makers are totally unsympathetic to that excuse.
The heat issue for players first and fans too is a a good argument and all the Southern schools in all conferences should be making it very loudly in all media outlets. If they don’t, eventually there will be an avoidable heat related tragedy.
As for concessions, I think the heat helps. I drink at least 2 $5.50 bottles of water during hot games and maybe a coke. I drink nothing in cool weather unless I eat something, which I usually don’t.
I don’t think that many people stay away because of 11 am starts. I think they stay away when there’s no excitement around the program or the team is playing poorly.
Hot games aren’t going away so buy a wide-brim hat!
The early start does kill tailgating and when we have a later start time UH has a great tailgating atmosphere. Additionally, those tailgaters are the ones that come to every game and are the die hard fans. The tailgaters are very important to UH.
I agree. I was trying to say that the schedulers don’t see tailgating as something they should consider when deciding kickoff times. If we have a sellout crowd, how many tailgate in your estimation? Just curious.
I mean, schedule makers are unsympathetic to the tailgating argument regardless, but to say “not that many do it” is just factually inaccurate. Tailgate crowds for Texas State and Memphis in 2015 were HUGE, I would guess 15k-20k. I have to go back that far because of how few Saturday evening games we’ve had.
Gee why didn’t we think of that. By the way, how do you schedule games against ranked teams when they refuse to play you? Georgia Tech is seeking a game on Dec 2 and we are one of the 3 fbs teams available and the only one they refuse to consider.
There is definitely a push to make P6 a thing. I don’t mind it but it becomes silly is some circumstances. Like talking about scheduling P6 teams for OOC play. We obviously don’t plan to schedule AAC teams OOC so it’s almost awkward to not use P5 when specifically referring to those 5 conferences and not us.
How early does a fan have to arrive to be considered a tailgater? How big would those crowds have been if Levine had still been the coach? I think excitement around the team greatly added to the Texas St. crowd and our success to Memphis.
I have nothing against tailgating but we have to remember that we go for the game. Pregame hoopla is a bonus. Just my opinion.
I’m not sure if you’re just being contrary just to do it or really think your subjective view is fact…
I also didn’t mention a sell out as a full on definition to what it means to show up. We need a good number of butts in seats close to kick off. What major station wants to televise an empty stadium? Some of these are reaches due to it being cooler at the time, but a handful of these places are hot as well. I also understand that some of these stadiums are smaller, but the focus is on near capacity relative to size.
Some 11 AM games in 2017:
There are a handful of others, I just got lazy and did a few. lol
All in all, start time and who we play should not be adequate enough excuses as to why we can’t do better as a fan base. I think my 1st and 2nd points are what’s hindering us the most( as a whole).
Advocare scheduled a 13th ranked team and a 10th ranked team in February 2016 to play in Reliant in 2020. Right now those two teams are a combined 6-14.
Most of the offers we would get from a top 25 school would be to play them on the road with no return engagement. It’s not fair to the coaches and it’s not fair to UH to agree to those because even if both teams were evenly matched, the home team comes out ahead 75% of the time and when people talk about how well a coach does against ranked teams, they rarely care if a majority of the games were on the road.
So many things to consider:
Similar open dates
Will they play home and road
How many road games are already scheduled
Which schools recruit Houston because if they don’t need the recruiting exposure why wouldn’t they just schedule a struggling G5 that is less likely to beat them instead
I have and I’m not saying it isn’t fun and all but it’s not why we go to the games is it? The comparison has been made before that noon kickoffs haven’t hurt the Texans attendance but crappy play has.
Odds are already stacked against us being in a G5, so I understand. However, I think we may have to agree to those terms and create our “own lane”, so to speak. That means doing something that no other program in the nation has done, in the history of college football. Even though it’s highly improbable, that could possibly mean having the most dominating road win streak against P5 opponents. The good thing about accomplishing something great like that, is the greatness of the University of Houston will be self evident. The buzz will continue to grow. Recruits will come, and the Cage will fill up.
This is a huge obstacle to overcome, and it’s only going to get worse as the we establish ourselves as a national brand (keep beating P5 teams when we can schedule them). I think the biggest thing we can do is win our conference (every year) and the rest will take care of itself. We need to become the Alabama of the AAC in the aspect of annual dominance over our league. Relative to our talent level, winning the conference every year would help a ton in national relevance. Boise has had the model for quite some time now.
