I attended all but one game during the Helton/Dimel years. If we had those kinds of teams, we’d be very lucky to have 15K show-up. I still remember hearing about Helton getting fired on our way back from New York City. It was his only other winning season.
I remember all the excitement when word got out that Bob Pruett from Marshall would replace Helton, but he later turned the job down. We panicked and hired Dana Dimel. Wyoming fans were laughing at us, his three years here were awful.
We started getting more fans to games after Briles was hired through the Herman years. Applewhite is when things started going downhill again and Holgorsen just turned that downhill slide into an avalanche.
I think Fritz has the snow plow to get us back on track. He’s like Sampson, finished with a winning record everywhere he’s been.Tulane was a bit bumpy until his final two seasons, but other schools wern’t.
I think in the playoff era non conference games don’t matter a whole lot , we need to give people what they want and schedule LSU ,Texas, Aggies ,Oklahoma ,ND and any big time draw that there is to play at TDECU , hopefully we can pull out wins and steal the hearts of our home town then go win the conference title . That’s how you get people on board there is no other way ! Give the people what they want then just win baby!!!
Also lower the price of beer let people have a good time
Dude … first of all … thanks for your service to our country. Next Tuesday 11/11 is Veteran’s Day and we should all honor those who have and are serving our country around the world.
I believe this attendance situation takes a well thought out plan and is a team responsibility including the players, coaches, AD office, administration, and even the cheerleaders and band. They all need to be actively promoting the product within the school and in the community. And win consistently and work hard to improve the game day experience.
We will never have UT or Michigan or Nebraska type fan loyalty and that’s why a proactive and consistent marketing approach utilizing all our assets is important to filling our stadium on a more consistent basis.
No one can impose their own entertainment priorities onto others. There’s no magic potion or anyone’s fault for low attendance numbers in this town in all levels of sport. We have a high bar but it’s not like we never reach it.
Fan support happens organically by grass roots efforts, not anything done or said by the AD, coach or president. No sense fretting about it.
One of the reasons I think Willie Fritz is ideal for UH is his experience and success at lower levels where roster turnover was higher. That matters a lot with the new transfer portal rules and NIL. Fritz doesn’t seemed bothered by that at all. Same thing with Cignetti at Indiana. They are able to deal with big changes to the roster from one year to another (which will likely be the norm for every team from here on out).
Coaches from the old system, like CDH or the very successful Dabo Swinney, just can’t handle it.
There is a reason Saban isn’t on the Alabama sideline.
Nick Saban retired due to a combination of factors, including the job “getting more and more difficult” due to the modern landscape of college football, specifically the transfer portal and Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) dealings. He also mentioned his age and a desire not to “ride the program down.”
I don’t agree that strong fan support just “happens” when you’re trying to overcome historically poor support. Wait around for several years of winning and hope support turns around and stays strong, and you’ll get exactly what we have now.
If we expect things to change, then action needs to be taken to push it. If the AD can do things that push fans away (and it’s well-established that has happened in the past), then they should certainly be expected to do things to bring them into the fold. That’s just as much a part of their job as is bringing in donations - they’re two sides of the same coin.
Our last 2 head football coach hires have NY6 wins on their resume. CWF’s national reputation is excellent. If we can’t have a winning record most years with Willie, something is wrong with our program and that is harder to fix than 1 coach.
Have a long time friend who taught/worked a long time Army ROTC at Ole Miss up until a few years ago.
I have always felt the AD had certain responsibilities and a HC had others.
HC: Win on the field and manage the players and football staff. A winning HC will bring more fans than one that is just good in front of a mic. Both obviously is a plus but winning more important.
AD: Bring in donor money (and now NIL money); Keep coaches happy and hire ones that fit the school, build and keep fan support (HC engagements/events are just a tool of the AD). The priority order may fluctuate depending on needs that year.
Mostly agree, but when it comes to NIL, the AD is in charge of the entire athletic department (multiple sports). Football is such a big piece, that for NIL I think football needs its own GM.
I can see that, and do not disagree. How about if there is not GM, then AD is NIL too. A big difference is budget. The benefit of the big names schools is they have much larger staff than most of the other schools in the P4 (or at least ACC and Big 12).
When Dykes first started at TCU, he took a visit to Georgia to see how they ran things. One of the first comments I read about was the support staff size differential and how TCU needed to change. I think that applies to all Big 12 schools likely, simply because of the lower revenue.
Me too, I was a Domer. It was cool that we had access to a video board before other schools had them in their stadiums, loved the B52 bomber footage when we scored, and we were the only school in Texas that had beer at football games. Good times.
I posted this in another thread but it fits on how this topic is going. I am starting to think the common denominator is Khator on who really running the show at UH. We have gone through multiple ADs yet services get worse and prices go up. Now we find out the $50 parking falls under the campus transportation department which ultimatley falls under her. She doesnt have to worry becasue she gets shuttled around in a fancy golf cart. I am starting to get the feeling the demad for sucking as much revenue out of the current fans instead of lowering prices and increasing fans is something she is ok with. I have never liked that our AD is called a Vice President. Khator has been great for the emergence of UH, but she does not have a sports background. It might be time that she needs to relinquish more control to those more qualified in sports marketing, sports pricing, and most of all the AD and get rid of the dumb vice president of athletics title
Yep and the more our AD is focused on attendance, traffic, and hot dogs the less he is focused on getting NIL bags that we need. That fixes a lot of problems in todays NCAA.
Our probems then were ON THE FIELD! Absolutely horrible teams under Kim H that won 4 games in 3 years in 93, 94 and 95 and wrecked most all the good stuff that had happened for a long time before…Thats why we were banished. Any attendance problems correctly attributed to how god awful bad we were…Kim damn near killed the FB program. and then Dimel’s 3 years…My GOD! Briles had to come in, and literally save us from dropping football, which he did. We have been successful, had a lot of good teams, won a lot of big games, but we are still battling attendence issues and money issues. But we are finally in P4 now, and give it a few more years, and we’ll be a lot better than we are now. and it isnt like we are bad now. We are pretty good, and will get better in all aspects, as i expect our administration to address our problems and have some success doing that.
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