Good try. Here is my version:
“Houston is the 4th largest city and there is lots to do here. When UH wins, the support is there and the stadium is filled. Same as the in the NFL.”
You know who complained about fan support? Tom Herman complained about fan support.
In 2016 all it took to stop filling our stadium were a couple losses to Navy and SMU. Tom Herman was 20-3 and we were 7-2 on the season our stadium looked like this against Tulane. (Can’t find how our stadium looked against UCF the week before but I saw a reference to it being “barely half full”).
It’s been a persistent problem. I’m not making excuses for admin (there’s a lot they need to do to try to fix the problem, winning only one of them). I’m just not making excuses for the fans.
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Remember these days? The Dud is never going to get us there.
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Alternately they can go to TCU - also in one of the largest metros - and have crowds even when things are so bad the coach is about to get fired. Don’t even have to live in Lubbock.
What you say isn’t illogical, it’s just not compelling. Fan support will always wax and wane with our performance, but “wane” needs to look more like 25,000 butts in seats than 15,000.
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Good friend is in TCU Hall of Fame and comes to Coog games all the time with me and says TCU and UH are very similar as far as attendance goes…win big and you can’t get a seat…lose a few and can’t give a seat away. TCU has also had the fortune to have the following as well
Gary Patterson HC for 21 years w/ 181-79 record and 6 Conf Championships
11 year head start in P5/Big 12 vs UH
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This was one of the last home games before Patterson was fired. Whatever goodwill he’d had was lost at that point. And yet… I wish our crowds looked like this when we are unhappy.
I’d always thought that TCU was more like us than I’ve learned they are. They do have some advantages over us even in down times, but we should have some advantages over them. The above attendance isn’t great… but it’s something I would be satisfied with.
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We forgot to blame the fans who migrated to basketball from football.
I know many former UH football season ticket holders who switched to season tickets for basketball.
We see plenty of empty seats at the Rockets and Texans games now.
If you went to an Astros game prior to 2015, it was empty too.
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They’re also old people your age range who complained about the students being too loud!!!
Add the Big 12 membership. That helps a bit.
One of the reasons I’m hammering on this to a degree that I didn’t before is that I previously thought that getting into the Big 12 would help a lot. For my whole adult life that was The Reason we couldn’t attract crowds. So I figured getting into a power conference would make a difference. Now I’m seeing a lot more excuses for why attendance will continue to be terrible without our own Gary Patterson or a football Kelvin Sampson.
That’s not going to cut it.
Now that the G5/P5 issue is off the table and our facilities are great I am looking at what our biggest “negative recruiting” vulnerability and man the Tulsa game really drove that home. For professional leagues empty stadiums are a front office money problem. Here it’s a recruiting and coach retention problem. A competitiveness problem.
I don’t care whether it’s sending busses to HISD middle schools to pick kids up and bring them, free tickets to UHS students, improving game day… “just win” gets things backwards. My #1 reason is I want the fans to improve our ability to do so. If we can find another Sampson who can do it without that and will stick around, I’ll care a lot less. I just don’t consider that a plan because it’s what we’ve been trying to do for the last 25 years. Hope we succeed at it! But it’s not a plan.
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Who blamed attendance problems on “minorities “ ?
Not me, when I went to UH back in the late '60s and attended games in the '70s I loved loud crowds…the students would be in there seats and raising cane well before game time…times have changed, but I would love to see our students get rowdy…heck most of the older folks on our side are louder than the students…
Not even close to being correct.
Nobody is gonna care when we lose a game……because we are gonna win 30 something others….We have a great Head coach and staff….everyone and every thing is first class with the basketball program.
Basketball will continue to be supported after a loss….We know what greatness looks like….we know how much time and effort, sweat, blood and tears has gotten them to this point….nobody is jumping ship on the basketball program, a few losses or not.
And when basketball loses a game they come out full of piss and vinegar the next game.
So what I’m hearing is this:
UH football will get big crowds when they consistently win…but, like TCU, when the winning isn’t there, we shouldn’t expect big crowds (albeit better than they are now) because people in large metro areas (like DFW and Houston) will find better things things to do with their money than spend it going to a game to watch a .500 or slightly better home team. Does that sound about right?
This is not a sarcastic post. I have been a UH fan for almost 50 years. I have seen that even when we were good to very good in the SWC, we had trouble filling the Dome for anyone not named UT or A&M. There have been some really good reasons given in this string- I’m just trying to summarize what I’m hearing.
It would be great to always have a filled TDECU, but it seems there are legitimate reasons that won’t happen. It also appears that if CDH gets a few more years and can’t get us in a position to challenge for the Big 12 title, that we would need someone like Herman who would not only win games but get the fanbase really excited.
Just my two cents. By the way, one of the things I look forward to each day is coming on here and reading posts- we have a very smart fan base!
We have had attendance problems since the 1970’s.
It comes and goes. But it mostly comes when winning and winning big.
Until UH CONSISTENTLY puts a winning product on the field nothing much changes.
Like The SWC the novelty of The Big 12 will wear off after several years.
If Dana is not the answer then the sooner UH moves on the better.
Only UT and A$M drew large Astrodome/Rice Stadium crowds every year.
Our Fans and Alums will stay fired up if we are Nationally ranked and are in contention for a Conference Title.
A lot rides on (“albeit better than they are now”)
TCU-level attendance would be a HUGE improvement, apples to apples, good season to good, bad season to bad. But we’re really not very close to that. That, in my view, is the problem.
There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to match TCU and if we had used the types of excuses I’m seeing here the Big 12 never would have invited us (and probably shouldn’t have). What is meant as a criticism of Pezman and Holgorsen sounds more like making an argument that we belong in the AAC.
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All you have to do is look at the crowds when Kansas, Texas Tech, and UCLA (The Rob days) to know that the attendance issues would not be immediately solved by just a P5 membership. The Big XII membership will help the most because of the regional flavor and you will get a mix of UH and opponent fans showing up because it is a little more “interesting” but it’s not like it will be a sellout every game or close.
Look at the bright side: we have eliminated the excuse that no one cares about ECU, Tulsa, Tulane, Temple, etc from our AAC days. I expect a small bump from the Big XII honeymoon season for especially with TCU (CFP invitee) and UT coming to TDECU next season.
I have given up on the attendance issues. I go when I can and try to enjoy it with the family - full stadium or not / win or lose.
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Only imagine what football would do for UH if in same situation…smh