Purple Haize wrote:The Administrations biggest worry should be the lack of attendance
This was one of my biggest takeaways.
The question for me is this:
Did alumni who only come back once a year choose another game to come to other than homecoming?
Homecoming was the worst opponent of the four teams we’ve played all year at home. It could be that the 5000 or so alumni that otherwise would’ve been there chose those other games. That’s the positive view of it.
The negative view is that alumni aren’t excited about the program and feel like not even homecoming is worth coming back to.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
In terms of students, we knew fewer student came to the earlier games so their drop was to be expected to a point. From reading some things on Facebook, it looks like a lot of the students aren’t excited by the program. Add that to one of Damien’s tweets today (Overheard in the press box: "I would gladly write a paper and have to study rather than attend a football game as a fan.") and you get the impression the students are beginning to check out too.
I know you don’t make decisions based on fans showing up or not, but our fan base should be really excited where we’re at. The fact that it looks like more are indifferent than excited is not a good sign.