Someone Has Finally Listened - Southern Univeristy Coming to Ruston in 2015

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Originally Posted by SicemDawgz

While I agree with your general point, I was at that Baylor/ULM game (as bad as I hate to say it) with my wife who has 3 degrees from there. I can promise you someone packed that stadium because it was nearly full at the start of the second quarter.

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Baylor is an anomaly. They bring out the church crowd. MS. State wont fill our stadium, and the chances we have had with some of the big boys won't come to the Joe but instead will opt for the Indy bowl. This game is really a must. We have never sold out our stadium in its history. At roughly 27.5K its far more likely now, and thats why I think adding stands in the endzone for this game would be huge. If you could put 1500 folks around the north endzone and we win the game pretty handily, it would set the tone attendance wise for the rest of the season.

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Originally Posted by Tech77

This will be a game for Tech fans to celebrate the new SEZ and for fans of both teams to celebrate the beginning of a new football season. Tech fans should turn out in huge numbers to celebrate this facilities upgrade milestone, and it is generally believed Southern will bring lots of fans who will add to the environment for the game. It should all be good -- as long as we win. :D

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If this is the first home game, then there should be a call to arms for every red blooded Tech fan to be at this game in full blue. I can count on one hand the times we were given an oppurtunity like this. NSU was one last year and we blew it.

I just hope we prepare for a crowd because the NWST crowd, concessions, parking, traffic, coordination, etc. etc. was a cluster. I have countless examples of how awful things were through the entire first quarter on the student side of the stadium. I love the opponent, but I just hope we actually prepare for this game. We don't need another version of the NWST game off the field or on the field.

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Originally Posted by rockdog

I just hope we prepare for a crowd because the NWST crowd, concessions, parking, traffic, coordination, etc. etc. was a cluster. I have countless examples of how awful things were through the entire first quarter on the student side of the stadium. I love the opponent, but I just hope we actually prepare for this game. We don't need another version of the NWST game off the field or on the field.

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Part of being successful is learning how to handle that success. Its worth the extra money to add extra parking, extra concessions ect.. when we stand to gain a tremendous amount of extra cash and recruitment of new fans to the stadium.

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Originally Posted by rockdog

I just hope we prepare for a crowd because the NWST crowd, concessions, parking, traffic, coordination, etc. etc. was a cluster. I have countless examples of how awful things were through the entire first quarter on the student side of the stadium. I love the opponent, but I just hope we actually prepare for this game. We don't need another version of the NWST game off the field or on the field.

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THIS!!! Regardless of who we play for the opener it is imperative that we have our shit together. Losing that game did not turn fans off nearly as much as the giant cluster-**** going on off the field did IMO. Hell, I came real close to a fight with some HS kid's mother because her disrespectful little spawn refused to get out of my seats. All because we don't have the forethought to put up a sign in OO that says its reserved seating. I'm guessing there will be a lot of casual fans in attendance based on this year's success and the SEZ (and even more who have no clue where to go if we play SU), and if we put on the same bush-league Mickey Mouse show we had this year it'll be the last time we see most of them for a while.

Just in case anyone in charge is reading this:

Parking needs to be CLEARLY marked with signs as soon as you exit the Interstate.
Concessions need to be overstocked and staffed with competent adults.
Make sure all the ticket scanners work ahead of time and have a back up plan in case something goes wrong.
Announcer, Video Board Operator, and BOP all need to be on the same page.
Put up a sign and have people checking ticket in OO
In the event that we lose call of the fire works.

Sorry for the thread drift, but it's never too soon to start thinking about this stuff. I'm tired of this make it up as we go along crap.

For parking, the school should acquire several shuttle busses and promote on-campus parking. The busses can then be used for students during the week for transportation to local businesses.

Even just renting them for game days could enhance the gameday experience.

http://blogs.chapman.edu/press-room/...2-1024x682.jpg

Its my sincerest hope that one day we can put in actual seats instead of bleachers. That would help with seating by a good bit, it would also help us in spreading the student section out. They cram in there like sardines and it make the rest of the sections look empty.

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Originally Posted by Dwayne From Minden

My guess - $125k to $150k

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Not even close. SU would never play anyone for that low of a amount. SU turned down $225 with all expenses paid, Swac/Meac challenge game in Orlando which would have been on Espn 2.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/...charted-waters

HBCU guarantee money could dry up

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The Savannah State Tigers, who went 1-11 in Wilson's first season in 2013, were able to secure road games at Middle Tennessee State, FBS transitional foe Georgia Southern and BYU this coming season. They'll make $275,000 for playing the Blue Raiders, $175,000 for playing the Eagles and $405,000 for playing the Cougars. What Savannah State will be paid from guarantees for road games in 2014 ($855,000) will be one of its largest revenue streams and will help fund an athletics program that fields six men's and seven women's teams.

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Originally Posted by vlw

Not even close. SU would never play anyone for that low of a amount. SU turned down $225 with all expenses paid, Swac/Meac challenge game in Orlando which would have been on Espn 2.

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We will see when the contracts are released -

We paid NWST $125k, doubt we paid y'all much more than that

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Originally Posted by Dwayne From Minden

We will see when the contracts are released -

We paid NWST $125k, doubt we paid y'all much more than that

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SU has double the fans NSU has lol. I know the amount we are getting paid, our AD said it on Jaguar Journal. SU commands that amount. You get a guaranteed sell out plus the #2 rated band in the country behind Ohio State.

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Originally Posted by vlw

SU has double the fans NSU has lol. I know the amount we are getting paid, our AD said it on Jaguar Journal. SU commands that amount. You get a guaranteed sell out plus the #2 rated band in the country behind Ohio State.

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Well, what do you say? Dewayne is our resident bean counter and expert on finances and accurate attendance. I'll buy his number until you throw one out.

And welcome to our board. Have many friends and childhood teachers who are SU alum.

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Originally Posted by techman05

Need to contact Ruston shop owners now and get their pulse on working a few extra hours. Closing at 5 on Friday and noon on Saturday will not generate any extra revenue. Have been saying for a long time that shops in a college town need to adapt away from 8-5 and 9-12 schedules. How do you think they will react to that?

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I so agree with this. DD was here for one of the 11:00 games so no time to shop before game, and she wanted to stop at a couple of her favorite shops after the game, and nothing was open at 2:30. Missed out on $$ that day for sure. Had it been a 6:00 game we would have had a lot more time to do damage. She's not big on tailgating all day, so she could have shopped up until late afternoon, way past noon or 2:00. I guess, though, the shop owners all have to tailgate and can't be in two places at once. . . . .

[QUOTE=inudesu;1494332]When we're getting left out of access bowls, that'll be the time to start worrying about our scheduling. I think we're ok for the moment. [QUOTE]

Seriously!?!? :shocked2: ... I can't believe I just read that. This is like saying "We will put sprinklers in the building after it has already burned down."

Do you not understand that during two of the past three years, we had teams that were in the conversation for the access/BCS bowls? We are not as far off as you think. We were only nine points from having a strong shot of being there in 2014. While I don't think it is likely, I do know there is a chance we could be the one to get the access bowl bid this year if things break our way. Having a SWAC team on the schedule will kill our strength of schedule. What hurt Marshall this year? Their out of conference schedule. Had they played and beat anyone with a pulse in OOC, the could have overcome the WKU loss.

I can see the arguments for a good gate with Southern and Grambling, but this is lazy scheduling and the gate argument does not outweigh everything else. With the opening of the long-awaited facility, you would think the University would have signed a big name for the grand opening. Playing Southern has no TV appeal. CUSA would have loved to see one of its top programs open the season with a decent opponent at home while showcasing a state-of-the-art facility on national TV. Instead, we have a game that no one outside of Louisiana will care about or see. Small-time thinking produces small-time results.

While there are some things that I like about our AD, I often wonder if he believes Tech should distance itself from the NSUs, ulms, ulls and McNeeses of Louisiana. It seems we are in a Southland-mode of thinking when it comes to scheduling.

I remember how we were all longing for the days that we would be in a good regional conference so we wouldn't need to play ull, NSU or Southern. Isn't it ironic that we are now in a regional conference and we are loading up our non-conference schedules with ull, NSU and Southern?

PS: For the record, I strongly believe that no FBS team should play FCS teams.

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Originally Posted by vlw

SU has double the fans NSU has lol. I know the amount we are getting paid, our AD said it on Jaguar Journal. SU commands that amount. You get a guaranteed sell out plus the #2 rated band in the country behind Ohio State.

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Link please...

No argument from me about what y'all bring to the table - I've been hollering for this game for about 10 years now

Even if the guarantee is $180k to $200k, I still think it is a good business on our end