Protocol for Practice

[Dirtydawg]

Mil, I usually agree with you, but when you look at the average attendance before dooley got here and what it was last year with a 4-8 record I think you will see that much more than the die-hards are onboard. Now we just have to see if it will continue to improve!

Dooley did a great job getting us moving in the right direction, but I don't personally believe we would have ever reached our full potential on the field under him. And the only way we'll ever double LTAC giving and have sell out crowds in Ruston is to WIN consistently over time. Other than the die-hards, Ruston and the surrounding area is filled with apathetic fans that are looking to jump on someone's bandwagon.

If you're old enough, think back to the TAC during the days of Malone and the crowds they used to pack in there. Look at it today. As far as football, we've not even sniffed the same sort of success. String together several winning seasons and bowl games, possibly even a BCS game, and there's no telling what could happen in Ruston.

Even though Dooley did a remarkable job in moving us forward on attendance (to include student involvement) and LTAC, I personally don't believe we'd have ever achieved the necessary success on the field under Dooley. Just one person's opinion, though.

One of the biggest unknowns is how the casual tech fan and/or grad (i.e. one who rarely if ever attends tech games but has some interest in tech) will respond if we put together 4-5 winning seasons and bowl games. Will they get on board and make the committment to attending games, buying seasons tix, giving to LTAC, etc.???

Since moving to D1A, i don't think that we have ever won CONSISTENTLY. Even during the Rattay "golden" years, it was a winning season followed by a medicore/poor season. plus, being independent kept us out of bowl games, etc. which only accelerates momentum.

If I remember correctly, at the Tech and Tails 3 kickoff event they talked about attendance and getting the casual fan in Ruston. They threw some numbers out there that were pretty eye opening. Those of you who were there can correct me if I'm wrong, but they said that the population of Ruston, not including surrounding areas or Tech students, is like around 30k. When you start looking at those who have the money to spend casually like on a football game you take in certain factors. The two that stick out in my mind are young adults who still live at home with no jobs or go off to school but either way don't have any money to spend and the largest number is the elderly who have their every penny budgeted and don't have the extra to spend on tickets to a game. He gave percentages for all the different groups to come up with a figure of actual Ruston people that could afford to attend the games, and the number was like 5k. The reason I mention this is because I don't think even winning consistently will bring in many more "local" casual fans. This is one of the biggest reasons we need to market ALL of North Louisiana. I think winning consistently will bring in more fans, but they're going to have to come from somewhere other than Ruston.