labgOriginally Posted by cscollis
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labg
It's weird that we've never expressed any interest in playing Air Force in a H&A or at least a game in Shreveport, near the base.
We tried, but our AD was rude to them.
"Ah yes, old sport. What say you bring your little football team down to Ruston for the amusement of your betters? Hmmmm?"
Several posters have mentioned it over the years. We catered to C-USA and Army by moving the home game to Dallas. It was a very bad move. Not sure encouraging fans from our opponent's school for a "home game" in S'Port is wise or that it would be profitable.
Agree with PawDawg. The Aggie games had a lot of Aggie fans. So I suppose they were profitable. The Miami game had a lot of local interest and was probably our "best" turnout without a lot of actual opposing fans. We have had too many games in Shreveport with no turnout. We thought SMU would come, but evidently they don't travel to Ft. Worth, much less Shreveport.
Just going from memory here.
1995 Tulsa - fair attendance
1996 Baylor - good
1997 Cal - good
1999 aTm - great
2001 SMU - fair
2002 OkSt - great
2002 UTEP - poor
2003 Miami - great
2004 Tulsa - poor
2008 NIU - good
2010 Gram - good
2012 aTm - great
Based on my extremely scientific analysis ... I'd say that a G5 opponent in Shreveport will draw a crowd range from poor to good. But a P5 opponent will draw a crowd ranging from good to great.
Stated differently -- good attendance represents the ceiling for a G5 opponent in Shreveport, but the floor for a P5 opponent.
Therefore, we should only schedule P5 opponents in Shreveport. (And only if we could not otherwise get them in JAS.)
I was remembering Baylor from way back in the late 70s or early 80s. Pretty poor crowd. You're calling OK State good, but I remember only about 34,000 while both Aggie games were over 40,000.
Hold up, don't take your pitch forks to me yet. I was just thinking out loud. It just occurred to me that Air Force would make a great home game..... Recognize the base, the ROTC, have a fly over, and bring in a bouncy house for the youngins. Just seems like a team that would have attendance appeal.
No pitch forks or not disagreeing...just discussing.
I think the point we're all making is that if we play them it should be in Ruston. I agree it would be a good home game. Also a wonderful return trip to Colorado Springs for those who travel. It's only about a full day and a half from Houston, so probably two full days from Ruston/Shreveport although easier drive. We generally have to go cross country to Lubbock and up from Amarillo.
1981 vs. Baylor in S'port. Billy Brewer was coach. We lost 28-21. Matt Dunigan had a great game...even as he was running for his life every play, often being chased by the maniacal Ken Singletary
It was a decent crowd that night, but I don't have any attendance numbers to verify that.
Just going from memory. I've killed off some poor, unsuspecting brain cells since then.
They also had some hoss of a running back, too, if I remember. But like Champ I've killed off a few brain cells myself.1981 vs. Baylor in S'port. Billy Brewer was coach. We lost 28-21. Matt Dunigan had a great game...even as he was running for his life every play, often being chased by the maniacal Ken Singletary
It was a decent crowd that night, but I don't have any attendance numbers to verify that.
Walter Abercrombie...we stuffed him that night. He might have had 50 yards, but that's pushing it. Our defense played well, but what got us was big plays, especially a little speedy WR McDaniels, wore jersey #1. He had FOUR big plays that either scored, or set them up deep in our territory. One was a punt return, the other 3 pass plays.
For those reasons, Air Force might work in Shreveport. There theoretically could be some other G5 schools which would be ok there. But to me, if you're going to give up a Ruston game you ought to have a pretty good reason. For situations that might result in better than 30K attendance, it makes sense (typically G5), but I'd also factor other circumstances like how many home games we have overall (in a 5 home game year, I'd be waaaaaaaay less likely to give up a game at JAS). Lesser factors that I might consider would be things like quarter break or specific financial deals Shreveport might be willing to cut us.
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