(09-10-2013 02:05 PM)Attackcoog Wrote: (09-10-2013 01:52 PM)bullet Wrote: (09-10-2013 01:18 PM)gotohelltu Wrote: (09-10-2013 10:07 AM)Attackcoog Wrote: (09-10-2013 08:55 AM)john01992 Wrote: talk about my credibility? you mentioned a game which happened AFTER the NYT article came out. when that article came out UH was still fresh off a 5-7 season in which they lost the final 4 games. but the game you mentioned was at the peak of UH football. yeah entering a game 12-0 OF COURSE they will see a pretty big boost. in fact every other program will see a boost as well in that situation. UH was a BCS buster then. its like me citing alabama's national championship game and saying every fan who watched that game is a bama fan. games like that draw non UH fans. they dont watch that game because they care about UH, but because that game has some major implications on the rankings.
in average years UH's fanbase is pretty pathetic. the NYT throws a pretty big red flag out there....which could be a fluke on its own.....but your stadium-student ratio is downright pathetic and backs up the claims made by the NYT.
and if thats not enough for you....and since you citied tv ratings let me throw this one little stat in your face
armed forces bowl 2013
rice-air force 3.3 million viewers (2.3)
armed forces bowl 2009
UH-air force 2.2 million viewers (1.6)
and just an FYI the 2009 game featured a better AF team on a better date. how they drew that much less is beyond me
I have no reason to be biased against UH. i have no relation to texas football or AAC football. Im just calling it like I see it and I think you are in downright denial about this.
The 2009 game was played on a Thursday morning at 11am (which means a ton of football fans were at work). The 2012 game was played on Dec 29th at 11am---which was a Saturday. The higher rating was a weekend morning---shocking. The real shocker is that the two numbers are anywhere close.
The difference between a Thursday morning and a Saturday morning was a small bit of info that was ignored because it didn't support his asinine case.
Rice can't draw flies at home. They overstate the attendance by several thousand every game and still can't get more than 10,000 people in the stands unless they are palying Texas at Reliant.
UH fans really shouldn't talk attendance smack. UH has a lot more wins, 35k students vs. 6k and a lot more local alumni and only a few more fans in the stands. And yes, Rice doesn't draw well when playing Sam Houston ST. or University of Houston at home. Not many UH fans make it the 4 miles across town to Rice Stadium. Rice does ok with other schools.
lol. If you are going to play the role of know it all, then don't blow the facts. It makes you look foolish. The game is now played at Reliant and the crowd is largely a UH crowd. Of course, that was true even when the games were at Rice stadium. The move to Reliant has made it more so. Your right, the Owls do fine in Rice stadium--around 15-20K actual people there. Its a nice atmosphere, the MOB is fun, and theres a beautiful view of the West U area from the second deck. I try to catch a game there at least once a year--generally in late fall.
If you want to know whats wrong with Houston its very simple. Part of it was the loss of the SWC. If you will notice, every team left behind has suffered from stunted growth due to lack of TV coverage and due to playing unfamiliar opponents (even TCU isn't where they should be given their performance). But much of Houston's issues are self inflicted by poor leadership in the 1990's.
Houston's leaders let a decade of growth slip though their fingers. From the early 1990's to the early 2000's the teams were bad, the facilities were bad, there was little investment, and the only decent sports decision made was to move games back on campus (even though the stadium was a charming dump). Over the last 5 -10 years, under better leadership, Houston has invested in the campus. Money has poured into research--attracting top quality faculty and improving academics and prestige. New buildings, facilities, dorms, and parking garages have been added to the campus. The University Center is being completely remodeled and an addition is under construction. A massive investment in on-campus housing has resulted in Houston now having more students living on campus than any other public campus in Texas other than Texas A&M. A new 40K on campus stadium is under construction. The basketball area will have a 40 million dollar remodel. In addition, a new practice facility and basketball locker room will be added.
These investments should have been started in the early 1990's and are a reason we lost a decade of growth. Sure, part of the loss of part of that decade of fans would happened anyway due to the loss of the SWC---but part of the loss was failing to make the investments necessary to move forward from the desolate place where we found ourselves. Had these investments been made in the 1990's, Houston would have enjoyed better recruiting, better teams, and a larger more loyal alumni base. That decade of students would have had a very different experience. I'm glad the investments are finally being made and that the kind of leadership needed to advance is in now place. I just hope its not too late.
The above is 100% true. UH was caught napping when the SWC fell apart and was blindsided when left outside of the Big XII for Baylor. (One is referred to the excellent series that appeared in the San Antonio paper about the demise of the SWC and that the Big 8 teams were surprised when A & M and Texas insisted that UH be excluded. The Big 8 had assumed the "merger" would include all four state schools).
Like college teams in most "pro" cities, attendance will always be an issue. But UH actually did very well until the last few years of Yeoman and post 1990, when the wheels came off with the hiring of Kim Helton (the Luv Coach) and the lost decade began.
UH in 2013 is a totally different university than UH in 1995 when the SWC folded. 42,000 undergrad students with nearly 11,000 on campus. A new Greek Row, Carnegie Tier I, 29% of incoming freshmen were top 10% of their class, a burgeoning Honors College, (I personally know friends whose children have chosen UH over UT and A & M because a) the school offered them a better finacial package, or b) because in the major, UH was more promising for a career- areas like copyright law, engineering, school of business. UH is improving it's 6 year and below graduation rates (fewer part-time & night students), new football stadium, rebuilding the Hof for basketball, and in the epicenter of the Houston metro area.
The fan base is being built from the student body who now turn out for games and who are future alums. And 75% of our grads stay in the greater Houston area.
I read recently that by 2015 UH will have more on campus housing that
A & M, and by 2020, UH will surpass Texas A & M in enrollment.
By 2020 UH will be an academic as well as an athletic force to be reckoned with. We may or may not be
invited to the Big XII, although it is where we belong. If UT wants to fart around or pursue its vendetta past Darth Dodd's tenure, they can deal with UH in another P-5 conference at some point.
How many ways do they want to dilute the market in Texas?
In 2020, Rice will still be a geeky school claiming 15,000 fans a game with 10,000 in the stands while sits on its huge endowment and treats its own athletic department like a step child.
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Houston's Expansion Profile Up On ExpansionRumors.com
