http://www.mlive.com/broncos/index.ssf/2...er_default

Note Hoople's comment about the single wing, I agree.

My initial reaction...the Head Coach is only PART of the answer related to any attendance issue. It's a UNIVERSITY issue and not solely related to whoever is coaching. My second thought, with this article, KB has squarely set the target on her performance related to this hire. The attendance issue is not Cubit's issue anymore. It's now HER issue! She should be measured accordingly. She and Dunn better get it in gear and make a good hire. I've always thought attendance should be a factor, but not a major factor, in evaluating MAC coaches in FB. If it was the sole measuring stick, 2/3 of the coaches would be fired every year. Good luck in dealing with YOUR attendance issues KB! We, the fans, are watching. Oh, it would also help if you didn't saddle your coach with nearly 3 almost automatic losses before conference play even starts by playing 3 BCS schools every year, almost always on the road. If I'm a coaching candidate, you can bet I'm seriously considering if I want to battle up hill every year before I've even started conference play.

I have said all along we're over-scheduled - and that was playing TWO BCS schools a season.

Not only are we going to lose 98% of those games but they keep us away from Waldo for at least half of first month of school. Tough to generate any intertest like that.

Double-edged sword though because coaches use playing in The Big Hole, at ND, Nebraska, etc. as a recruiting tool too.

She doesn't come off looking very sharp with that, I'm hoping that she just didn't have the time to complete her thought process and connect the dots for us less informed as to what he road map of goals are to impact attendance.

The truth is starting off 0-3 or 1-2 every year kills attendance. For example Kent played two BCS teams, but only one early. NIU played two in their first 4 games. WMU played three, but one was at home, and the other two were beatable, so at least for this last season, we weren't necessarily over scheduled.

(12-09-2012 10:57 AM)DesertBronco Wrote:  She doesn't come off looking very sharp with that, I'm hoping that she just didn't have the time to complete her thought process and connect the dots for us less informed as to what he road map of goals are to impact attendance.

She looks like an idiot again. She and MP schedule the away BCS games for money leaving us screwed at home She moved the Illini game (where we had the guns to smoke them but lost some bodies which hurt are championship chances against BSU weeks later) to Ford Field from here and did not promote it killing the attendance figures that year. It's time the three stooges look in the mirror instead of out the window for answers/excuses Simply amazing !!

Boosting attendance - and even just general interest in the program - is a tough gig for any of the MAC schools. Especially a Michigan MAC school.

Indeed, MACC appearances and conference championships will help. But achieving anything short of that, the Presidents, ADs and coaches hands are tied. UM is in the top three biggest bandwagon football programs, nationally, and all know the stranglehold the "Walmart" Wolverines have on this state. Convincing your average 18-year-old who grew up on a steady diet of UM Big House worshipping to exchange that allegiance for a mid-pack MAC team with a half-empty 30K capacity stadium is a difficult task. Same for CMU, same for EMU.

That basketball thread tells the whole story: WMU students who "bleed maize n' blue" because they want to be seen, part of the party, and winners-by-association. Loyalty to one's own alma mater be damned.

Some well thought-out marketing promotions may boost some Saturday afternoon interest here and there, sure. But these ADs are generally powerless against the B1G/UM mega-machine.

It's a moot point, our community (edit: thanks to Ms Persky pointing it out to me) fan base is lame. They could do giveaways each game, they would come, collect the prize and head to the dorms and watch scUM, MSU, or ND. Even 30,000 in attendance, you'll hear 12,000 saying condescending remarks about WMU.

I think it's indicative of a larger scale issue, most of our students and alumni aren't proud to be from/at WMU. Address that, pump them up, highlight our successes as a community, better than they are doing now, and you might in time see the pride come from within, and "attendance" will take care of itself (as long as our Athletic Department is decent)

Our school offers a ton to help people who are from there succeed. See the small group of flyboys wearing their flight college and you might get what I mean. Haworth does a decent job but I think they can do better. We act like it's all about sports here, it's not that simple.

Motown, completely agree. My whole point is don't point the finger only at the coach. It's simply a convenient "excuse card" that can be play at any point during a MAC coaches career. The blame, if any, should be jointly shared among all in charge! KB's been at the helm for several years now. Has she had ANY impact in resolving those issues. The coaches report to her. She clearly bears an element of responsibility in this area. That's all I'm sayin'.

Quote:Ohio: 21,844 (6 games)
Toledo: 20,552 (6 games)
Kent State: 17,844 (5 games)
Central Michigan: 16,036 (7 games) *
Northern Illinois: 15,670 (6 games) **
Bowling Green: (5 games)
Miami: 14,733 (5 games)
Western Michigan: 14,579 (6 games)
Ball State: 12,930 (5 games)
Buffalo: 13,242 average (6 games)
UMass: 10,901 (5 games)
Akron: 9,275 (6 games)
Eastern Michigan: 3,923 (6 games)

The difference between Buffalo (9th) and Kent State (3rd) is separated by 4,600 folks. Within the context of the entire FBS college football world, it's so statistically small that it's but a drop in a bucket.

(12-09-2012 11:52 AM)Broncos83 Wrote:  Motown, completely agree. My whole point is don't point the finger only at the coach. It's simply a convenient "excuse card" that can be play at any point during a MAC coaches career. The blame, if any, should be jointly shared among all in charge! KB's been at the helm for several years now. Has she had ANY impact in resolving those issues. The coaches report to her. She clearly bears an element of responsibility in this area. That's all I'm sayin'.

Agree 100%.

Motown's point is salient, we're talking a drop in the bucket and it's part of the MAC landscape unless they address that somehow.

It could be worst. We could be EMU fans.

2012 Football average attendance - Eastern Michigan: 3,923 (6 games)
I continue to be amazed they still have a football team.

edit: 2011 Eastern Mich. 6 25,599 - 4,267
Continues to be the only NCAA FBS team with attendance of less than 11,000. Isn't there a NCAA attendance cutoff to stay D1?
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_r...e/2011.pdf

(12-09-2012 11:52 AM)Broncos83 Wrote:  Motown, completely agree. My whole point is don't point the finger only at the coach. It's simply a convenient "excuse card" that can be play at any point during a MAC coaches career. The blame, if any, should be jointly shared among all in charge! KB's been at the helm for several years now. Has she had ANY impact in resolving those issues. The coaches report to her. She clearly bears an element of responsibility in this area. That's all I'm sayin'.

Exactly. If anything the 3 Stooges have hurt it by moving games and scheduling for money !!

(12-09-2012 12:06 PM)okgc Wrote:  It could be worst. We could be EMU fans.

2012 Football average attendance - Eastern Michigan: 3,923 (6 games)
I continue to be amazed they still have a football team.

Which makes that whole attendance discussion a moot point, because as a school in the same state with the same budget reporting requirements, attendance really isn't a factor.

(12-09-2012 12:06 PM)okgc Wrote:  It could be worst. We could be EMU fans.

2012 Football average attendance - Eastern Michigan: 3,923 (6 games)
I continue to be amazed they still have a football team.

edit: 2011 Eastern Mich. 6 25,599 - 4,267
Continues to be the only NCAA FBS team with attendance of less than 11,000. Isn't there a NCAA attendance cutoff to stay D1?
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_r...e/2011.pdf

Sorry to hijack this thread away from WMU.

Here is an old article, so where is the enforcement?

Quote:"Football Bowl Subdivision teams have to meet minimum attendance requirements (average 15,000 people in actual or paid attendance per home game), which must be met once in a rolling two-year period. ..................

If your favorite college team can't average 15,000 people to a game once every two years, the NCAA technically can drop your team from what used to be called Division I-A to I-AA.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/63513...ball-teams

They can't execute that because it's arbitrary and they'd have even more anti-trust measures against them. That's been hashed over.

(12-09-2012 12:06 PM)okgc Wrote:  It could be worst. We could be EMU fans.

2012 Football average attendance - Eastern Michigan: 3,923 (6 games)
I continue to be amazed they still have a football team.

I think even more noteworthy is a ranked 12-1 NIU pulling in roughly the same crowds we did. And CMU hosting MSU and their arch-rivals in the same season, yet managing a pedestrian 16K average. The top crowd-attractor in the conference was Ohio at 21K, nothing to really write home about.

It's not Cubit's fault, nor is it KB's. If it was, then coincidentally we have 13 inept administrations in the MAC all at the same time, all the time. Rather, I don't see fan bases or attendance ever lighting the world on fire in the MAC. For starters, mega-bandwagons UM, OSU and ND will always draw the massive attention they do, even during lean RichRod-type years or one-year bowl bans. Almost all teenagers grow up pledging allengiance to a B1G or ND, and only some of us (including posters here) will make room to find loyalty to their alma mater because they recognize that there's meaningful and special value in it. The rest of them? A lost cause.

Short of a true 'dynasty,' there isn't an AD, head coach or promotions rep in the MAC that will sell out their stadiums with a steady stream of 5-7/7-5 records. If someone can accomplish that, I'd annoint that person a pure marketing genius who should resign and go work for a Fortune 500 company.

Makes you wonder why the admin cites the attendance as a factor then huh?

(12-09-2012 12:50 PM)Motown Bronco Wrote:  

(12-09-2012 12:06 PM)okgc Wrote:  It could be worst. We could be EMU fans.

2012 Football average attendance - Eastern Michigan: 3,923 (6 games)
I continue to be amazed they still have a football team.

I think even more noteworthy is a ranked 12-1 NIU pulling in roughly the same crowds we did. And CMU hosting MSU and their arch-rivals in the same season, yet managing a pedestrian 16K average. The top crowd-attractor in the conference was Ohio at 21K, nothing to really write home about.

It's not Cubit's fault, nor is it KB's. If it was, then coincidentally we have 13 inept administrations in the MAC all at the same time, all the time. Rather, I don't see fan bases or attendance ever lighting the world on fire in the MAC. For starters, mega-bandwagons UM, OSU and ND will always draw the massive attention they do, even during lean RichRod-type years or one-year bowl bans. Almost all teenagers grow up pledging allengiance to a B1G or ND, and only some of us (including posters here) will make room to find loyalty to their alma mater because they recognize that there's meaningful and special value in it. The rest of them? A lost cause.

Short of a true 'dynasty,' there isn't an AD, head coach or promotions rep in the MAC that will sell out their stadiums with a steady stream of 5-7/7-5 records. If someone can accomplish that, I'd annoint that person a pure marketing genius who should resign and go work for a Fortune 500 company.

Well said.

(12-09-2012 12:53 PM)DesertBronco Wrote:  Makes you wonder why the admin cites the attendance as a factor then huh?

Exactly. They oughta just cite MAC West wins and MACC appearances and leave it at that, at least there's hard data to back that up. The idea that the mere appearance of a new head coach will magically send our attendance soaring is fantasy, at best.