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I think having such a poor crowd Saturday was an eye opener for Coach Clark and not in a good way for his wanting to stay here long term.

(11-06-2018 11:57 AM)BlazerMatt Wrote:  I think having such a poor crowd Saturday was an eye opener for Coach Clark and not in a good way for his wanting to stay here long term.

The crowd wasn't great but I don't think roughly 17-18k is not bottom feeding by any stretch of the imagination. We're in the process of building a solid 20-23k fan base regardless of what's happening and that's good news because that means when you're on top you can count on almost 30k and we're you're not the reliable 20-23k will still be with you.

(11-06-2018 11:57 AM)BlazerMatt Wrote:  I think having such a poor crowd Saturday was an eye opener for Coach Clark and not in a good way for his wanting to stay here long term.

The half full point of view is it’s three times better than it would have been before Clark

(11-06-2018 11:57 AM)BlazerMatt Wrote:  I think having such a poor crowd Saturday was an eye opener for Coach Clark and not in a good way for his wanting to stay here long term.

I like to think Coach Clark isn't naive enough to be too perturbed by that kind of attendance on LSU - Bama night. There is a certain plateau that we will have as long as we are at Legion, and we will always compete against Bama and Auburn for spectators. Not making excuses for local fans not to be there, as I do think we should consistently be around 28k, but there isn't a whole lot we can do. If when we move downtown, we can get 10% of those non-UAB fans we all work with that say"Boy, if UAB didn't play at Legion Field I'd take my family to a few games" that'll increase our core attendance by 5K at least. Add that in with UAB alums who didn't care enough to go to Legion, apathetic students in the dorm rooms who will be attracted by the shiny new stadium, and the "off the street" fans and we should be able to sell that thing out regularly.

(11-06-2018 11:57 AM)BlazerMatt Wrote:  I think having such a poor crowd Saturday was an eye opener for Coach Clark and not in a good way for his wanting to stay here long term.

Surely he's got a longer term view than that with the realization we aren't going to compete head to head with Bama vs LSU at this point when both are top 5 teams.

A lady in UaB garb sat in front of us and watched 2/3 of the UAT game on her tablet. And I'm not sure she wasn't a player's Mom.

I know it's basketball vs football but consider this.
CJH took a look around towards the end of one of the best regular seasons in UAB history and realized that even with such an amazing season:
1. His team was still playing in front of a half empty arena
2. His team was not even in the discussion for a good post season birth despite the gaudy record
3. He had a boss that he didn't like who tried to micromanage things

He looked at all of that and realized that no matter what he did the next year, those three things were still likely to be true and so cashed in while his stock was high. All three of the above things are true for Coach Clark as well.


Coach Clark has shown his commitment to this university and the city Birmingham. He was instrumental in bringing the team back to life, he led the fight to get the facilities massively upgraded, his presence was a big reason a new stadium got approved. He has nothing left to prove. Whether you believe me or not, it is a fact that he was very disappointed in the crowd Saturday and realized that no matter how many games he won, that the crowd was out of his control.

All I am saying is that if the citizens of Birmingham are truly interested in keeping him here, it would behoove them to show up Saturday against USM.

(11-06-2018 02:04 PM)BlazerMatt Wrote:  I know it's basketball vs football but consider this.
CJH took a look around towards the end of one of the best regular seasons in UAB history and realized that even with such an amazing season:
1. His team was still playing in front of a half empty arena
2. His team was not even in the discussion for a good post season birth despite the gaudy record
3. He had a boss that he didn't like who tried to micromanage things

He looked at all of that and realized that no matter what he did the next year, those three things were still likely to be true and so cashed in while his stock was high. All three of the above things are true for Coach Clark as well.


Coach Clark has shown his commitment to this university and the city Birmingham. He was instrumental in bringing the team back to life, he led the fight to get the facilities massively upgraded, his presence was a big reason a new stadium got approved. He has nothing left to prove. Whether you believe me or not, it is a fact that he was very disappointed in the crowd Saturday and realized that no matter how many games he won, that the crowd was out of his control.

All I am saying is that if the citizens of Birmingham are truly interested in keeping him here, it would behoove them to show up Saturday against USM.

Very Truthful, in the short haul. UaB fans have to be built from within, and that is going to take time. And every time we get the bandwagon cart to the top of the hill, another hill miraculously appears in front of us. With one NCAA game victory and a 26-5 record against a less than average conference on top of 3 mediocre seasons, and seeing first hand what FRW and the BOT had done to Football, I'd have run screaming for anywhere but here too.

HCBC is different. Haase played at and assistant coached at basketball blue blood programs. Clark is an East Alabama guy. He is home and one of us. And he's going to outlive the bastards that keep poking us in the eye, so he's got that working for him too.

(11-06-2018 02:04 PM)BlazerMatt Wrote:  I know it's basketball vs football but consider this.
CJH took a look around towards the end of one of the best regular seasons in UAB history and realized that even with such an amazing season:
1. His team was still playing in front of a half empty arena
2. His team was not even in the discussion for a good post season birth despite the gaudy record
3. He had a boss that he didn't like who tried to micromanage things

He looked at all of that and realized that no matter what he did the next year, those three things were still likely to be true and so cashed in while his stock was high. All three of the above things are true for Coach Clark as well.


Coach Clark has shown his commitment to this university and the city Birmingham. He was instrumental in bringing the team back to life, he led the fight to get the facilities massively upgraded, his presence was a big reason a new stadium got approved. He has nothing left to prove. Whether you believe me or not, it is a fact that he was very disappointed in the crowd Saturday and realized that no matter how many games he won, that the crowd was out of his control.

All I am saying is that if the citizens of Birmingham are truly interested in keeping him here, it would behoove them to show up Saturday against USM.

I hear what you're saying, but it takes time to build the core fan base. Having a historic winning season is great, but to really build consistently larger crowds we need to string together several winning seasons, bowl games, CUSA championships, etc in a row. It's something that's built year by year when you're a school in CUSA that's still a young university and just now starting to have 2nd generation fans. Clark is great and I know he can appreciate the long game. This is a situation that requires a long term view and consistent success. Rome wasn't built in a day (or 3 seasons).

I fully expect us to win CUSA this year. When we have another stellar year next year (8+ wins), we will see our average attendance go up. The only time I think we will see the BoT try and interfere is when Saban retires. I don't see them going after Clark but I can see it hurting us somehow during their coaching search. Hopefully, when that time comes, we will have a couple CUSA titles under our belt and be averaging 30,000.

(11-06-2018 02:04 PM)BlazerMatt Wrote:  I know it's basketball vs football but consider this.
CJH took a look around towards the end of one of the best regular seasons in UAB history and realized that even with such an amazing season:
1. His team was still playing in front of a half empty arena
2. His team was not even in the discussion for a good post season birth despite the gaudy record
3. He had a boss that he didn't like who tried to micromanage things

He looked at all of that and realized that no matter what he did the next year, those three things were still likely to be true and so cashed in while his stock was high. All three of the above things are true for Coach Clark as well.


Coach Clark has shown his commitment to this university and the city Birmingham. He was instrumental in bringing the team back to life, he led the fight to get the facilities massively upgraded, his presence was a big reason a new stadium got approved. He has nothing left to prove. Whether you believe me or not, it is a fact that he was very disappointed in the crowd Saturday and realized that no matter how many games he won, that the crowd was out of his control.

All I am saying is that if the citizens of Birmingham are truly interested in keeping him here, it would behoove them to show up Saturday against USM.

I agree with you. Sitting at 7-1 and only draw 17k. How are you supposed to recruit when you’ve now got the facilities on the way and folks still find the smallest excuse to no show? Even those in attendance won’t get off their butts and make noise when the players and coach himself asks for it. there’s really no atmosphere.

That’s where we can start changing coach’s mind.

I’ve been called a problem for calling out split fans skipping to watch games on tv. Again, why miss out on the fun in BHAM to stay home and watch a game you already know Bama’s gonna win by 3-5 touchdowns?

I know of a lot of people who just will NOT go to Legion Field. Everyone knows its a dump. EVERYONE. I agree with GoBlazers468 in that we will get about 5k additional casual fans per game at the new stadium just because it isn't Legion Field.

(11-06-2018 04:48 PM)GreenGiant67 Wrote:  I know of a lot of people who just will NOT go to Legion Field. Everyone knows its a dump. EVERYONE. I agree with GoBlazers468 in that we will get about 5k additional casual fans per game at the new stadium just because it isn't Legion Field.

We'd probably 3-4k more just by having a day game instead of a night game.

6 p.m. starts until mid-October. 1 p.m. starts from then on. It seems easy when I type it out.

I bet some would go if Alabama was playing at Legion Field.

(11-06-2018 02:04 PM)BlazerMatt Wrote:  I know it's basketball vs football but consider this.
CJH took a look around towards the end of one of the best regular seasons in UAB history and realized that even with such an amazing season:
1. His team was still playing in front of a half empty arena
2. His team was not even in the discussion for a good post season birth despite the gaudy record
3. He had a boss that he didn't like who tried to micromanage things

He looked at all of that and realized that no matter what he did the next year, those three things were still likely to be true and so cashed in while his stock was high. All three of the above things are true for Coach Clark as well.


Coach Clark has shown his commitment to this university and the city Birmingham. He was instrumental in bringing the team back to life, he led the fight to get the facilities massively upgraded, his presence was a big reason a new stadium got approved. He has nothing left to prove. Whether you believe me or not, it is a fact that he was very disappointed in the crowd Saturday and realized that no matter how many games he won, that the crowd was out of his control.

All I am saying is that if the citizens of Birmingham are truly interested in keeping him here, it would behoove them to show up Saturday against USM.

This.

(11-06-2018 06:15 PM)the_blazerman Wrote:  I bet some would go if Alabama was playing at Legion Field.

You are correct but you can’t compare UAT playing at Legion and UAB playing at Legion for many reasons. 2 that stand out to me are 1) UAT has a following of fans for MANY MANY more years than UAB and 2) Legion Field would have had a major renovation to be a lot nicer if UAT still played their games there. The concessions would be more. The bathrooms cleaner.

For UAB to win over the casual fan, we can’t play in a crappy stadium. Some people just won’t go to Legion or that part of town.

Hey.... We have FOOTBALL BACK!!!

I have to believe that one “bad” attendance game wouldn’t appreciably change the mind of a man who stuck around for two years and rebuilt a program from the ground after being lied to and actively sabotaged. I say “bad” bc this bad attendance game was night and day better than a crowd would’ve been 6-8 years ago, even significantly better than in Clark’s first year. He would understand almost better than anyone that this is a LONG rebuilding process and one Subpar attendance game (that was still much better than our games used to be) can’t be some major deciding factor on whether he stays or not... if it is I’d be extremely surprised.

(11-06-2018 11:05 PM)GreenGiant67 Wrote:  

(11-06-2018 06:15 PM)the_blazerman Wrote:  I bet some would go if Alabama was playing at Legion Field.

You are correct but you can’t compare UAT playing at Legion and UAB playing at Legion for many reasons. 2 that stand out to me are 1) UAT has a following of fans for MANY MANY more years than UAB and 2) Legion Field would have had a major renovation to be a lot nicer if UAT still played their games there. The concessions would be more. The bathrooms cleaner.

For UAB to win over the casual fan, we can’t play in a crappy stadium. Some people just won’t go to Legion or that part of town.

The 1960s and 70s were very different for Legion Field. The demographic persons who so alarm OTM folks today did not live there then. Elyton Village was populated by many married UA Medical school students and many of the houses by some of the 35,000 US Steel employees and their families (USS shut down at about 1980).
For big game weeks, the gates opened on Tuesday morning and a flood of RVs, campers, etc poured in and by Friday it was a middle sized Alabama city. Those who were the high rollers used other restrooms and their food was catered by a local named Simonetti. Us regular "peasants" used the same concessions and bathrooms we have today.

Whatever Bryant wanted, the city built. The upper deck - check; the new north endzone seats - check; new south endzone seats - check; new press box complete with new "Gold seats" underneath it, suites and "club seating" - check; President's boxes on both sides - check. These additions relieved Bama and Auburn from having to build onto their own stadiums until the last two decades of the century. Changes? The Tuscaloosa merchant association promised millions to Bama to move major games to their city; the NCAA ruled that "official visits" by recruits could not be at neutral site games; the new premium programs could not be charged at Legion Field so games there cost the schools millions per game. That was when the home stadiums at both schools exploded in capacity to what we see today..

(11-06-2018 11:57 AM)BlazerMatt Wrote:  I think having such a poor crowd Saturday was an eye opener for Coach Clark and not in a good way for his wanting to stay here long term.

Good lord Matt, I think you’ve made your point.

If one game of bad attendance is the trigger to make him leave, screw him. What’s next? Parking spot not close enough to the door? Give our program some credit, there are coaches out there that jump here in a heart beat.