On another negative note,

[dabull80]

Oh Lord, I could see the grading scale now.  Ah, student so and so, you missed the game last night  -0- for your home work assignment.  What ? Student so-so, you went to both the mens and womens BB games, you got a 125 for that pop quiz. LOL

[Bullpride08]

Remember everything is new for USF.  This is new for us to have a game this late in the year.  It's new for us not to be done before Thanksgiving.

It's conditioning.  How are students suppose to know the necessity to stick around for the Saturday game, or come back early if no one mentions it.  A great idea is for SG to sponsor an event that day, but how are they to know its our first game after Thanksgiving.

We're still building traditions, and we're still learning how to adapt to being a college athletic centric school.  It's the job of the Athletic Department, and University to see these games early on and try to put things together to insure that people understand the importance and meaning.  The University, and Athletic Department should have sponsored something for the frats, and students that would have at least brought more than a token student attendance.  Secondly, they need to promote the games that need promoting.

In the end it comes down to not knowing what to be expected.  Texas fans know that they must come back to Austin by Friday for the UT v. A&M game because it's played every year during that time, ditto for MSU, v. Ole Miss, and Pitt v. WVU.  Those are things that are learned, you just don't walk out on Saturday and wonder why the kids aren't there?  Because they don't know any better, and it's the job of the school, marketing department, SG, and athletic department to make them know better.

Don't blame the students on this one because they were just doing what is natural- going home for the holiday's.  Someone needs to motivate them to stay around or come back early for the game.  At least until traditions are set.

[BullDoug]

SBien...Your post has validity but I have one thing to say about it.  Doug Woolard came from Washington State (a football school) before SLU.  He should of had an idea of what to do.  I'm still amazed that 1500 students didn't show.  I kept waiting for the student tailgators to file in.  When the kickoff went up, I figured they needed an extra 15 minutes to super charge that "buzz" before heading to the seats.  Boy, was I wrong.

[bulldad]

At what point does it stop being new.  10 years, 20 years?  We have been at this now for 7 years guys, no excuses.  As far as it being a holiday weekend, did you happen to catch the USC-ND game or any other game for that matter? I'm sure they weren't saying oh its a holiday weekend, there won't be anyone there.

My feeling is that maybe football will never catch on like the other schools.  Blame it on the Bucs, or apathy I don't know.

[BULLheaded]

Bien,

an interesting way to look at it. I hadn't thought of it that way and even though I don't truly buy it I suppose we can give the kids a mulligan for that one game.

That being said, student numbers cut at least in half for ECU and that was at the correct time, weather was perfect and one of the big 3 had already played for the week so the excuse then was that ecu was a bad opponent. This past weekend it was the time/date & holiday excuse so we'll just have to see if they make it up for the Pitt game. If they don't show just because the game is at 11 then there really is only one excuse that explains it all and that is they have lost interest now that we are not winning and any excuse is a good excuse not to show  ie... "fair weather" fans.

I was thinking a bit about the finger pointing to the community vs the student issue as well. what did we have as an average going into the past couple games? around 32K fans? Now, I had been told there was around 9K+ students of that 32K. attendance was around 20K on saturday with maybe 1K - 1.5K students.

So basically the community dropped from 23K to 18.5K and the students dropped from 9K to 1.5K In other words the community loss was 18.5% and the students at 83% I'm sorry but students weren't the only ones on holiday or having to work. And as for being "away" at home, most of usf students are within driving distance so I don't buy into that excuse being responsible for any significant drop in numbers. IMO the students just didn't pull their weight in this game, but maybe bien's reason is sound and hopefully we'll see a big turnout at pitt.

[Omniscientbull]

Let's face it.....we live in Tampa.  Tampa only supports winners.  The Bucs were empty for years before they won.  The Bolts have had a difficult time with attendance until they made the Stanley Cup run.  The Devil Rays don't have a chance in hell.

The Bulls will draw big when they are national contenders and not until then.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens if the Bucs have another horrid season.  That BS inflated waiting list will disappear overnight.