WTF Manuel- Pasqualoni has single-handedly made the michigan game a nonevent

[UConnJim]

Folks, winning changes everything. Also, style points count. The powers to be failed with PP, but I am hopeful about the future.

I will be there for Michigan and I am an alum who lives out of state, but I do come back for 2 games per year. And UCONN football wasn't relevant when I went to UCONN.

Building a fan base has ups and downs and unfortunately, we are experiencing the down right now. Having a retread as a coach really hurt the program. I am hopeful we won't make that mistake again.

End of the day, UCONN football has succeeded far greater than I had hoped and it will succeed again.

 

[willie99]

I was going to pay top dollar to get good seats, I simply have no desire to do so

PP has broken our football spirit, and the AD fiddles while the program burns

at this point everyone knows PP is not the man, just not getting it done. Why wait?

 

[uconnbill]

Winning cures just about anything. On the other hand losing kills anything.

 

[Stinger92860]

Why do you keep foolishly referring to our "25,000 seat stadium"?

He must be a joy to work with. What a d ! c k

 

[rich1122]

Go fricken take an adult education course at BCU and get the h#ll off this board.

If you show up to every game, as you say, why are you so negative posting on the BY?

Yes times are tough right now, but 2 or 3 years is not an eternity, its the blink of an eye. Yes Uconn has gone 5-7, 5-7 and this year looks bad, but another D1 team went 3-9, 5-7, and 7-6 from 2008 - 2010. Who was that ................ Michigan.

So calm down, yes PP was a mistake, but its tough to do something RIGHT NOW, lets see this thing play out.

Another example is UVA. They were very good, down in the DUMPS for years, and now might be pretty good.

The key thing is HS kids now see that UConn is their State school and although we may be bad now to keep kids like Boyle and Newsome instate is a good step. Name a great coach in Dec and that's the next step.

UConn has little control over the randonness of CR, but its due, and the fact that UConn defines a large percentage of the NE should save us. The naysayeers will state that the NE doesn't give a rats @ss about college football but the visionists (think Mr Apple) will realize once there is decent college football rivalries in the NE, think PSU, RU, UConn and even SU, the publicity and viewership in the NE corridor will COMMAND attention. And I hope that narrow minded Catholic school north of us goes bankrupt because they could be a significant part in the party and instead vote for separatism.

It's the reality pal. Rant all you want about anything you want. People are just not into UCONN football. The evidence is in the numbers that cannot be denied. Change the coach, win more games, stand on your head, it won't change the fact that the market won't support it. Alumni have all disappeared and DON'T come back for games in droves. It is what it is. Basketball now has more empty seats than ever.

I bleed blue every week and get there on time and support every game till the end. I support the kids and never boo, even at the coaches.

The demographic is what it is. The support may come back to that of 7 or 8 years ago. I am not optimistic for that. PP did not start this trend, nor did it have anything to do with winning or losing. Just a business reality of this market. Sorry to always be a jacka$$ about the size of the stadium. I understand that it's 40,000. 25K or 40 K it's still small and we can't fill it.

 

[rich1122]

Like Pitt, Cuse, L'Ville (with 8,000 empty seats and ACC admission / BCS bowl on the line), Colorado, BC and Miami?

8,000 in in a 50K/60K is much different than in a 38K.

 

[NEforceUConn]

Rich, I view the situation differently. Based on your red line I do not think the drop off over the last 2 years is significant, and I can easily see a rebound to the 38k/39k in 2 or 3 years. The blue line is troubling. Obviously other factors influence but from my pov its mainly attributable to terrible UConn marketing and HC efforts to attract public support has been atrocious.

On a scale from 1 to 10 RE was maybe a 4 and PP is a 1. Get a coach who understands that marketing is a part of the job and results will happen. think Chuck Amato at NCState, a terrible coach but boy did he create a buzz and a game day atmosphere at State. He could recruit and fund raise - unfortunately (for State) thats all he could do.

 

[junglehusky]

I know we're supposed to be in bash everybody mode, but I just want to ask rumrunner because he put both Pasqualoni and Manuel in the thread title: 1) How would you break down responsibility percentagewise specifically for Michigan not selling out between PP and WM? 50-50? 70-30? 2) How would you assign the percentages if the choices are PP, WM, Hathaway, and the fanbase?

For me, the answer to 1) is PP 90% WM 10%. For 2) it's PP 50% JH 40%, fans 5% and WM 5%. All PP had to do was go 7-5 in 2011 and maybe 8-4 in 2012, not a tall order against those schedules, even if the "the cupboard was bare" excuse had validity to it in 2011. That alone would have given the fanbase enough reason to buy a lot more season tickets and probably the Michigan game sells out via mini-plans without the need for releasing single game tickets (other than the temporary bleachers).

Given PP's failure to do better than 5-7, I don't know if any action by WM right now would make a enough of difference in terms of tickets right now. Firing P? Might bring back a small number of fans who bailed last year. Wouldn't attract casual fans. Reducing prices? Expensive ad campaign? Might increase sales by a small percentage.

I hate to say it, but even if WM had fired PP last year, I am not sure if that is enough to make up the gap in ticket sales. In this scenario, we still have two consecutive 5-7 seasons and this fanbase does not respond to mediocrity by attending games no matter what. Maybe if WM had hired a famous NFL coach that would have bumped up season tickets a few thousand. Then that coach would have to blow out both Towson (which doesn't generate much buzz because it's Towson) and Maryland to get the casual fans to notice. Still, I don't put a big number on the fans since we're still young as a football fanbase.

The only scenario I can see that guarantees the Rent is buzzing would be to go back in time 3 years and convince Hathaway and McHugh not to hire Pasqualoni, or to go back a few years more and convince Lew Perkins not to take the Kansas job, or at least not have Hathaway take his place. Heck if that happens maybe we're in the ACC this year. That is why I give Hathaway 40%. You could probably convince me to give him a higher number and PP a slightly lower number.

 

[RMoore1999]

I know we're supposed to be in bash everybody mode, but I just want to ask rumrunner because he put both Pasqualoni and Manuel in the thread title: 1) How would you break down responsibility percentagewise specifically for Michigan not selling out between PP and WM? 50-50? 70-30? 2) How would you assign the percentages if the choices are PP, WM, Hathaway, and the fanbase?

For me, the answer to 1) is PP 90% WM 10%. For 2) it's PP 50% JH 40%, fans 5% and WM 5%. All PP had to do was go 7-5 in 2011 and maybe 8-4 in 2012, not a tall order against those schedules, even if the "the cupboard was bare" excuse had validity to it in 2011. That alone would have given the fanbase enough reason to buy a lot more season tickets and probably the Michigan game sells out via mini-plans without the need for releasing single game tickets (other than the temporary bleachers).

Given PP's failure to do better than 5-7, I don't know if any action by WM right now would make a enough of difference in terms of tickets right now. Firing P? Might bring back a small number of fans who bailed last year. Wouldn't attract casual fans. Reducing prices? Expensive ad campaign? Might increase sales by a small percentage.

I hate to say it, but even if WM had fired PP last year, I am not sure if that is enough to make up the gap in ticket sales. In this scenario, we still have two consecutive 5-7 seasons and this fanbase does not respond to mediocrity by attending games no matter what. Maybe if WM had hired a famous NFL coach that would have bumped up season tickets a few thousand. Then that coach would have to blow out both Towson (which doesn't generate much buzz because it's Towson) and Maryland to get the casual fans to notice. Still, I don't put a big number on the fans since we're still young as a football fanbase.

The only scenario I can see that guarantees the Rent is buzzing would be to go back in time 3 years and convince Hathaway and McHugh not to hire Pasqualoni, or to go back a few years more and convince Lew Perkins not to take the Kansas job, or at least not have Hathaway take his place. Heck if that happens maybe we're in the ACC this year. That is why I give Hathaway 40%. You could probably convince me to give him a higher number and PP a slightly lower number.

OK, Jungle, time to come clean...are you Warde's father or son? I'm guessing you're not his wife, but you're obviously some sort or relative, likely blood.......

 

[junglehusky]

OK, Jungle, time to come clean...are you Warde's father or son? I'm guessing you're not his wife, but you're obviously some sort or relative, likely blood.......

Nope.

 

[junglehusky]

OK, Jungle, time to come clean...are you Warde's father or son? I'm guessing you're not his wife, but you're obviously some sort or relative, likely blood.......

So how much responsibility would you shift off of PP for Michigan not selling out? Given back-to-back 5-7 seasons by the coach, what actions would you take as AD and how many more tickets would those actions result in being sold?

 

[RMoore1999]

So how much responsibility would you shift off of PP for Michigan not selling out? Given back-to-back 5-7 seasons by the coach, what actions would you take as AD and how many more tickets would those actions result in being sold?

I wouldn't shift any responsibility away from PP. Paul and warde BOTH are responsible. Just cause Hathaway and PP have been awfully bad at their jobs, doesnt mean warde has done a good job. Frankly, if I had the resources of someone like BBurton, I'd gather whatever friends I have that support UConn and let both Warde and Paul go. And I'm not persuaded that "coaches dont get fired after only 2 years" is a reason not to make changes yesterday.

Susan made a program altering bad choice with Warde, and now we have to have to live with it.

and BTW I actually like very much the re-branding efforts. and I'm old. One of the few good things to happen under warde's watch.

 

[junglehusky]

Are you kidding me? WM a program altering bad choice? After Hathaway???

Put Manuel or 90% of athletic directors in Hathaway's place after Perkins left in 2003 and we'd be in the ACC with a nearly sold out stadium*. I'm not saying Manuel is anywhere near Jurich territory, he's not. But he is competent which probably would have been enough in the 2003-2012 period to prevent a lot of the problems we have now, including attracting casual fans to a Michigan game where fans realistically think we're just going to get blown out.

*Edit - well... maybe not now that I think about it, we'd still have to overcome BC/Flipper's opposition to us. It would probably have taken a couple 10 win seasons under Edsall to move us ahead of either Pitt or Cuse....

 

[rich1122]

Are you kidding me? WM a program altering bad choice? After Hathaway???

Put Manuel or 90% of athletic directors in Hathaway's place after Perkins left in 2003 and we'd be in the ACC with a nearly sold out stadium*. I'm not saying Manuel is anywhere near Jurich territory, he's not. But he is competent which probably would have been enough in the 2003-2012 period to prevent a lot of the problems we have now, including attracting casual fans to a Michigan game where fans realistically think we're just going to get blown out.

*Edit - well... maybe not now that I think about it, we'd still have to overcome BC/Flipper's opposition to us. It would probably have taken a couple 10 win seasons under Edsall to move us ahead of either Pitt or Cuse....

Rich, I view the situation differently. Based on your red line I do not think the drop off over the last 2 years is significant, and I can easily see a rebound to the 38k/39k in 2 or 3 years. The blue line is troubling. Obviously other factors influence but from my pov its mainly attributable to terrible UConn marketing and HC efforts to attract public support has been atrocious.

On a scale from 1 to 10 RE was maybe a 4 and PP is a 1. Get a coach who understands that marketing is a part of the job and results will happen. think Chuck Amato at NCState, a terrible coach but boy did he create a buzz and a game day atmosphere at State. He could recruit and fund raise - unfortunately (for State) thats all he could do.

Yes you are correct. They do not report the actual fans who show up. So while we sold 30K+ for Towson only a little over 20K were there. Not as drastic for many other games, but still we still have blocks and blocks of unfilled seats every week - even for big games.

I see the problem like this. Since we never had an on campus deal, we had to give the alum a reason to get back here. It did not happen. There is no venue to make this an alumni thing. 10 years later East Hartford looks the same. Hartford is hanging on by a thread. Insurance thrived - it doesn't anymore. UTC is gone. The state drives anybody with money to lower tax states. The Rent is a drive off the exit get back on the exit, and have a few beers in between, thing. We never built on the momentum. We just thought people would keep showing up as long as we had games.

I have been to several other away games. Everything just stops and people go to the game. It's an event. Alum come back and see other alum. It's a ritual. When I was in Ann Arbor there was still a traffic jam at 10:00PM. Alum everywhere. Ever go to a CCSU game. It's ALL alumni. People getting together every year.

Not sure if an invite to the ACC would have saved us. Maybe? But it's over now and we have to figure out our next best steep.

 

[RMoore1999]

Are you kidding me? WM a program altering bad choice? After Hathaway???

Put Manuel or 90% of athletic directors in Hathaway's place after Perkins left in 2003 and we'd be in the ACC with a nearly sold out stadium*. I'm not saying Manuel is anywhere near Jurich territory, he's not. But he is competent which probably would have been enough in the 2003-2012 period to prevent a lot of the problems we have now, including attracting casual fans to a Michigan game where fans realistically think we're just going to get blown out.

*Edit - well... maybe not now that I think about it, we'd still have to overcome BC/Flipper's opposition to us. It would probably have taken a couple 10 win seasons under Edsall to move us ahead of either Pitt or Cuse....

Again, just cause Hathaway SUCKED (I once asked him about progress on the practice facility, and he smugly replied, "Send me a check"), doesn't mean warde can't suck. He does.

 

[junglehusky]

Again, just cause Hathaway SUCKED (I once asked him about progress on the practice facility, and he smugly replied, "Send me a check"), doesn't mean warde can't suck. He does.

Agree on the first sentence. Disagree on the second.

 

[upstater]

Yes you are correct. They do not report the actual fans who show up. So while we sold 30K+ for Towson only a little over 20K were there. Not as drastic for many other games, but still we still have blocks and blocks of unfilled seats every week - even for big games.
.

I'm almost sure this isn't correct. They do not count tickets sold but rather tickets collected at the gate. What you're seeing in the stands is people coming in late, leaving early, milling around the god awful concourse which is a really bad design by that HOK company everyone loves.

The difference between 20-25k and 30k is 4-5k in the concourses, 3k that show up late (if not more) probably tailgating, and another 3k that leave early.

UConn historically counts tickets and people in the stadium, as almost everyone else does (I heard recently that Louisville and Memphis collect tickets in buckets and then weigh the buckets).

When you realize how tix are counted, how much some schools charge (Rutgers giving out 40% free tix), you begin to wonder about the emphasis people place on them. We haven't heard the end of the 4k tix sold for the Fiesta Bowl, so that all the good work of 15k showing up for the Tire bowl is out the window. Like most things in America these days, the emphasis on assessment and metrics and efficiency is one giant con game meant to impress people that you are doing your job, that you are worthy of your salary, that your profession matters, while the truth is that the country is becoming increasingly mechanized, systematized, robotized, and there is increasingly less need for average people. Sorry to tie this all into something as mundane as attendance, but it really is silly how they count these tickets.

 

[rich1122]

I read the turnstile number somewhere. Can't find it for the moment. If you were there, you can believe 20K.

 

[whaler11]

I'm almost sure this isn't correct. They do not count tickets sold but rather tickets collected at the gate. What you're seeing in the stands is people coming in late, leaving early, milling around the god awful concourse which is a really bad design by that HOK company everyone loves.

The difference between 20-25k and 30k is 4-5k in the concourses, 3k that show up late (if not more) probably tailgating, and another 3k that leave early.

UConn historically counts tickets and people in the stadium, as almost everyone else does (I heard recently that Louisville and Memphis collect tickets in buckets and then weigh the buckets).

When you realize how tix are counted, how much some schools charge (Rutgers giving out 40% free tix), you begin to wonder about the emphasis people place on them. We haven't heard the end of the 4k tix sold for the Fiesta Bowl, so that all the good work of 15k showing up for the Tire bowl is out the window. Like most things in America these days, the emphasis on assessment and metrics and efficiency is one giant con game meant to impress people that you are doing your job, that you are worthy of your salary, that your profession matters, while the truth is that the country is becoming increasingly mechanized, systematized, robotized, and there is increasingly less need for average people. Sorry to tie this all into something as mundane as attendance, but it really is silly how they count these tickets.

For the 10,000,000th time they report attendance as tickets distributed. Everyone does.

The actual count was in the Day article bashing Warde.

 

[upstater]

For the 10,000,000th time they report attendance as tickets distributed. Everyone does.

The actual count was in the Day article bashing Warde.

So they do it differently than they do basketball? Basketball is counted as people coming through the gate. Why would they do it differently for different sports?

 

[J187Money]

Rich, I view the situation differently. Based on your red line I do not think the drop off over the last 2 years is significant, and I can easily see a rebound to the 38k/39k in 2 or 3 years. The blue line is troubling. Obviously other factors influence but from my pov its mainly attributable to terrible UConn marketing and HC efforts to attract public support has been atrocious.

On a scale from 1 to 10 RE was maybe a 4 and PP is a 1. Get a coach who understands that marketing is a part of the job and results will happen. think Chuck Amato at NCState, a terrible coach but boy did he create a buzz and a game day atmosphere at State. He could recruit and fund raise - unfortunately (for State) thats all he could do.

The blue line isn't as much of an issue to me. LOTS of fans that want to go to 2-4 games a year know that the tickets are easy to get cheaply or for free, and there isn't a bad seat in the house. Until there is a real scarcity issue the season ticket base may erode down to the low 20s and stay there. Remember, these aren't Giants tickets where you can buy a season ticket package and recoup for the games you don't go to by selling them. Generally there is no real aftermarket so if you know you can't go to every game buying season tickets doesn't make good economic sense.

 

[J187Money]

I read the turnstile number somewhere. Can't find it for the moment. If you were there, you can believe 20K.

20K definitely feels right for Towson. But the attendance is always crappy for FCS games. Going back to Texas Southern and games like that we played, the attendance might have been better, but none of the normal season ticket holders were around in 241. It was clear that for those games a good portion of the fans just give tickets away to any takers. You can tell the importance of the game by counting the number of toddlers in the stand. Inversely proportional.

 

[whaler11]

So they do it differently than they do basketball? Basketball is counted as people coming through the gate. Why would they do it differently for different sports?

UConn announces tickets distributed for basketball as well. Almost everyone in every sport from professional to college does.

 

[JaYnYcE]

Go fricken take an adult education course at BCU and get the h#ll off this board.

If you show up to every game, as you say, why are you so negative posting on the BY?

Yes times are tough right now, but 2 or 3 years is not an eternity, its the blink of an eye. Yes Uconn has gone 5-7, 5-7 and this year looks bad, but another D1 team went 3-9, 5-7, and 7-6 from 2008 - 2010. Who was that ................ Michigan.

So calm down, yes PP was a mistake, but its tough to do something RIGHT NOW, lets see this thing play out.

Another example is UVA. They were very good, down in the DUMPS for years, and now might be pretty good.

The key thing is HS kids now see that UConn is their State school and although we may be bad now to keep kids like Boyle and Newsome instate is a good step. Name a great coach in Dec and that's the next step.

UConn has little control over the randonness of CR, but its due, and the fact that UConn defines a large percentage of the NE should save us. The naysayeers will state that the NE doesn't give a rats @ss about college football but the visionists (think Mr Apple) will realize once there is decent college football rivalries in the NE, think PSU, RU, UConn and even SU, the publicity and viewership in the NE corridor will COMMAND attention. And I hope that narrow minded Catholic school north of us goes bankrupt because they could be a significant part in the party and instead vote for separatism.

Can't compare Michigan's record struggles to Connecticut's. Two different programs where one is a multi generation establishment and the other that is respected for their basketball success and not taken seriously for their football history.

 

[upstater]

UConn announces tickets distributed for basketball as well. Almost everyone in every sport from professional to college does.

You sure about that? Because if you look at XL Center attendance reports over the years for early season cupcake games, attendance is at 8k or so, which is below the season tix #s.