Simply put, the fans will find excuses for not coming...the sun is too bright, the winter is too cold, the lawn needs raked, the car needs washed.
No.
The fans show up when two things are true.
1 - The public perception is that the team we are playing is capable of making a game of it.
2 - The public perception is that WE are capable of making a game of it. AKA, we have a shot at winning.
This team was grabbed by the throat and totally manhandled by, first, a totally mediocre ECU, which ended up 7-5, beating no teams with winning records; then by a respectable Appy State, which went a respectable 10-3, actually beating two teams with winning records; and then by Middle Tennessee, which is almost certainly the worst 6-6 team in America, having beaten no one with a winning record (except us) and getting to 6-6 with games over Bottom 10ers UConn, Southern Miss, and FIU. Then we followed that up by being taken to overtime, at home, for Homecoming, by a then 1-4 ODU, which did turn things around to go 6-6.
THAT is what the ticket office had to sell. The fans of Huntington KNOW football. KNOW it well. They knew that the rest of the season, at home, was a laugher over FIU, and two poundings. They knew that after the ECU pound down, certainly after Appy State.
It has nothing to do with ads, announcers, DJs, the band, beer, the toilets, or anything else. Just one thing. Put a team on that field that has a shot at WINNING, over a team that is worth a darn.
We didn’t do that this year. That simple.
