VTTW Board Index

Interesting, I thought:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BIV1MGLCMAERycD.jpg)

Was there any mitigating circumstances behind Florida's paltry 10,000 attendance?  :wtf:

Yeah, really.

There isn't much to be determined from the attendance at a glorified practice session.  I didn't go to our Spring Game, so I'm not going to judge other schools' fans for staying away as well. 

That said, I don't think there's any doubt that UF's fanbase has a higher percentage of the frontrunning, bandwagon element than most.  This has been proven over and over, across multiple sports.

Apparently their spring "game" was simular to ours, something about a lack of healthy OL.

I disagree. Much can be read into the numbers, I think. Tennessee's 61,000 shows the incredible job Butch Jones has done of rallying the fan base around a program that has been miserable the last few years and has no real talent coming back. Kentucky's 50,000 shows how excited that fan base is by Stoops. Alabama's 71,000 and Auburn's 80,000 show that Alabama is still the most football-crazed state in the nation. Texas A&M's 45,000 shows that Aggie fans realize they're finally in a good football conference (and Johnny Football doesn't hurt). LSU's 28,000 shows that the corndogs are spoiled by their own success. Ole Miss & Mississippi State's combined 49,000 show that Mississippi will never be a real football state. Vanderbilt's 14,000 shows that Vanderbilt is still Vanderbilt.

There are also different circumstances at every school.  Was there any other big event(s) going on in the area that day that would affect attendance for better or worse?  I think AU's big number had as much to do with the Toomer's Corner event as the game itself. How was the weather?  Did the school charge for tickets, or was it free?  When UT started charging just 5 bucks for tickets a few years ago, our attendance annually dropped down to the 25-35K range.  Now that it's free again, attendance is back up.  These are all factors that don't come into play as much during the regular season.

Louisville

 :dielaughing: :dielaughing: :dielaughing: :dielaughing: :dielaughing:

I am glad there was a big crowd, but I fear many of those same ones will calling for Butch's head when he doesn't win 9 or 10 games this year.  :frown:

FIFY (One per 1K fans at the game)  :naughty:

While I don't expect 9 or 10 wins, I think this team has the potential to be better than many think.  Again, I just look back at last season.  I said in August that 9 wins was my expectation for Dooley to be retained, and that with the talent on hand, I thought that was a realistic number.  Most here said I was crazy, that 9 wins was unrealistic.  And maybe it was.  But OTOH, when you look at the results, that team could've easily won 10-11 with just an average coaching staff.  The only game we were out of early was bammer (I don't count vandy, because if we had something, ANYTHING to play for, you know that one would've gone differently).

Now this year's team clearly doesn't have the talent that one did.  And with both sides of the ball learning new systems, expectations should be tempered.  5-6 wins is probably realistic.  But I also wonder if they didn't perform some "addition by subtraction" by jettisoning a few negative elements.  And while I'm still in "show me" mode with Butch and his staff, they HAVE to be an upgrade over Dooley and co., right?  Bottom line, 5-6 wins is my expectation.  But if they pull an upset or two and get to 7-8, I won't be at all surprised.

I hope for the latter for sure and with better coaching and more motivated players  that can certainly make a huge difference. If he gets 7 wins this year I will say without hesitation Butch can and will win the SEC while at UT.  :thumbup:

I'm with you. 5-6 wins is a reasonable expectation, but we shouldn't be too surprised to sneak a win or two out that we aren't expecting.

Going down the list:

08/31/13   vs. Austin Peay (W)
09/07/13   vs. Western Kentucky (W)
09/14/13   at Oregon (L)
09/21/13   at Florida (L)
09/28/13   vs. South Alabama (W)
10/05/13   vs. Georgia (L)
10/19/13   vs. South Carolina (L)
10/26/13   at Alabama (L)
11/02/13   at Missouri (possible W)
11/09/13   vs. Auburn (possible W)
11/23/13   vs. Vanderbilt (possible W)
11/30/13   at Kentucky (W)

I see four games we should absolutely win, and three more that may be close to coin tosses. There's your 5-6 wins and a potential for up to 7. Of the remaining games, I don't see us winning road games in Eugene, Gainesville, or Tuscaloosa, so the only way we steal another one is to beat UGA or SC at home. At least those are halfway through the season so we'll have some play under our belt.