VTTW Board Index

It's stunning how many tickets are available, considering the quality of the opponent and considering how many fans (~15k) BYU is expected to bring to town. That speaks volumes. I'll forever maintain that it's the butts in seats that determines a coach's fate quicker than anything else. Dooley getting canned after Year 3 had a lot more to do with declining attendance than the product on the field.

We're a primetime game on Saturday. The number of empty seats, and the disproportionate level of BYU fans vs. UT fans (it's going to seem even more even than it really is due to all the empties) is going to be another major embarrassment for this program.

Well I hate it, but "they" earned it. Whoever "they" are  :banghead:

Opening games use to be a sellout and yesterday's announced attendance was around 85,000. Might be lucky to have 75,000 this week. I've talked and been around a lot of UT fans today and I never saw the frustration from a game in Butch's 5 years as I've seen from yesterdays game....And that's bad.

I bought sideline tickets for $20/ea. ahead of yesterday's game. That's by far the least I've ever paid for season-opener tickets anywhere in the stadium, let alone on the sideline. So the apathy was there even before the disaster that played out on the field yesterday. Those photos by Hyams and others that were going viral on Twitter at the start of the second half were misleading, because they were taken from the press box and showed the sunny side of the stadium, which was well over half empty. The shaded side of the stadium was probably 80% full when the second half began. But, clearly, a lot of people had gone home at halftime due to a combination of the heat and the level of play.

I didn't count, but I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that there are thousands of lower-levels tickets available for Saturday's  game. The second game of the season. Against BYU. That's unthinkable. Upper level south end zone looks like it'll be over half empty except for the BYU fans in GG, HH and II. Just incredible.

I don't agree about Dooley.   Based on what Hart said in December of 2011, right after Dooley lost to Kentucky, we kept him because we were in a really bad financial state and could not afford the buyout at that point in time.  This is why 8 of 10 assistant coaches left, they knew Dooley was very likely gone the next year after his buyout significantly reduced and Hart had time to implement belt-tightening measures, such as pulling back the money donated to academics by the AD.   That's what I recall anyway.  Don't recall seats being empty ever having anything to do with it.

Tickets are plentiful this year.  UT only sold 63K season tickets, down from 72K last year.