First off- to the original poster-
I appreciate your excitement, but the post talking about the wealth of the school is so far off base that I don't know where to start. You may be a middle class kid, and that's great, but you obviously hang out with the "upper crust" you speak of if you think the average person that goes to Baylor has parents that own numerous homes or large ranches.
Now, obviously it is a small private school so there will always be a portion of students that come from a wealthier background. But that is far- so far- from the normal student. Hell, I was better off than most during my time at Baylor and my wife and I left with $80K in student debt (together). I had friends that were in worse financial shape. I was in a fraternity, yes, but speaking for the vast majority of my fraternity brothers, none of us drove late model cars or had access to much money. Most of us had part time jobs all the way through school. Heck, I worked a beer distributorship for 3 of my 4 years just so I could help pay my utilities each month. And again, I had quite a few friends juggling two jobs, etc.
So while Baylor may be a bit wealthier than most state schools, you are making BU sound like an SMU and that's no where near the case.
Al_4_State,
One thing you have to understand is that our fanbase is very, very fickle and is very small. Although ISU has had a pretty rough two year stretch, you've had recent success with numerous bowl games over the past decade. Baylor had a lot of success in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, but we haven't been to a bowl game in 15 years. And we only won 2 conference games in a stretch of 8 years between the late 90s and early 2000s. That type of record will seriously degrade a fanbase.
And with all due respect, you are really only competiting with one other university for state loyalty. I'd guess that almost every Iowan cheers for either ISU or Iowa. Here, we are sandwiched between Texas and Texas A&M- two massive state programs that attract, primarily due to their winning history and tradition, a large portion of the general population. In other words, Baylor is likely never to attract "Average Joe" unless we begin winning more games than Texas or A&M for an extended period of time. Heck, even Waco folks support Texas more than Baylor due to their proximity (1.5 hrs away) and their tradition.
I am sorry you came down for the ISU game last year. It was our worst attended game of the year by quite a ways (announced crowd of 30,000 but it was far worse than that, IMO). We had a good crowd for the OU game the week before and just got slaughtered. I think the "Same Ol' Baylor" mantra worked its way into some folks after that game and they decided not to come back the next week for what was, in all honesty, a very unappealing matchup for both of our teams. Tailgating is actually fairly good (certainly not ISU good, but not embarassingly bad either) for many of the matchups against regional foes, but not so much for opponents that are not as familiar to a casual fan as a Tech or A&M, or Texas, etc.
There is only one thing that will cure all of that and it's winning. You don't have to win constantly, but if we can put together 3 or so winning years, it may be enough to really start rebuilding the fanbase to what it was many years ago.
There is a lot of excitement about the Baylor program for this upcoming year and I'm hoping we don't disappoint out of the gate to ruin that excitement. I do believe this team is capable of going to a bowl, or at least going 6-6 which would've gotten us a bowl last year, but its going to be tough.
We just need to keep building and all will be well. Baylor 2011, I encourage you to have optimism, but don't build up expectations so much that you are disappointed.
I appreciate your excitement, but the post talking about the wealth of the school is so far off base that I don't know where to start. You may be a middle class kid, and that's great, but you obviously hang out with the "upper crust" you speak of if you think the average person that goes to Baylor has parents that own numerous homes or large ranches.
Now, obviously it is a small private school so there will always be a portion of students that come from a wealthier background. But that is far- so far- from the normal student. Hell, I was better off than most during my time at Baylor and my wife and I left with $80K in student debt (together). I had friends that were in worse financial shape. I was in a fraternity, yes, but speaking for the vast majority of my fraternity brothers, none of us drove late model cars or had access to much money. Most of us had part time jobs all the way through school. Heck, I worked a beer distributorship for 3 of my 4 years just so I could help pay my utilities each month. And again, I had quite a few friends juggling two jobs, etc.
So while Baylor may be a bit wealthier than most state schools, you are making BU sound like an SMU and that's no where near the case.
Al_4_State,
One thing you have to understand is that our fanbase is very, very fickle and is very small. Although ISU has had a pretty rough two year stretch, you've had recent success with numerous bowl games over the past decade. Baylor had a lot of success in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, but we haven't been to a bowl game in 15 years. And we only won 2 conference games in a stretch of 8 years between the late 90s and early 2000s. That type of record will seriously degrade a fanbase.
And with all due respect, you are really only competiting with one other university for state loyalty. I'd guess that almost every Iowan cheers for either ISU or Iowa. Here, we are sandwiched between Texas and Texas A&M- two massive state programs that attract, primarily due to their winning history and tradition, a large portion of the general population. In other words, Baylor is likely never to attract "Average Joe" unless we begin winning more games than Texas or A&M for an extended period of time. Heck, even Waco folks support Texas more than Baylor due to their proximity (1.5 hrs away) and their tradition.
I am sorry you came down for the ISU game last year. It was our worst attended game of the year by quite a ways (announced crowd of 30,000 but it was far worse than that, IMO). We had a good crowd for the OU game the week before and just got slaughtered. I think the "Same Ol' Baylor" mantra worked its way into some folks after that game and they decided not to come back the next week for what was, in all honesty, a very unappealing matchup for both of our teams. Tailgating is actually fairly good (certainly not ISU good, but not embarassingly bad either) for many of the matchups against regional foes, but not so much for opponents that are not as familiar to a casual fan as a Tech or A&M, or Texas, etc.
There is only one thing that will cure all of that and it's winning. You don't have to win constantly, but if we can put together 3 or so winning years, it may be enough to really start rebuilding the fanbase to what it was many years ago.
There is a lot of excitement about the Baylor program for this upcoming year and I'm hoping we don't disappoint out of the gate to ruin that excitement. I do believe this team is capable of going to a bowl, or at least going 6-6 which would've gotten us a bowl last year, but its going to be tough.
We just need to keep building and all will be well. Baylor 2011, I encourage you to have optimism, but don't build up expectations so much that you are disappointed.
