I remember the 2005 game against UNM. We had a large crowd against the Lobos, and were trailing 10-7 at the half. Then, in the second half, we had a pick 6. The crowd went absolutely bonkers. On the Lobos' ensuing possession the fired up crowd was as loud as I have ever heard a crowd in the Sun Bowl. The Lobos had at least two false starts in that series, possibly three. I also remember a possession in that series where their QB tried to audible, his running back didn't hear him, and he had to take a sack when he turned to hand off to a running back who wasn't there. They were forced to punt out of their own end zone. We blocked the punt and recovered it in the end zone to go up 21-10. We ended up winning 21-13. Nothing anyone tells me will convince me that the crowd didn't help the Miners to win that game. After the game Price agreed.
Now if we had played eventual champion Texas, or runner up USC, do we win that game with our great, enthusiastic crowd? No, of course not. We would have had our heads handed to us. No amount of crowd noise can overcome a large disparity of talent. But for two closely matched teams can a large, loud crowd disrupt the visiting team and help energize the home team enough to give that home team a bit of an edge? I can't prove it, but I believe so.
There are other advantages to having a large, boisterous crowd. I can guarantee that the players would rather play before a big crowd than in a stadium that resembles a tomb. Does anyone else remember Tony Barbee begging El Paso to fill the Don every time Teicher interviewed him after a game? Was it because he was extremely dedicated to filling the athletic department's coffers? He already had his contract in place, and he was hoping to parlay success here into a job elsewhere, so that wasn't it. He believed that a large, loud crowd would help to lift the team. When he finally saw big boisterous crowds in the 2009 CBI he campaigned to have large sections of the Don set aside for inexpensuve GA seating in order to duplicate the experience. Stull, knowing that season ticket holders would not stand for it, refused, but it was obvious that Barbee wanted that crowd experience full time.
There is another potential advantage to a great crowd: recruiting. Now there are several factors that go into each recruit's decision, and crowd size probably isn't at the top of the vast majority of them, if any. But other things being equal I think that there are a lot of recruits that would prefer to play in front of big crowds instead of empty stadiums.
When asked what the difference is between playing in front of 15,000 or 30,000 If the revenue is the same, I'd say it is huge. And I bet Dimel and the team would agree with me.
Now if we had played eventual champion Texas, or runner up USC, do we win that game with our great, enthusiastic crowd? No, of course not. We would have had our heads handed to us. No amount of crowd noise can overcome a large disparity of talent. But for two closely matched teams can a large, loud crowd disrupt the visiting team and help energize the home team enough to give that home team a bit of an edge? I can't prove it, but I believe so.
There are other advantages to having a large, boisterous crowd. I can guarantee that the players would rather play before a big crowd than in a stadium that resembles a tomb. Does anyone else remember Tony Barbee begging El Paso to fill the Don every time Teicher interviewed him after a game? Was it because he was extremely dedicated to filling the athletic department's coffers? He already had his contract in place, and he was hoping to parlay success here into a job elsewhere, so that wasn't it. He believed that a large, loud crowd would help to lift the team. When he finally saw big boisterous crowds in the 2009 CBI he campaigned to have large sections of the Don set aside for inexpensuve GA seating in order to duplicate the experience. Stull, knowing that season ticket holders would not stand for it, refused, but it was obvious that Barbee wanted that crowd experience full time.
There is another potential advantage to a great crowd: recruiting. Now there are several factors that go into each recruit's decision, and crowd size probably isn't at the top of the vast majority of them, if any. But other things being equal I think that there are a lot of recruits that would prefer to play in front of big crowds instead of empty stadiums.
When asked what the difference is between playing in front of 15,000 or 30,000 If the revenue is the same, I'd say it is huge. And I bet Dimel and the team would agree with me.
