The 2019 season saw some of the smallest crowds in UTSA football history
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As the days pass along toward the new year and a new decade the UTSA Roadrunner football team is searching for a new head coach. It's not the only thing on the Roadrunners list of things to solve.
The Roadrunners are also searching for some way to get fans back in the seats of the Alamodome next season. One thing is certain, this first decade of football has seen ups and downs for the Roadrunners when it comes to attendance. For the most part though the first decade of football for UTSA has been positive in terms of attendance.
When this decade began UTSA was averaging 0 fans a game. Of course in 2010 the Roadrunners didn't play any games. That year they had a practice season which basically meant there was a football team but it spent every week practicing, trying to build up the numbers and foundation that could compete when games began for real.
On September 3, 2011 a day long awaited in San Antonio arrived. The Alamo City had a Division I football team for the first time. The hunger was evident as 56,743 showed up for that first game. Nobody asked whether those in attendance were students, alumni or regular joes off the streets of downtown. There was excitement at finally having a football team. Even if those "UTSA Football: Still Undefeated T-Shirts" only lasted until the second week of the program.
In 2011 the Roadrunners set attendance records for startup program that will probably never be matched and that will likely not be topped by a UTSA team for a long time. UTSA led the state's group of five teams in total attendance. They also had the second highest attendance among the group of five in Texas (Houston had more but also played eight home games by virtue of hosting the Conference USA championship game).
In 2012 the new program smell hadn't worn off as the Roadrunners entered their first year at the FBS level. In the lone year as members of the Western Athletic Conference the Roadrunners continued to see good sized crowds as they averaged 29,226 per game.
2013 would be the third straight year of new beginnings for the Roadrunners. That year they arrived in Conference USA. The Roadrunners immediately showed why they would be a good fit as they led the conference in total attendance and average attendance across their six home games. Among the group of five in Texas UTSA had the largest average attendance and second highest total attendance that year.
Since joining Conference USA the Roadrunners have remained at or near the top in terms of total attendance and average attendance. Even in 2018, a year they went 3-9, the Roadrunners had the highest total and highest average attendance. Of course it must be pointed out that 42,000+ showed up for the game against Baylor and nearly 30,000 were on hand to see the Roadrunners improve to 3-0 all-time against I-35 rivals Texas State.
In 2018 the Roadrunners also had less than 20,000 in attendance at their final two games of the season, including a then-school record low 16,874 against FIU.
It is possible that in the coming years 2019 will be seen as the low point for the program attendance wise, or as a sign of things to come. After attendance figures of 26,787 and 30,718 in the first two games the turnstiles didn't click as often for the Roadrunners in 2019. In fact after the second game against Army the next highest attended game was the Rice game which had an announced attendance of 17,657.
The only other game to break 15,000 announced in 2019 was the UAB game which also marked the 100th game in program history. The second to last home game against Southern Miss set the new school record for lowest crowd, breaking the mark held by the UAB game for just over a month. An attendance of 14,179 was announced, it was probably smaller than that. A week later the Roadrunners closed out the 2019 season with an announced attendance of 14,355 to see the Birds take on Florida Atlantic.
So how did the Roadrunners go from the highs of 2011 to the lows of 2019. The truth is it is part of a larger trend in college football as most programs across both power five and group of five have seen attendance go down this decade.
For the Roadrunners in particular they may be the only FBS school in San Antonio but they have spent their existence trying to carve out a niche in a town with a wide range of alumni bases and fans of some of the major colleges in Texas as well as competing for the entertainment dollar with an NBA team during the final month and a half of the football season. For many Texas Tech, A&M and UT-Austin will always be their number one because that is where their degree is from and UTSA will be their number two because its local.
Even among the UTSA alumni base there are some who's money went to the school and who reaped the benefits of their work with a degree from UTSA but still consider UT-Austin or A&M or Tech to be their number one school. They might have attended games in the Alamodome when they were students but now they are alumni who wish to turn in the circles of friends who went to the big 3 of Texas and so will spend their money on trips for games at DKR or Kyle Field or Jones AT&T Stadium.
There are some Alumni who supported the program from the beginning but didn't like the direction they thought the program was going and slipped away quietly. There is hope they will come back with new leadership in the football program.
As for the UTSA students the fact that they change year to year means that what worked one year won't work the next in terms of trying to get them to attend games. The current students also fall into a lot of the categories of the alumni. Even though the game is free to students and a shuttle service is offered some would rather spend their weekends up the road in Austin or elsewhere in the state.
The easiest way for the Roadrunners to draw the people back in will be to win. The early years had novelty but the Roadrunners also were competitive and went 4-6, 8-4, 7-5 in their first three seasons. Since then they have gone 4-8, 3-9, 6-7, 6-5, 3-9 and 4-8.
Whoever the next head coach of the Roadrunners is will have to travel the roads of San Antonio and South Texas and spread the gospel of Roadrunner football. As the Spurs have shown for years, Alamo Citizens love a winner. They will love UTSA again.
The early years had the novelty of being new-fangled. Now the Roadrunners have dropped the new and are just another fangled university competing for eyes in the city of San Antonio and the south Texas region.
To paraphrase Terrence Mann in the movie Field of Dreams, "People will come Ray, They'll come to (San Antonio) for reasons they can't even fathom. They will find they have reserved seats. They'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters."
Of course he may not have been talking about UTSA football since it didn't exist when that movie about baseball was made but it works here. If UTSA can return to its early days when it had a competitive product and each game was relatively close the people will come.
See you all at the Alamodome in 2020.
FORUMS: UTSA Boulevard | Roadrunner Way
