Football program to kick off spring drills on Saturday

UTSA will kick off its first-ever spring season on Saturday at Dub Farris Stadium. The Roadrunners will practice a total of 14 times beginning March 5 through the inaugural spring game, which is scheduled for Saturday, April 9, at the Alamodome. Included in that total are three scrimmages at Farris Stadium, which are slated for March 11, March 28 and April 4. All non-scrimmage workouts will be closed and scrimmage times will be posted on goUTSA.com the day before it is scheduled.

via Football program to kick off spring drills on Saturday – goUTSAcom: Official website of The University of Texas at San Antonio Athletics Department.

Dan McCarney stated (see UTSA Beat notebook) that all of the open scrimmages are scheduled for 7 am at Farris Stadium.

Check out our updated Future Schedules page for the practice/scrimmage schedule as well as other notable events and games in 2011.

Discuss: http://rowdyville.net/forum/index.php?topic=371

Comparing UTSA and Georgia State football

There has been some recent discussion about attendance figures for UTSA’s first season of football and Georgia State is a program that has been thrown around for comparison for a while now, and for good reason. There are a lot of similarities between the two programs, including:

Both teams play in large indoor facilities in large cities (Alamodome, San Antonio; Georgia Dome, Atlanta). Both programs brought in big name head coaches (Larry Coker, Bill Curry). Both schools are within driving distance of major FBS programs (Univ. of Texas, Univ. of Georgia). Both schools have just over 30,000 students.

However, there are quite a few differences as well: San Antonio’s population is 1,306,300, while Atlanta’s is just over 40% of that at 540,922. Atlanta is also the home of FBS-program Georgia Tech, as well as professional teams in all four major sports, while the Spurs are the only major team in San Antonio. Georgia State has elected to stay in the FCS, while UTSA has already been accepted to the WAC and the FBS. Georgia State had celebrated its 50th anniversary before UTSA was even founded (1913/1969).

With all that being said, the only area that I think that UTSA is behind in would be alumni interest, since we’ve been in existence for less than half the time as Georgia State. Otherwise, it seems like all signs point to UTSA having as much, if not more, success than Georgia State experienced this past season.

Georgia State was able to draw 30,000 fans to their first game, which was played on a Thursday evening at the same time as an Atlanta Braves home game. Coker and the athletic department have said repeatedly that UTSA expects to draw at least 45,000 and possibly sell out the Alamodome. I think that number is extremely plausible considering the larger population of San Antonio and what will likely be a Saturday game. The only thing I can think of that could drop our number by more than 1000 or so would be if the Longhorns game in Austin against Rice were played at the same time, since a lot of college football fans in San Antonio might prefer to go to the game in Austin or stay home and watch it on TV, while two other games that could have an impact on our attendance are SMU @ A&M and Texas State @ Texas Tech. There are many fans in agreement that we should try to avoid scheduling our opener at the same time as these games, but either way I think the estimate of 45,000 would definitely be possible.

UTSA is second largest school that’s never played football

Currently, the largest school that participates in the NCAA but has never hosted a football team is Utah Valley University with an enrollment of 32,670, with UTSA coming in right behind them at 30,395. However, there are plenty of schools who previously had football, but have since seen it disbanded, including New York University with an enrollment of 50,917.

Here is my full list of schools with over 15,000 undergrads who participate in the NCAA and have no football team:

School – Enrollment – Year Football Disbanded
New York University – 50917 – 1960s
California State University: Northridge – 36207 – 2001
California State University: Fullerton – 35590 – 1992
California State University: Long Beach – 35559 – 1991
University of Texas at Arlington – 32956 – 1985
Utah Valley University – 32670 – n/a
Boston University – 31766 – 1997
San Francisco State University – 30469 – 1995
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee – 30455 – 1974
University of Texas at San Antonio – 30395 – n/a (launching program in 2011)
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis – 30383 – n/a
George Mason University – 30332 – n/a
University of California: San Diego – 28748 – 1968
University of California: Irvine – 27631 – n/a
University of Illinois at Chicago – 27309 – n/a
University of North Carolina at Charlotte – 24700 – 1948 (launching program in 2013)
DePaul University – 24008 – 1939
Metropolitan State College of Denver – 24000+ – n/a
Kennesaw State University – 23452 – n/a (launching program in 2014)
University of California: Riverside – 20746 – 1975
California State University: Los Angeles – 20619 – 1978
University of California: Santa Barbara – 20559 – n/a
California State Polytechnic University: Pomona – 20484 – 1982
City University of New York: Queens College – 20000+ – n/a
University of Texas: Pan American – 17534 – 1950
California State University: Chico – 17132 – 1997
University of California: Santa Cruz – 15825 – n/a

 

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