August 4, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
Despite Lobos' success on field, sale of season packages slow
By Greg Archuleta, Journal Staff WriterThe 2008 college football season is less than four weeks away, and the University of New Mexico begins practice Monday with a glaring weakness at a key position.
The Lobos must replace two All-Mountain West Conference first-team wide receivers. They must find four starting offensive linemen and replace a consensus All-America kicker.
Yet, none of those positions is as vital to the program's success as the one that, despite the school's aggressive recruiting tactics, continues to elude UNM.
The position is that of rabid Lobo football fan. Or rather, rabid Lobo football fans.
"This is the longest period of time the football program's been consistently competitive," 11th-year coach Rocky Long says. "To move to the next level, where you gain national recognition and you have a chance to go to a (Bowl Championship Series), you also have to show great fan support.
"Our fan base is getting bigger as we go, but I don't think it's a rabid fan base, yet."
The 2007 Lobos won nine games, the second most in the program's 109-year history. The season included New Mexico's first bowl victory in 46 years.
In the past five years, UNM has compiled a 36-26 record. That's better than such storied programs as Alabama (33-30), Notre Dame (33-28) and Texas A&M (32-29) over the same span and just one game worse than MWC stalwart Brigham Young (37-25).
The 2008 schedule begins with home games against TCU, Texas A&M and Arizona. UNM gave up a $1.8 million payday to move the Texas A&M game to San Antonio, Texas, for the sake of the fans.
Yet the school continues on the same pace in season-ticket sales as last year, which finished with 14,785. The 2007 figure is the lowest in five years, more than 2,600 off the school-record pace of 17,404 in 2005 and more than 3,000 off the goal of 18,000 for 2008.
"To me, one of the most significant keys for us in getting the program where it needs to be is drawing much larger crowds on a consistent basis," Lobo athletics director Paul Krebs says. "I think our fans have to rally around this program. They have to help us be more successful. They have to buy more season tickets. We need the kind of support in football that we traditionally have on the basketball side."
Lobo men's basketball is king in the Albuquerque community in terms of fan support. Even the women's team has held the position of queen of the community nicely under coach Don Flanagan.
Long points to one major factor in the basketball programs' favor:
The Pit.
"I think when they built the Pit and had an NCAA national championship in the Pit (in 1983), it established a tradition that was related to New Mexico," Long says. "Whoever had the idea to build the Pit was pretty smart."
Rich Cellini agrees. Cellini currently is a play-by-play announcer for The Mtn., but earned a Ph.D. in sports administration at UNM in 1997 and worked in the Lobo media relations department.
"I love going to University Stadium," he says, "but the Pit is one of the great venues, for anything, in the country and in my opinion the best one for college basketball. Then, you look at them having Final Four there, with who (winning North Carolina State coach) Jim Valvano was. Whenever you mention him, the clip you're going to see is of him running around on the Pit floor. Those are parts that are branded into people's minds."
Cellini even suggests he's not sure even a one-time BCS appearance would put the football program on par with men's basketball in local popularity.
He thinks basketball's popularity transcends the Pit.
"I think part of it is that there are certain states that have favorite sports," he says. "For whatever reason, it seems the favorite sport in that state is basketball. Look how popular the state (high school) basketball tournament is, compared to the football and baseball playoffs."
Judging strictly by Lobo football and basketball crowds, Cellini is right. Fans almost invariably begin to file out of University Stadium midway through the third quarter — even in tight games.
If UNM is losing, especially to an opponent deemed inferior, they exit in droves.
Men's basketball fans don't leave with 15 minutes left in the second half — which would be the equivalent of the exodus commencement in football.
Hoops fans started to have a cavalier attitude in the nine-year, post-Dave Bliss era, but Steve Alford needed less than one season to make the Pit the place to be again.
UNM doesn't have the resources — or the need, thanks to a relatively sparse population base — to turn University Stadium into a venue that stands out nationally.
The school hopes to begin renovations to the west side of the stadium after this year's New Mexico Bowl as part of a plan to expand the facility from 40,000 to 50,000 seats.
"We're looking at renovations that'll be phased in over the next year to five years," Krebs says. "How quickly we get each piece of it probably is a function of budget and how much work we can get done each offseason."
Until then, the Lobos have to sell themselves. They're picked to finish fourth in the MWC in 2008, behind BYU, Utah and TCU. BYU and Utah already have established school records in season-ticket sales in July.
UNM has a two-time All-MWC first-team running back in Rodney Ferguson returning. Quarterback Donovan Porterie, who became the first Lobo to throw for 3,000 yards in a season since Stoney Case in 1994, returns for his third year as a starter.
The team also boasts arguably the best defensive secondary in the MWC with senior cornerbacks DeAndre Wright and Glover Quin and junior lobo backs Ian Clark and Clint McPeek.
The aforementioned holes the team must address on the field will keep Long conservative in his approach in lavishing praise on his team before the season starts — when prospective season-ticket buyers will pay attention the most.
In 2005, an enthusiastic Long said during the preseason that he had his most talented team and had perhaps the best chance of winning a conference championship for the first time since 1964.
Season-ticket sales shot through the roof; UNM sold 1,700 more than the previous season's school record.
After starting 3-0, the Lobos had a series of strange and heartbreaking losses to finish 6-5 and distinguish themselves as the only UNM team since 2002 not to earn a bowl invitation.
Season-ticket sales have declined in the following two seasons.
Krebs has increased coaches salaries, increased the recruiting budget and begun upgrading facilities to improve the football program. Marquee names are on future UNM's home schedules to entice flighty football fans.
Cellini says he believes if fans are rabid for Lobo basketball, the potential's there for the same support for football.
"Let's treat 'em like kids," he says. "They're different, but you love them both."