That is a good article with unbiased, but factual reporting. This excerpt is a very telling reason that we have had a harder time recruiting, in my opinion.
"Houston football never has been a big draw. The Cougars’ season-record attendance average was 37,847 in 1979, Yeoman’s final SWC title team, when UofH played in the grand Astrodome.
In 2015, when Tom Herman took Houston to the Peach Bowl, where it beat Florida State, the Cougars averaged 33,980. That’s not a terrible number in terms of atmosphere for the 40,000-seat TDECU Stadium."
That may not be a terrible number as far as atmosphere goes, but it is as far as revenue goes. Revenue and budgets make a difference when playing with the big boys. So does attendance when it comes to attendance. If you were an 18 year old HS stud with many offers, would you rather play in front of 30K in a 40K stadium or 80-100K in sold out stadiums. It is really easy to say we are in a hotbed of recruits, but not nearly as easy landing those highly sought after studs.
“Houston, we have a fan problem”. ???
Perhaps it isn’t all Pezman, Holgorsen or the coaching staff. Let’s look in the mirror shall we and determine what skin we have in the game. Sure, many of us bought season tickets and made donations but are we doing all we can to get friends, family and others to buy tickets too?
Our attendance record was set in 1967. The Astrodome still was new, our 1966 team had made the Top 25 rankings, and we went to Mich. St. and demolished them 37-7.
We were ranked #2 Nationally after beating The Spartans. That season we lead the Nation in Total Offense and Rushing Offense.
The fans came out.
Have never again approached that level of City of Houston support. The whole town supported UH.
Yea, Holgorsen does so much better in front of a lot of people.
Is the 84 team that played Flutie in the Cotton bowl not a SWC title team?
Yes it is, but I did not mention it, nor did I write the article. I just pointed out an excerpt.
Let’s get real here Houston top attendance was 37k average was around (33-35k for the 70’s) plus in Stadium that was initially built to hold 42k before the expansion in 1987 that Bud Adams demanded. So we’re talking 88% full capacity. Look at TT and the others our attendance was about the same if not better than most. I did research years ago on this matter had official game attendance of our home games. Got tired of Coog fans badmouthing our attendance records Can’t seem to find the data on the net any longer. But lost the data had on my old PC. Taken in perspective our game day attendance was pretty damn good, 88% capacity good for games imo. The Exception is, if your Looking at the UT’s and A&M’s of the world who had a much longer football tradition and larger alum base built up over almost 60-70 year headstart of playing FB than UH had. With the exception of those schools and Arkansas we held our own.
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“The Astrodome was one of the first stadiums to have luxury suites with 53 and each of the 42,217 seats in the Astrodome were cushioned.”
“Over the next two decades the Astrodome changed little. In Fall 1989, due to demands from the Houston Oilers the capacity of the stadium increased to 54,816 as the grandstands were extended into the outfield”
Great post on the history. I didn’t realize the capacity at the astrodome was 42k ish way back.
If you want the game by game attendance for all of our games from the very start, just pull up the media guide on the YH athletic website.
2022_UH_Football_Media_Guide.pdf
Open and go to page 144 for season by season game score and attendance for each game. Page 152 & 153 have attendance records. Interesting enough, the numbers don’t match some in the article, unless I misread something in the article.
42k was the original Dome baseball configuration; Cougar games ( and Oilers) were always 55k until 1988 elimination of scoreboard, when added seats total became 65k. Article writer was lazy or just didn’t do simple research.
Fact checkers on Coogfans are tougher than those on Face Book . . . . .
I seem to recall it was 55k or so
“Not only was the Astrodome home to the Houston Astros, but to two football teams: the Houston Oilers (NFL) and the University of Houston. In order for football to be played at the Astrodome, two sets of 5,010 ( that 52k for FB games) seats could be moved to form a football gridiron.” Prior to the 1988 expansion of 10k more seats increasing it to 62k more or less. The website seems to be quite correct. It was my failure to take in account the 10k temporary seats they added for FB games. During the 70 SWC days we averaged 44k plus in 77, 39k plus in 78, 37k plus in 79. Those 3 years we averaged 40k plus attendance at home games. That’s 76.9% of seating capacity for the Dome’s FB seat capacity. In the 70’s…
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Great article! The sort you would never find at the Chron!
Our highest attended home game (72k) was at Rice Stadium
I attended the 1979 UT game in The Dome.
As I recall it was SRO and announced attendance was around 55,000.
That probably is our record for a Home Game in The Astrodome.
We had many Rice Stadium games with attendance at or above 72,000.
The 1976 Aggie game and the 1977 Longhorn game were instances of such attendance. Believe the 1977 Longhorn game remains the largest attended UH game in The City of Houston.
Here is Part 2 of Tramel UH story.
Equally good.
50k for football configuration. 46k in baseball configuration
The original configuration of the Astrodome for baseball in 1965, was 42,217. From 1966 to 1989, it hovered around the 45,000 mark. Seating expanded in 1990 to 54,000, the result of a stadium expansion at the behest of Houston Oilers Owner, Bud Adams.
Those were the days when the Field Box seating for baseball were moved into a rectangular configuration for football. Until baseball season ended, the football field would have the dirt parts of the infield intact, and the pitchers mound was leveled with just dirt. After the baseball season, the Astrodome would cover the dirt portion with Astroturf. The seams from the Astroturf were an injury risk for the players. In fact, an NFL game in 1995 against the San Diego Charges was cancelled because the turf was considered unsafe.
Some of the early UH football footage at the Astrodome shows the dirt in the infield. I tip my hat to the players who played on that Astroturf. I have heard time and again it was like playing on cement.