Sunday, December 20, 2009

Wyoming fans show up while Fresno fans stayed home.



New Mexico Bowl Attendance

2009 - 24,898. Wyoming vs Fresno State.

2008 - 24,735. Colorado State vs Fresno State.

2007 - 30,223. New Mexico vs Nevada.

2006 - 34,111. New Mexico vs San Jose State.

BOLD indicates the winning team.

Obviously when the hometown Lobos are playing in the bowl game but the WAC isn't doing them any favors. The New Mexico Bowl could do themselves a big favor if they brought in another conference like the Big 12 or even Conference USA. The West division of Conference USA includes: Rice, Tulsa, SMU, UTEP, Houston and Tulane. All of these schools except Tulane are within a 1 day drive.

Colorado, Kansas, Kansas State, Texas A&M, Texas, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma and Baylor would all travel well and could easily get to Albuquerque.

Fresno State brought only a few hundred fans to the game while Wyoming sold their ticket allotment. Generous Poke fans even bought extra tickets to be donated to the local Air Force base. Bulldogs fans most likely numbered around the 600-700 mark compared to nearly 5,000 Cowboy fans.

Fresno State fans moan about the New Mexico bowl and their opponent and just stay home. How do they expect a larger bowl to ever invite them if no one is going to come out and support the team?

Population of Fresno County: 931,098

Population of Wyoming: 522, 830

I'm sure there are lots of Bulldog fans that don't even live in Fresno county that could have made the trip. Fresno and the WAC are allows talking about they are disrespected. Well this could be one reason why. Have some pride in your team and support them.

Luckily ESPN had their cameras and the press box facing the Wyoming side of the stadium where there was sea of brown and prairie gold. They did their best to hide the lack of Fresno fans during the game by only showing the field from certain angles but replays showed plenty of empty sections. If you look through these pictures you can see how empty their side of the stadium really was.

The main thing is that the team and fans respresented Wyoming well this weekend. For four plus hours on Saturday the nation had a chance to see the Cowboys and they liked what they saw.

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