Here is my curiosity: Oregon game in Seattle? 11/21

[Wasichus]

Here is my issue... why do you need a big time team to come and play? Are you going to cheer for them? Who are you going to watch???

I dont care who WSU plays. I go to watch the COUGS!!!!

As a personal issue.......sure, I agree. After all, I went to each one of those bleeping Seattle games. But I have gone to pretty much all the Coug games, home and away, that I have been physically able to attend, for decades now.

The opponent matters when one is trying to make the overall "special event" a success, not when you are preaching the game to the die-hards.

 

[BiggsCoug]

As a personal issue.......sure, I agree. After all, I went to each one of those bleeping Seattle games. But I have gone to pretty much all the Coug games, home and away, that I have been physically able to attend, for decades now.

The opponent matters when one is trying to make the overall "special event" a success, not when you are preaching the game to the die-hards.

Overall, which is more important.... playing and winning or playing and losing?

Cause the big time P5 team people wanna see WSU play likely means WSU losing by 3 or 4 touchdowns and not being competitive.

The SEC has laid out the blueprint on how to win. Why schools deviate from that is mind numbing.

Play 8 league games. Play 4 non con games at home. Never leave campus if you dont have to. Always have fans and alums at your stadium as often as possible. Keep your kids off buses, air planes and out of hotels.

I have zero issue with WSU playing 8 home games every year. Cant make them all? That’s ok. Not every fan has to come to every game. Make a new season ticket package. Pick 4 of 8.

Shipping games to Seattle drew 1 conclusion. WSU fans in the Puget Sound wont come to Pullman and they wont go to Seattle either. Focus on Spokane, Tri Cities, Yakima and see what happens.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

Overall, which is more important.... playing and winning or playing and losing?

Cause the big time P5 team people wanna see WSU play likely means WSU losing by 3 or 4 touchdowns and not being competitive.

The SEC has laid out the blueprint on how to win. Why schools deviate from that is mind numbing.

Play 8 league games. Play 4 non con games at home. Never leave campus if you dont have to. Always have fans and alums at your stadium as often as possible. Keep your kids off buses, air planes and out of hotels.

I have zero issue with WSU playing 8 home games every year. Cant make them all? That’s ok. Not every fan has to come to every game. Make a new season ticket package. Pick 4 of 8.

Shipping games to Seattle drew 1 conclusion. WSU fans in the Puget Sound wont come to Pullman and they wont go to Seattle either. Focus on Spokane, Tri Cities, Yakima and see what happens.

I agree with the sentiment if not all of your conclusions. WSU is not well suited to 8 home games. It's remote location and small population base means that unless we are a perennial Top 10 team, we aren't filling the stadium 8 times per year.

Also, SEC teams do play games at "neutral" sites pretty routinely. Alabama has played in Dallas, Orlando and Atlanta in recent years , Auburn has played in Atlanta and Dallas, LSU has played at New Orleans, Dallas and Houston, Georgia and Florida always play in Jacksonville, Tennessee has played at Charlotte, Bristol, and Nashville.....and on and on. They definitely work to control the narrative though.

 

[425cougfan]

A conference game in Seattle was, and is, a bad idea. I could get comfortable with an OOC game in Seattle every 3 or 4 years, when the novelty factor would cut in favor of strong attendance, especially if on a weekend that would be tough to draw in Pullman (e.g., Labor Day weekend) and would be likely to have good weather.

 

[COUGinNCW]

A conference game in Seattle was, and is, a bad idea. I could get comfortable with an OOC game in Seattle every 3 or 4 years, when the novelty factor would cut in favor of strong attendance, especially if on a weekend that would be tough to draw in Pullman (e.g., Labor Day weekend) and would be likely to have good weather.

This

 

[95coug]

Here is my curiosity - why has this thread not already died a quiet death?

 

[FnuLnu]

Here is my curiosity - why has this thread not already died a quiet death?

Because every argument here is actually about Wulff.

And because to many of his supporters the 2011 Seattle game vs Oregon State was Wulff's Waldengrad.

Ensured the end of the Wulffian Caliphate or second Walden Reich (take your pick).

If Wulff doesn't get humiliated on the big stage his argument for contract extension is strengthened.

So the Seattle venue and not "The Plan" to blame. (Lobster was main target for awhile but too obscure a figure and had more wins as starter than Tuel)

 

[Flatlandcoug]

Because every argument here is actually about Wulff.

And because to many of his supporters the 2007 Seattle game vs Oregon State was Wulff's Waldengrad.

Ensured the end of the Wulffian Caliphate or second Walden Reich (take your pick).

If Wulff doesn't get humiliated on the big stage his argument for contract extension is strengthened.

So the Seattle venue and not "The Plan" to blame. (Lobster was main target for awhile but too obscure a figure and had more wins as starter than Tuel)

I'm very happy with your post. Enough time has passed that it feels like 13 years instead of only 9 years since the OSU debacle in Seattle.

 

[etowncoug]

Because every argument here is actually about Wulff.

And because to many of his supporters the 2007 Seattle game vs Oregon State was Wulff's Waldengrad.

Ensured the end of the Wulffian Caliphate or second Walden Reich (take your pick).

If Wulff doesn't get humiliated on the big stage his argument for contract extension is strengthened.

So the Seattle venue and not "The Plan" to blame. (Lobster was main target for awhile but too obscure a figure and had more wins as starter than Tuel)

Hilarious.

2014: Loss to Rutgers
2013: Loss to Stanford
2012: Loss to Oregon
2011: Loss to Oregon St.
2009: Loss to Hawaii
2008: Loss to Oklahoma St.
2007: Win over SDSU
2006: Win over Baylor
2005: Win over Gambling
2004: Loss to Colorado
2003: Win over Idaho
2002: Win over Nevada

The results speak for themselves. Making a few extra bucks against an opponent that typically doesn't draw is fine. However, we found ourselves in a position where no one wanted to play us in Pullman when Seattle was theoretically an option.

 

[Observer11]

Because every argument here is actually about Wulff.

And because to many of his supporters the 2011 Seattle game vs Oregon State was Wulff's Waldengrad.

Ensured the end of the Wulffian Caliphate or second Walden Reich (take your pick).

If Wulff doesn't get humiliated on the big stage his argument for contract extension is strengthened.

So the Seattle venue and not "The Plan" to blame. (Lobster was main target for awhile but too obscure a figure and had more wins as starter than Tuel)

Masoleums have more energy than the Rutgers game at the Clink a couple years back during Leach. His refusal to run the ball inside the 2 sucked any other energy out.

Popcorn guy was a Leach era creation.

Seattle games suck upon sucking. The only decent one was the first year vs. Nevada. Doba, Wulff, Leach - all suck Seattle games.

Leach took sucking in Seattle to another level by tacking on ambivalence toward the Apple Cup.

 

[CougPatrol]

The Seattle game has become so polarizing among our fans, that much like politics these days, there isn't a middle ground.

1. Some fans feel that the answer to overcoming historically poorly attended home games is to move them to Seattle. Labor Day, home games the weekend before home Apple Cups, etc.
   
2. Many other fans, because the game was poorly executed during WSU's dark age, will never open their minds up to the prospect of playing an occasional game there again.

My take on the Seattle game is that we'd be fools to completely shut down the idea completely, but I also don't think that we should ever play CONFERENCE home games in Seattle.

An occasional Seattle could, and probably would work; particularly with social media fan pages blowing up like they have over the past decade. There are some scheduling quirks where a Seattle game makes sense.

Some years, we face situations where we have a glut of home games tightly clustered together. In those situations, for example where we have Eastern WA, BYU, Arizona, and Nevada in a 4 or 5 week span of each other, it makes sense to consider moving a game to Seattle.

There's also an occasional opportunity to negotiate an OCCASIONAL kickoff classic game in Seattle against a formidable opponent. I'm not a fan of scheduling too many bigtime P5 opponents to begin with, but facing Wisconsin or Kansas State or Boise State in Seattle would be marketable opportunity to consider.

Also, looking a year ahead to the 2021 schedule, we have BYU scheduled at home on an oddly placed October 23rd date. Now, depending on how the conference schedule sandwiches that game, it may or may not make sense to play the BYU game in Seattle; for example, if we have conference home games the week before and/or after the BYU game.

I guess my longwinded point here is that it would be a shortsighted business decision to completely shut down the idea of EVER playing another game in Seattle. There are certain situations where doing so makes sense, and with a saavy athletic director, you could even remove a Seattle "home game" from the season ticket package.

 

[Observer11]

I also think it is tragic to take away a weekend on the Snake River for students who would be forced to make a choice between going to the west side for Labor Day or running around scantily clad enjoying college life.

That's just wrong depriving them of educational experiences.

 

[95coug]

The Seattle game has become so polarizing among our fans, that much like politics these days, there isn't a middle ground.

1. Some fans feel that the answer to overcoming historically poorly attended home games is to move them to Seattle. Labor Day, home games the weekend before home Apple Cups, etc.
   
2. Many other fans, because the game was poorly executed during WSU's dark age, will never open their minds up to the prospect of playing an occasional game there again.

My take on the Seattle game is that we'd be fools to completely shut down the idea completely, but I also don't think that we should ever play CONFERENCE home games in Seattle.

An occasional Seattle could, and probably would work; particularly with social media fan pages blowing up like they have over the past decade. There are some scheduling quirks where a Seattle game makes sense.

Some years, we face situations where we have a glut of home games tightly clustered together. In those situations, for example where we have Eastern WA, BYU, Arizona, and Nevada in a 4 or 5 week span of each other, it makes sense to consider moving a game to Seattle.

There's also an occasional opportunity to negotiate an OCCASIONAL kickoff classic game in Seattle against a formidable opponent. I'm not a fan of scheduling too many bigtime P5 opponents to begin with, but facing Wisconsin or Kansas State or Boise State in Seattle would be marketable opportunity to consider.

Also, looking a year ahead to the 2021 schedule, we have BYU scheduled at home on an oddly placed October 23rd date. Now, depending on how the conference schedule sandwiches that game, it may or may not make sense to play the BYU game in Seattle; for example, if we have conference home games the week before and/or after the BYU game.

I guess my longwinded point here is that it would be a shortsighted business decision to completely shut down the idea of EVER playing another game in Seattle. There are certain situations where doing so makes sense, and with a saavy athletic director, you could even remove a Seattle "home game" from the season ticket package.

My thoughts on some of your thoughts:

I'm generally against the Seattle games. Aside from the first one, the atmosphere and turnout both sucked. There didn't appear to be any significant value in it to recruiting or in luring any additional donations or sponsorship.

Part of most of those problems was that it turned into an every year game, which it wasn't supposed to be in the beginning. I think the first one went so well that the AD decided it always would be. Wrong guess.

I think the scheduling quirks you mention are relatively rare, which would make scheduling it in Seattle more difficult due to the "short" timeline. The quirks would also have to align with schedules for the Seahawks and Sounders - and preferably also with the Mariners - which makes it still more difficult.

I'm not sold on the idea of using it for "bigtime P5 opponents." That idea was tried already, and it didn't work. Worse, it ensured that the "better" opponents wouldn't even consider coming to Pullman. If Seattle is on the table, that's the only place they'll come. To which some will say 'better to play them in Seattle than to not play them at all.' But...is it? If we pay their 'appearance fee' to come to Seattle, so that the game actually costs us more than it brings in...is that really better?

Playing BYU in Seattle would effectively turn it into a home game for them. No.

The Seattle game was never in the season ticket package, so I don't follow your logic there.

I may be willing to entertain the idea of a Seattle game again if:

1. NO conference game is moved to Seattle;
2. We change our overall scheduling model to minimize travel for non-conference games;
3. As a result of #2, we have 8 home games in some season (never more than every other season, due to Pac-12 scheduling)
4. Among those 8 home games, we have:
   1. 3 or more consecutive home games, at least one of which is a non-conference game; OR
   2. A non-conference game on the Saturday before Thanksgiving; AND
5. One of those games aligns with a UW road game (so we're the only game in town on Saturday)