Smoke is here to stay:

If Smoke is given another year, I would expect similar changes. I'm not saying he needs to be in the CWS next year, but if we go back to back years without hosting a regional. Man, why can't LSU keep all three sports in the national spotlight?

I remember when I was coming to LSU one of my goals was to attend a CWS while still a student. I guess that won't be happening. :bncry::bncry:

 

an older article by Carl DuBois prior to the Vanderbilt series concerning fannies in the seat. http://www.2theadvocate.com/sports/lsu/featured/2790436.html?showAll=y


According to the article, 43% less people were entering the box this season than were attended two previous seasons ago. The average attendance this season was only 2,597 people per home game. If Laval is back and the figures drop another 43% that would result in an average attendance of only about 1,481 people per game. While I don't think it would actually drop another 1100 people per game, I could easily see LSU averaging 2,000 people or less next year if no changes were made on the staff. As such, I think this will play a key in what DuBois article in today's advocate had to say concerning the LSU baseball program under Smoke.

Empty feeling
Fans not packing 'The Box' this season
By CARL DUBOIS
Advocate sportswriter
Published: May 12, 2006
Advocate staff photo by PATRICK DENNIS LSU and Southern played before 724 fans at Alex Box Stadium on April 4 in a day game that was originally scheduled as a night contest. However, that day's crowd was the smallest of coach Smoke Laval's five-year tenure at LSU. Season-ticket sales have remained strong, but actual attendance has dropped 43 percent in the last two years.
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For the second consecutive season, attendance at LSU home baseball games is in sharp decline. Through 34 games, ticket scanners recorded 43 percent fewer fans entering Alex Box Stadium than for the same number of games in 2004, the last year the Tigers reached the College World Series.
Despite selling nine more season-tickets this season than in 2001, LSU’s last season coached by Skip Bertman, and despite leading the nation in ticket sales for the last 10 seasons, the Tigers are playing in front of dramatically smaller crowds.
In 2004, LSU drew 155,059 fans to its first 34 home games, including three regional games. This year’s 34-game total is 88,301.
“The freshmen probably don’t understand it, but I’ve noticed it because I’ve been here the past four years,” LSU senior catcher Matt Liuzza said. “I know what type of crowds can come out here. It’s discouraging not having the big crowds, but that comes with winning and losing.”
The Tigers open a three-game Southeastern Conference series tonight against Vanderbilt, LSU’s last homestand of the regular season.
LSU, which is fighting for a spot in the SEC tournament, faces the possibility of failing to play in an NCAA regional for the first time since 1988.
Even if they receive a regional bid, the Tigers might be away from home for the postseason for the first time since 1989.
That’s a prospect LSU fans find unappealing.
“If we’re having a bad year, they’re not going to come out here,” Liuzza said. “We had a good weekend at Auburn, and if we get off to a good start against Vanderbilt hopefully we can get the fans to come out here Saturday and Sunday.”
Herb Vincent, a longtime employee of the LSU athletic department, is a newly promoted senior associate athletic director who oversees baseball operations. He said there are a lot of reasons for a drop in attendance in any sport, and baseball experienced more than its share this season.
“There was no buzz about baseball in the month of March, and there were a number of reasons,” Vincent said.
The LSU men’s and women’s basketball teams reached the Final Four in the same season for the first time in school history. That weekend, South Carolina played LSU in a three-game baseball series at Alex Box Stadium, drawing 8,316 fans.
That was down from the 11,432 who saw LSU play Mississippi State in a three-game series a week earlier.
Vincent said LSU’s slow start in SEC play — the Tigers lost four of their first nine conference games —was a blow to attendance.
“We lost three SEC series in the month of March,” Vincent said. “In April, we won three and lost one. I ask myself if you flip-flop that, if you have more success early and have some of those losses later in the season, does it get you the momentum that you need to start building crowds?
“I think that’s what happens. If you get some momentum and you start building some crowds, more people will come.”
Less, not more, come to the games these days.
During Bertman’s farewell season five years ago, LSU averaged 4,680 fans per home game. The average this season: 2,597.
LSU sold 6,486 season tickets this year, nine more than for Bertman’s last season, and sold an average of 7,289 tickets for the first 34 home games.
The average number of no-shows per game: 4,692.
Other factors
LSU’s nonconference schedule had little marquee appeal, although Stetson is a strong mid-major program and North Florida an emerging Division I program expected to be a perennial contender in Stetson’s conference. Tennessee Tech and Temple rank near the bottom of the division in Rating Percentage Index, a power-rating system.
Houston, the nonconference opponent with the biggest box-office name, is a frequent visitor to Alex Box Stadium, as are midweek nonconference opponents from throughout Louisiana. Their ability to generate excitement probably peaked years ago.
Bitter cold — the worst early-season case of it in years — also hurt LSU attendance. Much of the sharp decline this season can be traced to night games and games played in the rain during February and early March.
That explains part of the decline, but not all of it. College baseball attendance is victimized by cold weather every season, which is one reason the NCAA plans to delay the start of future seasons. The move is primarily designed to help level the playing field for northern schools, but the NCAA hopes a corollary benefit will be larger early-season crowds.
One sign LSU’s attendance woes aren’t limited to winter factors is this: Through 12 home SEC games, which are played later in the season when the weather generally improves, the Tigers have played in front of 38,743 fans, the lowest total of the decade through the same number of games.
Through 12 home SEC games in 2004, LSU drew 55, 517 fans. In 2001, the number was 59,882.
Customer dissatisfaction
The Advocate regularly receives e-mails, letters and phone calls from people who say they are LSU fans who have stopped attending games because they think Smoke Laval is the wrong coach for the program. A survey of dozens of those readers in the last month found none willing to go on the record for this story.
Terry Williams, a long-time season-ticket holder from Baton Rouge, said he agrees with those who think LSU could find a better coach, but he said he’ll continue to attend games.
“I love baseball and I love LSU,” Williams said, “and that’s why I keep coming.”
Vincent wouldn’t comment on whether the LSU athletic department considers falling attendance figures a referendum on the coach in any sport. He said it’s not easy to detect trends in any given season or couple of seasons because there are so many factors at play.
“With victories comes attendance,” Vincent said, “although sometimes you can win and wonder why fans still aren’t coming out. The coach’s responsibility is to run the best program he can and to win games and to graduate players and do those things, and if you reach the levels of success that you want, then the attendance should follow.”
He said LSU officials continue to ask why men’s basketball doesn’t draw more fans. Because of LSU’s sophisticated ticket-scanning system, the athletic department is able to identify fans who consistently fail to show up despite having season tickets.
Fan dissatisfaction with coach John Brady is a common reason bandied about on talk shows, and in that sense the parallels with Laval and the baseball program are somewhat striking. Still, Vincent said it’s erroneous to think attendance dips can be easily explained.
“A lot of it, obviously, has to do with team performance, but a lot of times it doesn’t,” he said.
Laval has 86 regular-season SEC victories in five seasons, tying him with South Carolina’s Ray Tanner for the most in the conference in that span, but LSU fans tend to grade more on the postseason than the regular season. The school won five national championships from 1991-2000, setting a lofty standard.
Since the last championship in 2000, LSU hasn’t won a game in Omaha, Neb., site of the College World Series.
Laval coached LSU to College World Series appearances in 2003 and 2004, but the Tigers were 0-and-2 each time. Each time, South Carolina eliminated LSU from the CWS.
In 2004 and 2005, the Tigers were 0-and-2 in the SEC tournament, and last season LSU failed to win a regional for the first time in 11 seasons.
Laval shrugged off a series of questions about the drop in attendance, but he said large, enthusiastic crowds at Alex Box Stadium help the Tigers.
“That’s got to give you the goose bumps,” Laval said. “Without a question. It affects your team and the way they play.
“The one good thing on the road at Auburn was they kept playing ‘Eye of the Tiger,’ and we thought we were at home.”
Vincent said LSU will continue to market the program and put the best possible product on the field, and he said he expects the attendance numbers will get back to more familiar levels.
Sales vs. no-shows
LSU leads the SEC — and probably the nation — in ticket sales for the 11th consecutive season. The SEC and NCAA release those figures—which are considered “attendance” in the record books, after the season.
The Tigers sold 247,812 tickets, including season tickets, for the first 34 home games. With more than half of those going unused, Arkansas leads the SEC in attendance — actual fannies in the seats — with 121,487 fans through 23 home games.
Arkansas sold 161,694 tickets for those games, so it has far fewer no-shows than LSU. The Razorbacks’ average attendance per home game — 5,282 — is more than double LSU’s average of 2,597.
In fact, LSU’s per-game average of no-shows — 4,692 — is not far from the Arkansas per-game attendance average.
Vincent said LSU will continue to try to educate fans about online options for selling and buying season tickets that would otherwise go unused.
The school tries promotions designed to attract fans, but they don’t always help.
Last month former LSU second baseman Warren Morris, the hero of the 1996 national championship game, returned to sign autographs before a Saturday home game. A crowd of 2,304, second-lowest for an SEC game at Alex Box Stadium this season, turned out that afternoon.
Vincent said LSU isn’t considering downsizing the plans for its new stadium, scheduled to open in 2008, because of recent attendance dips.
“You look at the long-term future of your program,” Vincent said. “I don’t think you take a microscopic view of what’s happening today or yesterday.”
He also said LSU is putting together as aggressive a bid as ever to have a regional at Alex Box this season, if possible.
“We would anticipate the same kind of crowds for regionals that we’ve had in past years,” Vincent said. “You’ve got to figure that if we get a regional, that means we’ve closed the season with some real success and fans will get excited. We’ll build some momentum, and I think we’d have some great crowds for those regional games.”
Vincent said no-shows don’t affect LSU as much financially as fans might think. Season-ticket sales remain robust, and that money is in the bank.
“It doesn’t have a big impact on the revenues of the program,” Vincent said, “and the way our concessions contract is structured, there’s not a big impact upon the money we receive for concessions either. There’s a guarantee, plus a share above that, but because of the guarantee, there’s not a big impact based on the number of people that actually show up for a game.”
Last homestand
Vincent said he hopes good weather and recent success help attract larger crowds this weekend for the series against Vanderbilt.
“We got off to a slow start in the SEC season, and now that we’ve won six of our last seven games, we’re down to our last home weekend of the year,” Vincent said.
Liuzza said fans play a big role. He said players work hard during road games to keep from noticing the taunts of fans of the opposing team, but most of the time it’s difficult to do.
A catcher, Liuzza said pitchers receive the most abuse from fans, and sometimes it affects player performance.
“You try not to let them get in your head, but the fans do,” Liuzza said. “Fans definitely disrupt the game, which they should do.”
Liuzza and six teammates will be honored during Senior Day ceremonies Saturday. He said they know the weekend series could mark their last games at Alex Box Stadium.
“I’m going to go out there and leave it all on the field,” Liuzza said. “I want to leave Alex Box with a victory. Hopefully we’ll be back here for a regional, but if not we’re going to try to go out by winning this series.”

 

That's a drop of 66,758 fans in 2 years. If each of fans were at the baox and spent an average of $20. for concessions and such, that would be
$1,335,160. Wow!

 

I say Skip the Smoke and start rebuilding now. :geauxtige

 

Skip says ya'll need to give Smoke a break.

 

I'll give Smoke a break when I get a refund for the trash that was LSU baseball this year. Otherwise, I'm not satisfied with the product that is on display and will voice my displeasure.

 

I don't think replacing a few coaches will help solve any short and long term problem. LSU is still considered a plum job especially with the new stadium. With that said, LSU needs to terminate Smoke and the Gang.

 

Yea I would agree that they "hit a deep fly going, going, going gone.

 

I don't think so.