I don't think it was a good idea to expand. Expansions are concrete projects that are only a good idea if you can consistently fill the expanded area to capacity -- at a relatively high ticket price -- in the long-term. Just because you were able to fill it for a year or two, as was the case, doesn't mean you should have done it. Of course it may change in the future, but at the moment the Rebels have to be regretting the hell out of that. They are a small program in terms of funds anyway, and it's got to be extremely tough on them having spent so much money on that thing to be getting so little money in return (i.e. ticket revenue).

As for the local economy, I don't doubt it. It's insane, but college football has a massive impact on the economy of these college towns, particularly one as small as Oxford. Just look at 'Bama, there has easily been tens of millions of dollars spent in real estate construction just for gameday condos alone. It's just a whopping impact. If the team suffers, so does the town.

As for 2008 with Orgeron, it's crazy to think he's getting another year, but it's not like they have another viable alternative to turn to. They hired him and now they have to deal with him, for better or for worse. If they could have really hired a legitimate candidate, they would have done so instead of hiring a defensive line coach from USC. And it's going to be harder to hire now, considering they are coming off of four straight losing seasons, whereas when O was hired they were just one year removed from a ten win season.

Attendance was always below 85,000 until 2006. At that time, Bryant-Denny only held 83,818, so that would qualify. And of course prior to 1998, Bryant-Denny only held around 70,000 or so.

Honestly though, thankfully, we've always had great attendance even in the bad years. In 2000, for example, we even had 83,818 for the UCF game that year. The Auburn game in 2000 brought over 85,000 people, which despite being a 3-7 team was a couple thousand over capacity.

There have been some games were we'd be a thousand or two thousand shy of capacity, but 'Bama games have always been attended quite well. Every Alabama game since Tide Pride came into being in 1987 has been a sell-out, and that streak isn't going to change. We've been very fortunate in that sense. We're one of the few schools around that haven't had major problems with attendance in the down years.

For one, it's cool to see an Oregon fan reading a 'Bama blog.

As for the attendance of your Ducks, it has been pretty good, no doubt about that. And that's really saying something, because the Pac-10 definitely has a lot of teams that struggle to fill already small stadiums. Autzen, though, stays packed from all I can tell, and apparently it's a good gameday atmosphere.

Also, just so you know, the place looked very, very good the couple of times it has been shown on Gameday this year. It's not all that big, but it looks very good.

The situation in Oxford is just really dire, and that's all there is to it.

And honestly, I th ink it's the historical struggles that are killing them. For whatever reason, those people think they are the greatest thing in the world, and Ole Miss football hasn't even been particularly competitive -- sans 2003 -- for years and years. Even the "better" days under Tuberville and Cutcliffe were basically nothing better than mediocre-at-best. Seriously, even in those years they were essentially beaten by every good team they played, and lost some upsets to some bad teams (Vanderbilt and Memphis, for example).

Honestly, aside from '03, the last truly good Ole Miss team was probably the 10-2 team that Kinard had in his first year taking over for Vaught in 1972. Billy Brewer had a couple of pretty good teams, but they were nothing great and of course they were later hammered by the NCAA for things that occurred in that era.

MSU hasn't been great, mind you, but at least they've had a couple of decent teams that have made it to Atlanta. Ole Miss is the only team in the SEC West to have never made Atlanta, and what's worse they've really only even gotten remotely close one time (2003). The funny part is how they think they are so superior to MSU when in reality that rivalry has been essentially completely even for the past two decades. In the last 16 games against the Dawgs, they are only 8-8.

The Rebs are just legends only in their own minds, and the harsh truth is that it is a very small program with a limited budget, a very small fan base, essentially no winning tradition outside of the Vaught era, and a program with a bleak looking future ahead.