Over the course of the last few months, SMU’s athletic director Steve Orsini and his team of cronies in the athletic department have been pulling out all the stops to promise a sold out football game this Saturday against Stephen F. Austin.

If you’re living under a rock, Ford Stadium is “the place to be,” according to head football coach June Jones. Everyone – students, faculty, alumni and the Dallas community – are expected to help sell out Ford Stadium at 7 p.m. this weekend. Eighteen businessmen are even promising to sell 1,000 tickets each. For the first time since 2004, it looks as if Ford Stadium could exceed its 34,000 seat capacity.

I’ll be there, anxiously waiting to see if Bo Levi Mitchell and Emmanuel Sanders can help lead the team to a winning season. But will you?

Obviously, fans want to see teams win, but the wins aren’t going to come without fan support. Think about it: the team needs you to win.

Viral e-mails, raffle drawings, live entertainment on the Boulevard and advertising campaigns have bombarded students since classes started last week; if you didn’t know there was a football game this weekend, you must be one of the quarantined Swine Flu kids. But here’s a few ideas that I think the students would really rally around. After all, it’s going to be the students who are needed to fill these seats.

Carl Sewell, our favorite SMU alumnus, how about donating a car to the most dedicated fan? The fraternity member who manages to stumble through Gate 5 from the Boulevard, keep himself positioned upright through all four quarters and still cheer for his team in a respectable manner deserves some kind of recognition from someone other than SMU PD. If he’s out there every game, enter him in a drawing to win a free car. I’m sure you have one to spare.

Administration hates the idea of Budweiser making school-colored beer cans. Students are giddy about it. I hate to say it, but college students and alcohol are like lamb and tuna fish. Where one goes, the other one follows.

Now, those legally allowed to, can drink in true Mustang spirit. Just because SMU can’t profit from the cans as they do with the shot glasses and other beverage holders sold at the bookstore, doesn’t mean it should stop students from sporting some red and blue. An even better idea, sell alcohol in Ford Stadium. Yes, we’re a dry campus, but some of the most popular college football stadiums sell alcohol and look – their students sections are overflowing.

It’s common knowledge that once the Boulevard shuts down, students flock to fraternity houses and bars to watch their favorite teams win. But why do some people stay on the Boulevard and watch Texas and Oklahoma battle it out while the Mustangs try to trample TCU just 100 feet away? Why not make these people at least leave the Boulevard so other people with nothing better to do actually walk into the stadium rather than idly spin circles outside?

Now if these ideas won’t work, and I’m not entirely optimistic they will, there’s always sticking to the age-old philosophy of promising wins, something June Jones has done on numerous occasions since the summer months.

Let’s all rally around a winning season. Go out to the Boulevard early. Get to the stadium in time to see the first kick off of a milestone year. Better yet, stay the whole game.

Nicole Jacobsen is a senior journalism and advertising major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected]