Thanks for your responses everybody. A couple of things:

We are in the MAC and that isn't going to change. We need to figure out ways to get students to show up for Kent, Akron, Eastern, Buffalo, etc... We can't just throw our hands up and wait for another Pitt or UConn to show up. Look what that Marshall game did for our players, our recruiting, etc... The players feed off of that energy.

For my iphone/android app, I think the technology hurdles (jailbroken iphones, fake GPS coordinates, etc...) can easily be detected. You can probe the operating system and ensure that the phones are not jail broken. For instance, load program with a fake signature that would normally be rejected by the OS. If it's installed, then it's jailbroken and that user is disqualified.

JSF raised the point that not every student has a smart phone. That is true, but I don't think anyone would deny that within 5 years  almost everyone will have phones that can run 3'rd party mobile apps. So I still think it's a good idea.

If only we could sell beer. This would be a total non-issue. Instead, we'd be brainstorming how to keep students from streaking.

I think we overestimate the impact beer sales would have.  How many students are 21?  25% ?

Your avatar is funny.

You can't drink too much at UC games though. You really need the clarity of mind and sober dexterity to fend off the guy trying to steal your car after the game.

(Number of times on UC campus: 2. Number of times had car broken into: 1).

Mr. Gallagher, your point is well taken. But I have to conclude that students at every university face the same dilemma that you do in dividing your time, including Notre Dame, the Big Ten, etc. I don't see the stadium emptying out at halftime at those games. Maybe part of it is that Peden is too close to the dorms and students haven't made a real time or cost commitment to attend a game. Do the students only have to show ID to get in?

"Homecoming 2009/2010 -  Had been drinking all morning, started sobering up at the game and didn't want that so we left."

Dayvid, I appreciate you posting reasons you left; it helps us understand the issues better.  But, the reasoning I'm quoting above drives me crazy!

Don't mean to be pedantic, but it's sad when alcohol becomes such a controlling factor in peoples' lives.  That to me goes far beyond appropriate social drinking.  Sounds like addictive behavior.    

Have to think Giacomo makes a good point...you don't see this happening at BCS programs.  Perhaps half the students who attend just don't value MAC football.   

OTOH, thanks to the core group of students who do stay.

Don't want Prohibition.  Doesn't work.  

What...a person can't wait another hour and half to support your school at their football game because you're sobering up and "can't let that happen"?  Where are the priorities? 

You and a few other posters are making a very good point.  This could be a bigger factor than I had imagined. 

If I had had to pay for a seat, I probably wouldn't have gone to half the games I did.  Free entertainment is still the best bargain.

And I don't think the stadium's location has much to do with it.  We walked from Lakeview (past the South Green) and didn't mind.

Start times may have a lot to do with it.  Back in the day when games started at 1:00 or 1:30, you could wake up at 11:00 after the Friday night party, grab a beer and banana for breakfast, go to the game, and be ready to party by 5:00.

If the location is a problem for some, offer free shuttle service before the game from South Green and College Green, with return service after the game.    Maybe more will stick around until the end. 

One of my favorite Yogi Berra sayings is, "If people don't want to come out, you can't stop 'em."  Well, maybe if people don't want to stay past halftime, you can't stop 'em.  There might not be a solution.

OU students look at atheletics as a form of entertainment more so than as a commitment. Peden is like a house party, or a bar on Court Street, students will stay as long as they're having a good time, but if there's a better time to be had somewhere else, thats where they'll go. The score, the record and even the opponent aren't going to make much of a difference. Itss nothing personal.

Truth is, part of the appeal of going to a school like OU is that its not full of jock lovers like those in the Big 10 and SEC. Maybe my view is a little skewed because I was on campus during the Lichtenberg years but I think its going to take more than winning 8-9 games for a few season in a row to change a culture thats been around for decades.

Game experiences and other public events have already been diminished by the crowd frequently checking their digital devices and calling or texting people. I don't think you can effectively combat what is largely an attention-deficit and gadget-oversaturation problem by employing the most technological solution you can think of.

People used to leave OU football games early because the team wasn't good, and it became a peculiarity that people saw as an endearing badge of a college that had more important things to do. It carried over and got perpetuated by so many other games being televised and by people spontaneously organizing their whereabouts by mobile phone.

The University of Missouri's journalism school, which is supposedly one of the best in the country, recently tried to require its students to own a specific digital device (an i-pad or an i-phone, as I recall). I view this headlong rush toward every so-called communication innovation to be a poor substitute for older methods and perhaps even a distracting hindrance. It's a way of focusing on minutiae, and it doubles as a tracking and control grid.  

Don't feed the monster. Also, a heads-up you won't get too many places - microwave radiation can alter cellular DNA. It's called electrophoresis. 

I do think that there might be a creative, effective way to better retain butts in seats at Peden, but it would be less intrusive and annoying to swipe ID cards, and I'm not sure that having people "punch in" one way or another is a great approach. 

Not that anybody cares, but when I was an Ohio student -- back in the Dark Ages of the 1960s -- we went to the games and unless it was a real blowout stayed to the end.  We had enough self-restraint to wait until after the game to hit the Court Street bar scene.  Oh yes, a few enterprising students figured out ways to sneak booze into the stadium, but for the most part we went to football games to actually watch the game and to root for our school.  What a crazy, antiquated notion that seems to be.