With the Stanford football team opening the year with a 1-2 record, attending football games is no longer the number-one priority for most students, a sentiment student leaders and administrators hope will change by Big Game Week.

Bob Carruesco, assistant athletic director and director of marketing, estimates that about 1,500 students attended last weekend’s game against the University of Oregon,

About 1,500 student All AXE-cess passes have been sold so far, he said.

Carruesco notes that it is still early in the year and more tickets will be purchased as Big Game nears. When the match-up is held at Cal he reports that about 2,500 student football tickets are sold, and when the game is at home, they’ll sell between 3,000 to 3,500 tickets.

During New Student Orientation, the Athletic Department held “Cardinal Fan 101” in the Stanford Stadium. About 1,000 students attended the event — which included appearances by members of the football team, the Dollies and the Band — to learn the importance of supporting student athletics.

“It is very important to us to mobilize student interest in all Stanford athletics,” Carruesco said.

Students who purchased the All AXE-cess pass also received free T-shirts from the Red Zone, the new student football fan section.

“The Red Zone is a great idea and a lot of people are optimistic about this season,” said senior Chris Holt, public relations manager for the Band.

However, junior Katie Fogelsong, head yell leader, said she sees room for improvement.

“In comparison to previous years, student attendance is always high during the beginning of the football season,” she said. “Few freshmen have ever been to a Stanford game, so it’s new and exciting for them. But we’ve got nothing on the good old days when students could bring kegs into the Stadium. Back then, filling the stands was never a problem.”

Holt reported that the Band has been doing its part and notes this year’s exceptional recruiting class for the Band and yell leaders.

“The Band is the embodiment of student spirit,” Holt said. “We take it upon ourselves to rock out as much as we can. By increasing the number of people who are crazy and passionate, we will benefit everyone.”

In order to further address the issue of student attendance and school spirit, the Freshman Dean’s Office formed the Big Game Week Committee in 2004. According to Krista Zizzo, the director of outreach and assessment, the committee is a collection of about 30 students representing various groups around campus with ties to Big Game events, such as the Axe Committee, Ram’s Head Theatrical Society and members of the ASSU.

“These groups already do a number of things related to Big Game,” Zizzo said. “The goal was to get all these groups around one table to talk about what they do and to coordinate their efforts.”

Last year, the committee focused on improving attendance at the Big Game Bonfire. Through their efforts, attendance jumped more than tenfold, from about 100 to 1,300 people.

The committee met yesterday evening to discuss plans for the weeklong festivities. Their major concern is ensuring that students will be on campus and will attend the 108th Big Game, which falls the Saturday before the week-long Thanksgiving Break.

Among the attendees were sophomore Danny Arbeiter, Axe Committee financial manager and ASSU Senator, and junior Troy Steinmetz, a student staff member in the Freshman Dean’s Office. Both said they saw Big Game as the cornerstone of school spirit.

“There are a lot of football fans on campus and a lot of people who could be fans,” Steinmetz said. “If we give students the resources and tools to be good fans, it will improve the culture and make people want to go to games.”

The committee discussed a number of themes and ideas to energize students for Big Game during the preceding week. Ideas included increasing the amount of red around campus, not just in Stanford clothing, but also possibly by dying fountains, temporarily painting structures around campus and convincing people to dye their hair red.

“We want people to wake up the Monday morning of Big Game week and see a physical transformation on campus,” Steinmetz said. “This way, they’ll know for sure that something is different that week.”

The committee looks forward to the renovation of the Stanford Stadium next year which will make the games more intimate and bring fans closer to the playing field. They said they are optimistic that their efforts will pay off in the end and increase overall school spirit.

“Big Game stands on its own,” Arbeiter said. “It is the grand daddy of school spirit. Even if we don’t win every game in the regular season and win Big Game, we’re still a winner.”