Just to put attendance into perspective, I took a look at the attendance for some games in peer conferences. While we need to do better that 16k last night, the nearly 29k for an 11am kickoff is better than most. Here we go.
Let's start with the midweek Maction from Tuesday and Wednesday this week:
Central Michigan @ Western Michigan: 13,137
Ball State @ Akron:7,683
Miami (OH) @ Ohio: 15,940
Eastern Michigan @ Toledo: 14,997
NIU @ Kent State: 6,076
Our worst crowd beat all of those. The MAC is like a rivalry game every week and several of those were matchups of teams that were .500 or better.
Now onto some games from last week.
Navy @ Tulsa: 16,279
#2 Cincy @ Tulane: 17,012
UCF @ Temple: 19,595
FIU @ Marshal: 18,466
USM @ MTSU: 10,721
Hawaii @ Utah State: 19,219
ECU has a nice crowd of 34k or so and App had 29k or something like that.
This one really stood out. A now ranked Fresno State vs #21 SDSU:11k and some change.
While I think we need to take care of our own affairs, but this gives you a picture what what it's like in the G5 at the moment.