#25 UVA is set to host Florida State on Saturday night in front of a national-TV audience, if you count an ACC Network that a lot of folks still can’t watch as a national-TV audience.
Either way, ranked ‘Hoos, brand name in Florida State, talk all over the place in the walk-up about how there should be a big turnout.
Which got me to thinking: when’s the last time there were 60,000 fans in Scott Stadium?
Here we go:
- 2018? Ha! Not even close. Sorry, not to be rude, but, no. The biggest home crowd was 43,128 for UNC on Oct. 27.
- 2017? We played Virginia Tech at home, so … no. Not even the Hokies buying up a bunch of tickets could push us past 48,609.
- 2016? We had 49,270 for the opener with Richmond, Bronco Mendenhall’s first game at UVA. Which we lost, 37-20, and it wasn’t that close. Only got above 40K once the rest of the season. Which probably should happen when you get blown out by an FCS team in the home opener.
- 2015? Close. Notre Dame drew 58,200. The home finale with Virginia Tech was disappointing again. Just 53,777. C’mon, Hokies. Y’all can fill up our stadium better than that.
- 2014? We only got 44,749 for the UCLA opener. That’s … awful.
- 2013? We were actually over 50K three times, for the opener with BYU (53,310), Week 2 for Oregon (58,502) and the finale with Virginia Tech (52,069).
- 2012? Penn State got us 56,087. Sensing a pattern here. We can’t even fill the stadium up with name opponents like Notre Dame, Oregon, Penn State.
- 2011? We have our winner. The home finale with Virginia Tech drew 61,124. That one featured two ranked teams, and a UVA team that, with a win, would have won the Coastal Division. My buddy Scott German would want an asterisk with this one, because Tech fans were out in droves that night, but … I say don’t look the gift horse in the mouth.
It’s been eight years since we’ve had as many people at a home UVA Football game as some are expecting for Florida State Saturday night.
So, somewhere deep down, we remember what it’s like to be in a full stadium (technically, the capacity at Scott Stadium is 61,500, though we somehow had 64,497 for the USC game in 2008, but that was the first season of the reseating fiasco that killed the goose laying the golden eggs.
Quick aside there: Scott Stadium averaged 59,824 fans per game in 2007, the least season before the reseating nonsense. In 2018, UVA averaged 39,705 fans per home game.
Yikes.
It’s been awhile, is the bottom line.
Story by Chris Graham
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