Watching the Appalachian State vs. Troy game this weekend and I was struck by how many fans were in attendance. The stands looked packed and according to this article it was the 4th largest crowd in the history of their stadium. App State shares a lot of similarities with us. Both are situated in rural college towns of similar sizes. Both playing in G5 divisions, although App State is in the mighty Sunbelt. Both teams have had a run of successful seasons, although they have been better, record-wise. (yes, our last two season weren't that great, but we weren't exactly packing the house before then, either.)

What are they doing that we aren't that results in such a big home crowd? What can we do as a university to get butts in the seats? I understand that today's college football is more about TV deals than it is about home attendance as far as money going to your football program, but there's something to be said about people actually wanting to come to your games and the gameday atmosphere on Saturday if there is a large crowd.

Bear in mind that I don't know much about App State. Maybe they consider Troy the bitterest of rivals? I guess they just moved up to FBS in the past 10 years. Is it the newness of FBS combined with their success? Troy and App State are about 7 hours apart so its not exactly LA Tech vs ULM (i.e. the geographic closeness driving attendance.) I know Gameday being there had a lot to do with it, but apparently they are also routinely among Sun Belt leaders in attendance.