Big Ten Attendance: 106,795 -- that's a lot of red...and pink

Thanks to reader/commenter patelj27b, we were able to find a piece from Ryan Dunleavy on the ten largest crowds to ever watch a Rutgers football game.  To no one's surprise, they were all on the road.  And eight were at ttfp. But only one, until this year, had a crowd exceeding 100K.  And that was at Tennessee in 2002 (103,925).  And only one was a victory (at ttfp in 1988).

Neyland Stadium

Well, add one more game to the list, displacing a ttfp game.  It was over capacity at the Horseshoe last Saturday as 106,795 people, the largest crowd ever to watch Rutgers, saw Urban Meyer push the envelope in order to gain points with the CFP committee.

Those 100,000 seat stadiums

There are eight college stadiums - all on campus - with seating capacities over 100,000.  Three are in the Big Ten, four in the SEC, and one in the Big XII.  Four of them were in use this week. Go to the top ten (see chart) and you "drop" into the 90,000 range.

Whenever people start talking about stadium expansion at Rutgers, there needs to be some tempering of the crazed enthusiasm.  The reality is, there are only eight college stadiums in the country over 100,000 and only another ten on-campus facilities that are over 80,000.  That's 18 stadiums out of 62 P5 schools with stadiums over 80,000. The average seating capacity in the Big Ten is 73,017, and that is taking into account three over 100K and another at over 92K.  If Rutgers ever does expand, it does not need to go much over 60,000.  It does need suites and "luxury" seating, but even 80,000 is over board.  As I wrote in an earlier piece, if #TheBirthplace needs 80,000 seats, take a drive up the Turnpike.

Attendance 'round the Big Ten

According to the announcers from the World Wide Leader, there were an estimated 10,000 Hawkeye fans who made the trek to College Park for the UI-UMd game.  Comments made were that there are those in the far west who are going to enjoy the eastern games with side visits to New York, Baltimore and DC.  Sorry, Philly.  Sorry, Newark.

Watching a little of the Northwestern-Nebraska game, it looked like at least the same number of Husker fans made it to Chicago.  By the end of the game, there was pretty much only red in the stands.

All five contests in the B1G were Homecoming events.  And, for the most part, the attendance reflected that. But look at Indiana - playing Michigan State! - and Maryland.  Both had under 90% capacity.  And Indiana by a good amount.

Schadenfreude, or our new weekly look at Syracuse (and, in this case, ACC) football attendance

It was fifth place Syracuse traveling to sixth place Wake Forest. They were a combined 4-8 on the season, and 0-4 combined in conference.  The battle of Titans would see someone break free from the throes of (even worse) ineptitude.

Cuse RT @scarknight: Paging @EmptySeatsPics: "@MinkNate: Haven't seen a crowd this sparse since West Lafayette. pic.twitter.com/K6QkEeThCL"

— On the Banks (@OTB_SBNation) October 18, 2014

The Demon Deacons were averaging 27,524 for their first two home games against, admittedly, less than top tier opponents. But that's still almost 10,000 less than Northwestern (if you want to compare "smaller" private schools).  The 'Cuse was obviously a premo ticket in the Winston-Salem area as the attendance exploded to 25,107.  Wait, you're saying that's less than they drew against Army?  Oh, gosh.  So, maybe New York's College Team isn't SU but Army.  A big draw in North Carolina.