Rutgers & Big Ten Attendance: And the question is, who shows up for PSU

Instead of our usual approach, let’s open with this week’s home game against Penn State.

So, guess who decided that coaching goes beyond recruiting and X’s and O’s. Right.

And there’s more....

Ryan Dunleavy’s nj.com story points out that this isn’t simply ‘the team is focused this week’. No, the other Coach Jim wants a sea of white at High Point Solutions Stadium. Dunleavy points out that Rutgers fans have done a good job keeping opponents out of our red seats. I’m gonna disagree. Sure, against Indiana or Illinois it was a Rutgers crowd. But with the big dawgs, the ones with good followings?People point out the Ohio State game last year and this year’s Michigan game as examples of other schools’ fans invading New Jersey's State University. Our fan base may be wide but it also may be a bit thin.

A bit too much the attitude of "take the money and run".

The Rutgers Fan Exchange shows tickets for Saturday’s game available for as much as $240. And for as little as, uh.....hmm. Well, ya know $65 is not cheap for a seat in the corner of the endzone. And Rutgers’ own ticket site shows at least some availability in every section except the main scoreboard end of the stadium. With tickets from $90.

Meanwhile, on Stub Hub you can get a ticket to the Iowa game at Illinois for $6. Or Northwestern at Minnesota for $19.

People, don’t do it. Don’t sell those tickets...at least not to just anyone. I’ll say it just as many others say it: we all know that we’re struggling...mightily. But you can’t - you just can’t - let another school take over your stadium. And especially not the Nitty Kitties.

Week 11 in the Big Ten

The haves continued to have. Nebraska simply says, “Hey, there’s a game Saturday” and it’s a sellout. Gotta love those Husker fans. And being the guy who counts tickets at Iowa is pretty easy; just write down 70,585 every week. Okay, I stretched the truth a bit; it’s happened three times and the other two games they had crowds of 68,390 and 67,047. Maryland had its highest attendance of the season...by a bunch. Up until this week, the Terps’ largest crowd was 41,465 and they were averaging 39,845.

And then there’s Purdue.

Purdue. I’m sorry. I really am.

To date, the Big Ten has drawn 5.6 million fans for an average of 65,909 per game. Michigan leads the conference with 110,493 average attendance for its seven dates. Yes, seven home games with one more on the calendar. Ohio State (106,817) and Penn State (100,730) are also averaging over 100K per game. RU, with 43,711 sits at No. 10 in the conference attendance standings ahead of Indiana, Maryland, Northwestern, and Purdue.

This Week in the Big Ten

There are a lot of potentially ugly games this week...including the one in Piscataway. Ohio State is looking to re-affirm itself as a CFP team. Michigan and its lunatic coach are going to be re-e-e-eally ticked off after losing to Iowa; I would not want to be a Hoosier this week. Maryland...snort...at...snicker...Nebraska. Ahhhh. Yeah, right. On the other hand, Minnesota-Northwestern could be a really good match up.

As of Monday evening, the four TBD games had no times or networks on the Big Ten website.