The USF student section at the home football games is dwindling. When I say dwindling, I mean it is awful. It is embarrassing.
The football team(2-2) continually shows strides of improvement and even goes as far as complimenting the students that show up game in and game out.
I see fan interaction every time the Bulls run out of the tunnel as they head straight for the students to slap high-fives.
Consistently, during post-game interviews, I’ll hear Coach Willie Taggart and a player or two say how amazing the student section is.
The team is being modest.
During the football team’s picture day, prior to the season opener, starting quarterback Mike White said the student section is the support system,and another player said he hoped to see kids from both campuses at the game.
Back in 2007, USF’s attendance reached an average of 53,000 and recorded a record high 67,000. In 2008, it was 49,000, and in 2009 ,the crowd average was 52,000.
The athletic department said more than 20,000 people were in attendance last week. Which would be based off of tickets distributed, not who actually entered the stadium. In order to reach that number, all student requests, both football teams, all media, and the entire working staff at Raymond James must’ve been counted and even then the number would still be shy.
For goodness sake, the tickets are free for students with discounts for guests. For non-students tickets are as low as $15. What more could you ask for?
During commercial breaks, prizes are thrown into the student section. If the Bulls win, you get discounted food from nearby restaurants. Last week against UCONN, I saw three boxes (yes, boxes) of T-shirts dumped into the student section. So surely it’s not because of the added perks of going to a game, which are much more than what most colleges give away.
The last game was nationally televised on ESPN and the world saw how sad attendance is for USF. I’m not talking just about the students, even though half the students left at halftime when the score was 14-7.
Defensively, it was USF’s best game and the offense wasn’t too shabby either. So, is it their performance? After already matching last year’s win total through 4 weeks, one could easily argue.
Is it the daunting 15-minute trip to the stadium which is hard for students? Because there are buses that take students for free to the home games.
Coinsidently, just one night after USF was nationally televised, ESPN featured a game in Nebraska where a record attendance of 90,000+ showed up. What does that say about their base compared to USF’s?
Which sparked UCF fans to retweet photos of the USF crowd, mocking their ability to support their team.
Now the discussion of bringing a stadium to the Tampa campus is being mentioned, in hopes of bringing more students in. But the argument is fading quicker each week as less students show up despite all the efforts from the local businesses and athletic department.
Students at USF simply do not care about their football team, unless they are a powerhouse like Jameis Winston’s Seminoles or Nick Saban’s Alabama team. Which would qualify most as a bandwagoner.
And there is nothing worse in sports than a bandwagon fan base.
