Utah State football might drop to DI-AA if attendance at home games do not reach 15,000. Under the NCAA rules , all DI-A schools must average 15,000 in home game attendance once in a rolling two-year period or they will drop to DI-AA.
USU is among several universities that could lose their DI-A status. This is a problem because dropping to a smaller division means having to play smaller schools farther away and the university would lose money on smaller games.
Not reaching the 15,000 quota might affect USU football in other ways as well. Kent Stanley, the associate athletic director of USU said, “With the attendance figure being relatively new I don't know of anyone being penalized besides becoming bowl ineligible which could happen if you miss your numbers on consecutive years."
At topix.com many students and patrons of the sport post ideas of ways to increase the attendance at games. ASUSU Athletics VP, Lance Brown has been thinking of ways to increase attendance at USU football games. “We put on fun and exciting tail gate parties to get people out and to the games as well as giving away scholarships at the game,” said Brown.
Aside from having appealing tail gate parties to go to, many students just don’t want to go to the football games. Junior, Greg Boyels, majoring in journalism said, “People don’t want to watch a losing team play. Give us a winning team then attendance will increase."
This season the average attendance has exceeded 15,000, but with three more home games to come USU football might be at risk of dropping to DI-AA.
