Football attendance review: Johnson Hagood Stadium, the SoCon, and FCS in general

Posted on July 15, 2025 by Sandlapper Spike

This post is primarily about home attendance at The Citadel, which is a subject I’ve written about many, many times over the years. My first post on the subject was in 2009. What can I say, I’m old.

I used to write about attendance every single year, but then 2020 happened and, well…

The first part of this post is a bit of a cut-and-paste job from previous writeups on this topic, along with new and updated information. I’ve updated the original spreadsheet, and also included some new spreadsheets for the SoCon, along with a brief review of FCS as a whole.

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Here is a spreadsheet that includes attendance information for The Citadel at Johnson Hagood Stadium:

Annual attendance at Johnson Hagood Stadium, 1964-2024

The spreadsheet tracks attendance for The Citadel’s home football games and has now been updated to include games through the 2024 season. It lists year-by-year totals and average game attendance, and the win/loss record for the Bulldogs in each season. There is also a category ranking the years by average attendance.

I have also included home win/loss records for each season.

The 2020 season includes the four games played in the fall of 2020 (one of which was at home) and the eight contests played in the spring of 2021 (four of which took place at JHS). The games referenced on the spreadsheet for the 2021 campaign are only those that were played in the fall (technically some of them took place in late summer, but you know what I mean).

Other columns refer to the program’s winning percentage over a two-year, three-year, five-year, and ten-year period, with the “current” season being the final year in each category. For example, the three-year winning percentage for 1970 (54.84%) is made up of the 1968, 1969, and 1970 seasons.

I include those categories mainly to see what impact, if any, constant winning (or losing) has had on long-term attendance trends.

I have also compared average attendance for the first two games of a season to the last two contests of the same campaign, going back to the 2009 season. There are inherent sample-size issues when making such a comparison (weather, stadium construction [or deconstruction], opponent fan base, etc.), but it doesn’t hurt to see how things have shaken out. The fall 2020/spring 2021 sort-of-season is not included below, for obvious reasons.

  • 2009 [4-7 overall record]; First two home games, average attendance of 13,636; final two home games, average attendance of 11,736 (including Homecoming)
  • 2010 [3-8 overall record]; First two home games, average attendance of 10,904; final two home games, average attendance of 11,805 (including Homecoming)
  • 2011 [4-7 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 12,756; final two home games, average attendance of 12,387 (including Homecoming)
  • 2012 [7-4 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 13,281; final two home games, average attendance of 13,715 (including Homecoming)
  • 2013 [5-7 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 13,370; final two home games, average attendance of 12,948 (including Homecoming)
  • 2014 [5-7 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 9,700; final two home games, average attendance of 9,563 (including Homecoming)
  • 2015 [9-4 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 8,356; final two home games, average attendance of 12,465 (including Homecoming)
  • 2016 [10-2 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 13,299; final two regular-season home games, average attendance of 13,996 (including Homecoming); playoff game attendance of 10,336
  • 2017 [5-6 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 8,718; final two home games, average attendance of 9,496 (including Homecoming)
  • 2018 [5-6 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 9,559; final two home games, average attendance of 9,511 (including Homecoming and a rescheduled game)
  • 2019 [6-6 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 8,517; final two home games, average attendance of 9,141 (including Homecoming)
  • 2021 [4-7 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 9,503; final two home games, average attendance of 10,189 (including Homecoming)
  • 2022 [4-7 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 10,339 (including Parents’ Day); final two home games, average attendance of 10,022 (including Homecoming and a game against a non-NCAA/NAIA opponent)
  • 2023 [0-11 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 10,882 (including Parents’ Day); final two home games, average attendance of 11,016 (including Homecoming)
  • 2024: [5-7 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 9,723; final two home games, average attendance of 10,745 (including Homecoming)

Since 1964, the Bulldogs’ record at Johnson Hagood Stadium is 200-139 (59.0%). The average home attendance over that time period is 13,492. However, there has not been a season in which home attendance averaged more than 13,492 since 2012.

The current stadium capacity is less than 12,000, due to the demolition of the East stands in the spring of 2017. Thus, The Citadel will not see an increase in attendance to the levels of the early part of this century anytime in the near future (and if Charleston’s Board of Architectural Review, heavily influenced by NIMBY-ism, continues to hold up the process, the school might not get to replace the East stands until the sun turns red).

The higher attendance figures for the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s are even further out of sight.

Last year’s average home attendance of 10,225 ranked 52nd out of the 61 seasons included in this survey. The five lowest season averages in attendance have all occurred since 2014.

As always, I need to point out that the cutoff for accuracy in attendance numbers means years like 1959 (eight wins), 1960 (Tangerine Bowl victory), and 1961 (SoCon title) cannot be included for comparison in this review, not to mention any of the other years from 1948, when the most recent iteration of Johnson Hagood Stadium opened, through the 1963 season. I do not have a high degree of confidence in any “public” season attendance figures prior to 1964. ( A few skeptics might suggest I shouldn’t have a large amount of confidence in some of the numbers post-1964, either.)

It is generally accepted that the largest home attendance for The Citadel at any pre-1964 contest was for the Homecoming game against Clemson in 1948, when an estimated 16,000 fans were present for the dedication of the “new” Johnson Hagood Stadium. It is likely that more than twenty years passed before the stadium had a game attendance higher than that (when 19,276 fans attended the home opener in 1969, a 14-10 victory for Red Parker’s Bulldogs over Arkansas State).

Here are the top average attendance marks over two-year, three-year, five-year, and ten-year periods:

  • Two years: 1975-76 (18,250). Rest of the top five: 1991-92, 1979-80, 1990-91, 1989-90
  • Three years: 1990-92 (17,457). Rest of the top five: 1989-91, 1978-80, 1991-93, 1975-77
  • Five years: 1988-92 (17,126). Rest of the top five: 1989-93, 1975-79, 1976-80, 1990-94
  • Ten years: 1975-84 (16,250). Rest of the top five: 1983-92, 1974-83, 1976-85, 1984-93

Average attendance by decade:

  • 1964-69: 11,998
  • 1970-79: 15,053
  • 1980-89: 15,398
  • 1990-99: 14,955
  • 2000-09: 13,850
  • 2010-19: 11,179
  • 2020-24: 8,910

The 2020-24 period includes the 2020-21 home games. If those are discounted (as they probably should be for this exercise), the average attendance so far this decade is 10,254.

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I’ll throw in this spreadsheet as well, which charts Homecoming games at The Citadel since the first such contest in 1924. It includes attendance for all but three of those games (and every game since 1960), so it is somewhat applicable for this post.

Since 1960, The Citadel has had at least 10,000 fans in attendance for Homecoming for every game except one (8,500 for a matchup against Furman in 1965). The record for Homecoming attendance is 21,811, set in 1992 when the Bulldogs played VMI.

Homecoming at The Citadel, 1924-2024

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Now let’s take a look at the SoCon.

Here is a spreadsheet that lists the attendance numbers for all SoCon games (conference matchups only) in 2024:

2024 SoCon attendance (league games only)

(The formatting might not be ideal, but it gets the job done; at least, I hope it does.)

Last season, Chattanooga was the top overall road draw in league play. In four road games, the Mocs played before crowds averaging 10,293. Those numbers were buoyed by the location of those four contests, with the host schools being The Citadel, Furman, ETSU, and Western Carolina. Those four ranked 1-2-4-5 in home attendance for conference games.

Conversely, Mercer ranked last as a road draw, with an average of 4,171.5 fans, thanks almost entirely to playing away from home against Chattanooga, VMI, Samford, and Wofford, the four schools that made up the bottom half of the league in conference home attendance (with the Terriers bringing up the rear with an average of 3,589 fans per league matchup).

In 2022, Chattanooga played the same four teams on the road, and was the league’s road draw leader. That same year, Mercer was last as a road draw, playing the same four opponents as it did last season. In other words, the numbers probably say more about the teams they played than the Mocs and Bears.

There are a couple of things to note for 2024. Two games are not part of the home league attendance totals, due to the impact of Hurricane Helene. Furman’s home game against Samford was postponed and ultimately canceled, while Western Carolina’s home matchup versus Wofford was played before no fans (due to ongoing rescue and recovery efforts in that region).

The highest-attended league game in 2024 was Western Carolina’s home finale against VMI, with 13,022 spectators.

The lowest-attended league game (not counting the Wofford-WCU matchup referenced earlier) was, by far, Wofford’s home game versus Mercer on September 28, with an announced attendance of 1,219. Both teams were ranked at the time, and the box score listed the weather as “sunny”.

[Edit: a comment for this post alerted me to the fact that Mercer-Wofford was yet another game affected by Hurricane Helene. The surrounding area was mostly without power, traffic lights were down, and there were long lines for gasoline as well. We’ll give the Wofford community a mulligan for that one.]

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The attendance for some of these games, particular those at Wofford, inspired me to compile another chart, this one listing attendance for The Citadel’s road matchups against current SoCon schools. I decided to start with the 1997 season, which was Wofford’s first as a league member (and was also the first year Chattanooga played in Finley Stadium).

Road attendance in The Citadel’s games against current SoCon schools, 1997-2024

The above spreadsheet doesn’t feature all of the Bulldogs’ league road games over that time period, of course, as it doesn’t include former SoCon members Appalachian State, Elon, Georgia Southern, and Marshall. It also lists games at VMI when that school was not in the conference.

Some of these totals have been fairly consistent over time (the games at VMI, for example), but there has been variance over the years, and there has also been a decline in attendance in some places. The last two games the Bulldogs have played against Wofford have been noteworthy in that regard.

I’m not sure what to make of that, particularly when The Citadel has been the best “traveling” fan base in the SoCon over the last decade and a half (a subject I wrote about a few years ago). How much of that has to do with The Citadel? What about the home support?

Perhaps it just comes down to philosophical changes in how to count attendance by certain school administrations. The long-term effect of COVID-19 probably needs to be considered, as well, at least when it comes to how people now allocate leisure time. I have to wonder if there is a difference between FBS and FCS in that respect — but to be honest, I don’t really have any idea.

In 2016, the SoCon average attendance (all home games, league and out-of-conference) was 8,386. Last season, it was 8,169. That isn’t a big difference, so alarm bells shouldn’t be going off around the league. It is something worth monitoring, though.

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Finally, a brief look at FCS attendance. I wrote a lot on this subject two years ago. I’m not going over all that ground again, but I would like to make a few observations about the 2024 campaign from an attendance perspective.

Here is a spreadsheet that includes FCS home attendance for 2024:

FCS home attendance 2024

There are various columns on that spreadsheet besides the breakdown of 2024 attendance. I also included a column for 2023 average attendance, the average attendance for the 2012-2022 period (excluding fall 2020/spring 2021, and only listing the schools that were continuously in the subdivision during that time frame), and columns comparing the differential between attendance for 2012-2022 and the last two seasons.

Jackson State and Montana were 1-2 in attendance in 2024. Those two schools have occupied the top two places for most of the last decade.

The list includes two schools no longer in FCS as of 2025 (Delaware and Missouri State) and several schools that are recent entrants in the subdivision.

There were 25 FCS schools that averaged over 10,000 in home attendance last season. Of those, according to the participation release from the College Sports Commission, all opted in to the House settlement except for Holy Cross, Harvard, The Citadel, Idaho, and UC Davis.

On the other hand, 15 FCS schools averaged fewer than 2,500 fans per home game, with subdivision debutant Mercyhurst bringing up the rear (1,183 per game in four home contests).

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Okay, I think that is enough about attendance for now. Soon, there will be 2025 attendance figures to discuss…

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Shakogami!

Posted on July 13, 2025 by Sandlapper Spike

Hey, college football season is going to be here before you know it. Let’s get things started with something completely unnecessary, but kind of fun!

First, an explanation (well, maybe multiple explanations).

This post is based on the notion of Scorigami. What is Scorigami, you ask? Well, it is a concept identified and expanded upon about a decade ago by Jon Bois, one of the most original thinkers in the sports media arena. I’m not going to attempt to define his work any further than that, because it would take too long. Besides, after the better part of two decades, I’m still not sure how to fully describe it.

Anyway, back to Scorigami. From Wikipedia:

In sports, a scorigami (a portmanteau of score and origami) is a final score that has never happened before in a sport or league’s history.

Bois first made an online video about this concept in 2016; that initial YouTube creation now has over 4.4 million views and has led to many, many articles and additional videos on the subject. Even NFL Films has jumped into the Scorigami action.

A website called nflscorigami.com features a chart displaying an updated listing of NFL Scorigami. The sport of football, and particularly the NFL, is a natural for this type of (admittedly very nerdy) study because:

Due to the unique nature of how points are scored in (American) Football, where it is impossible to score 1 point on its own, as well as the rarity of the 2 point safety and 8 point touchdown and 2 point conversion, there are a lot of scores that are possible, but have never happened.

There is a popular Twitter account dedicated to tracking potential NFL scorigamis during the course of each season. Other football entities have come up with their own scorigamis, including the CFL, as well as one for college football as a whole. There have also been some variations among other sports, like the NBA. Even major league baseball isn’t immune to the joys of scorigami.

Tangent: the NFL coach most associated with Scorigami is definitely Pete Carroll, who at one point had a Scorigami in nine straight seasons with the Seattle Seahawks, winning eight of those games (including a Super Bowl). Carroll legitimately enjoyed discussion about Scorigami, as this response to a question about it demonstrates: Link

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That all leads to this post, which was inspired by a tweet from UCF’s sports media department over the weekend (after Brett “Sources” McMurphy brought it to my attention):

The first thing I thought when I saw that tweet: what a great idea! The second thing I thought when I saw that tweet: The Citadel needs to have one of its own…

As it happens, it is likely much easier to come up with a Scorigami setup for UCF than The Citadel, because UCF doesn’t have nearly as long a history on the gridiron.

The Knights (formerly the Golden Knights) have only had a football program since 1979, which isn’t surprising considering the school itself didn’t open until 1968. The Citadel has 74 more years of pigskin activity.

UCF noted that in its history, the team has been part of 368 “unique scores”, which might not be an ideal way to describe what it really means, which is that the Knights have been associated with 368 different scores. By contrast, The Citadel has been part of 474 different football scores.

That might not seem to be as large a differential as one might expect, but you have to keep in mind the scoring climate for much of the first half of the 20th century. The final score that has been repeated the most times in UCF history, for example, is 31-24, and that has happened six times in games played by the Knights.

When it comes to The Citadel’s gridiron history, however, the most common score of all time is 7-0 — and that has occurred on 22 different occasions. The last time the Bulldogs were involved in a 7-0 final, though, was way back in 1977, a victory over Wofford at Johnson Hagood Stadium.

Tangent: after that contest was over, The News and Courier quoted Bulldogs linebacker/punter Kenny Caldwell: “PRAISE THE LORD! We won that one.” As far as all-time postgame quotes from Bulldogs go, that is solidly in the top 20.

When I first started putting a scorigami chart together, I had assumed the most common score was going to be 0-0. That wound up not being the case, though there have been 15 such matchups involving The Citadel. The most recent of those is a well-known matchup, the famous (infamous?) 0-0 tie versus Florida State in 1960.

A 6-0 final has happened 19 times, while 7-6 has been the end result on 15 occasions. In general, shutouts are not uncommon, and that was particularly true in the early days; there have been 17 games that ended 14-0 and 16 more that finished 13-0. Both 20-0 and 27-0 have appeared in the endgame box score 14 times. In all, 318 of The Citadel’s 1,169 games have been shutouts (including those fifteen 0-0 matchups, which were double shutouts).

One of those shutouts, incidentally, is a forfeit victory for The Citadel over Fort Moultrie in 1912, which was officially recorded as a 1-0 final. I debated even listing that; obviously, 1-0 is an impossible score for a game that is actually played. In the end, I am including it, but on the chart it is bolded and has a note explaining the situation.

Another oddity of sorts that affected the chart was The Citadel’s 99-0 victory over Porter Military Academy in 1909, which stretched the graph almost to the breaking point. It is on there, though, the highest-scoring of all the shutouts, and by a considerable margin.

The next-largest shutout score is 76-0, which has happened twice. The Citadel has been on both ends of that one, having defeated Webber International 76-0 in 2007, but losing by that same score to Georgia in 1958. 

Tangent: that 1958 game in Athens was designated “Band Day”; according to press reports, 62 local high school bands were in attendance. I have been told that near the end of the contest, at least one (and possibly several) of the bands began playing “76 Trombones” from The Music Man, which was very popular at the time. I don’t know for sure if that is true, but I’m going to believe it anyway.

Also, I should mention that Bulldogs quarterback Jerry Nettles was quoted afterwards as saying “That will never happen again”. History proved him to be prophetic, and in the three years that immediately followed that late-season defeat at UGA, The Citadel had a combined record of 23-7-1, including a league title and a bowl victory.

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Something I want to clarify is that with Scorigami, we’re only talking about different scores, not the winner/loser. For instance, The Citadel has played two games that ended 23-20, one just last year versus South Carolina State.

The Citadel lost that game, but won a road game at East Tennessee State by that same score in 1997. Thus, the chart notes that there have been two 23-20 finals. Of course, the final score also doesn’t reflect potential overtime games; that ETSU contest was one of those.

Tangent: those readers with good memories might remember that win over East Tennessee State as the game where the Bulldogs trailed late by 10 points, but got a TD with 19 seconds left in regulation, recovered the ensuing onside kick, and then converted a last-second 52-yard field goal (by Justin Skinner) to send the game to OT. The Bulldogs ultimately won on a touchdown run by Kenyatta Spruill (who had also scored the 4th-quarter TD that preceded the onside kick), resulting in the 23-20 final.

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Okay, now for the big reveal. I’ve already spoiled it with the title of this post, of course, but I’m officially calling The Citadel’s version of scorigami…

SHAKOGAMI

I thought it was appropriate to have something distinctive (and related) for The Citadel when it comes to this exercise, so Shakogami it is. (I’m rather proud of that one, so please don’t mock it and hurt my tender feelings.)

Here is the Shakogami chart, in all its glory:

Shakogami

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A few notes:

  • You will notice the black-covered squares. Those are representing scores that cannot happen. You can’t have games in which the winning team scores fewer points than the loser, for example.
  • In the modern era of college football, you also can’t have ties. This makes the chart a bit jagged on the diagonal axis, because The Citadel has had 32 ties in its history, so some of those squares are light blue and not black. That includes finals of 22-22 and 28-28.
  • The other black squares reflect impossible scores — 2-1, 4-1, 5-1, and 7-1.
  • It is technically possible for a game to end 6-1 and 8-1, and other combinations of X-1, so those squares are open. This would require a specific set of circumstances, along with a play that would be the height of absurdity — a one-point safety for the defensive team following an offensive touchdown. That has never happened in college football history, but it is possible. (Note that this is not the same as the one-point safety for the offense after a conversion gone awry, which is exceedingly rare, but actually happened in the 2013 Fiesta Bowl, as well as the 2004 Texas A&M-Texas game.) 
  • The squares in which there have been scores are in light blue, with the number of games with that score listed inside the square. The Citadel has been involved in seven games that ended 26-7, for example, so that box is colored light blue and has a ‘7’ inside it. (The most recent of those games was a victory over Furman during the 2021 “spring” season; another was the win at Air Force in 1976, a game I wrote about a little over a decade ago.)
  • The “open” squares have a ‘0’ inside them, indicating that The Citadel has never played in a game with that final score. A few of those might stay open; it is hard to imagine a 4-2 or 8-5 final these days (though you never know). 
  • There are some really enticing potential Shakogami scores out there, though. There has never been a 16-14 game, which is really surprising. Other potential Shakogami results include scores like 24-8 and 17-6. Obviously, the chances for having a Shakogami increase markedly the higher-scoring the game.

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Sometimes, fate gets in the way of a Shakogami…

In 2015, The Citadel played VMI at Homecoming. Late in the contest, the Bulldogs led 29-14. If the game had ended with that score, it would have been a Shakogami!

However, with just seconds remaining, Tevin Floyd intercepted a VMI pass and raced 75 yards to the end zone for a touchdown, making the score 35-14. Despite that, there was still a great chance for a Shakogami, because with the PAT the score would be 36-14 — and that would also have been a Shakogami!

Alas, the Bulldogs missed the extra point. The final of 35-14 had already happened three times before (and would recur again two years later, for a current total of five results by that score).

Oh well. 

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In 2024, the Bulldogs played in three games that resulted in a Shakogami, losing two of them (to Clemson and Western Carolina). However, Maurice Drayton picked up his first career Shakogami victory when The Citadel defeated Samford 28-11.

Drayton is currently 1-6 in games that result in a Shakogami, but things are looking up. Improvement in this area is highly likely.

The modern-day Bulldogs coach with the highest percentage of Shakogamis is almost certainly Mike Houston, who in just two years roaming the sidelines for The Citadel was involved in 11 Shakogamis (in only 25 total games). Houston’s record in Shakogami action was 6-5.

The most recent Shakogami road victory for The Citadel, if anyone was wondering, was the 26-22 win at VMI to close the 2022 season.

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Well, there you have it. Is this discussion pointless? Of course not — look at all of this talk about points! [rim shot]

That said, I realize this is firmly on the esoteric side of the road when it comes to the football information superhighway. However, I also think it is an enjoyable digression, and something that can be followed going forward. At least, I intend to follow it.

The season can’t get here fast enough…

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