A brief review of FCS attendance trends: 2012-2022

Posted on July 25, 2023 by Sandlapper Spike

Last week, I published a review of home attendance at The Citadel (along with a brief look at last season’s attendance for Southern Conference games). For this post, I’m taking a look at FCS attendance as a whole for a ten-year period, 2012-22.

Of course, normally that would be an 11-year period, but I am not including games from fall 2020 and spring 2021. The COVID-era games were an obvious anomaly. A few schools played in the fall but not the spring, many played in the spring but not the fall, several played in both the fall and spring, and there were some that did not play at all.

In addition, attendance was restricted in most (if not all) areas for many of those games, and the actual accounting of attendance in some circumstances was — well, I won’t say dubious, but perhaps laissez-faire at best.

Ultimately, those games don’t reflect any trends from the past decade when it comes to attendance. I will acknowledge that the last two seasons could be considered to have been affected by the post-COVID world as well, and the statistics do bear that out to a certain extent, but I think including them in this grouping is reasonable.

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I put together an unruly spreadsheet to track FCS attendance over the past decade. Here it is:

Historical FCS attendance: 2012-19, 2021-22

The compiled statistics are from the NCAA. I had to make some corrections and adjustments, both for formatting reasons and because there were a few inaccuracies.

One thing the NCAA does in some of its reports is include stadium size and the percent capacity filled. This leads to some issues, as not all of the listed capacities are correct. There is also the occasional school that plays home games at multiple facilities (Tennessee State, for example).

I don’t really know how to evaluate stadium capacity for schools that have permanent seating but also occasionally employ temporary bleachers, or including standing room only, or have “berm” areas. For instance, Merrimack has a football facility (Duane Stadium) with a listed capacity of 3,500, but last season reported attendance of 8,147 for its home opener and 12,622 for its homecoming game.

There are other schools like this as well (East Tennessee State, Montana State, and Sacred Heart, just to name three). In general, I don’t really think comparing and contrasting capacity is worthwhile, especially when the numbers are often questionable, and so I only included those categories for the 2022 attendance tab on the spreadsheet. Incidentally, I corrected some capacity figures in that column. (I also “weighted” Tennessee State’s stadium capacity to account for its home games at both Hale Stadium and Nissan Stadium.)

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The first tab in the spreadsheet is titled ‘2012-22 FCS throughout’. That is my somewhat inelegant way of stating that the tab includes those institutions which were in FCS for the entirety of that time frame. There were 113 schools which competed in FCS for all 10 of those seasons (remember, fall 2020/spring 2021 is not included in these totals).

The average attendance for that collective ranged from a low of 7,294 (2021) to a high of 7,922 (2012). That is roughly an 8% drop-off, but last season’s attendance for the group actually rebounded to an average of 7,609.

I think a few people would be surprised at the relative consistency of attendance over that period. FCS attendance as a whole can be viewed as having declined to a greater degree, because the average attendance for the subdivision in 2012 was 8,575 (which can be seen in the spreadsheet’s tab for that season).

However, that 2012 average includes a slightly different set of schools. Appalachian State averaged 26,358 fans that year, and obviously the Mountaineers are no longer in FCS. Neither are Georgia Southern (which averaged 18,487 spectators per home game in 2012) or James Madison (22,783), among others.

The schools remaining in FCS have not collectively seen an abrupt decline in attendance. There are exceptions, to be sure, but they are on both sides of the equation, with increases (Holy Cross, Jackson State, Sacramento State) and decreases (Central Connecticut State, Lamar, Wofford).

That said, there might still be a “recovery” aspect to attendance post-COVID. Of the 113 schools in the group, 25 suffered their lowest average home attendance of this period last year. Conversely, 11 of the schools enjoyed their highest average attendance of that time frame last season (Alcorn State, Gardner-Webb, Holy Cross, Howard, Jackson State, Montana State, Murray State, Robert Morris, Sacramento State, Sacred Heart, and Texas Southern).

Of note, when taking into account all schools that competed in FCS in both seasons, 55.1% saw an attendance decline from 2019 to (fall) 2021. That is a collective of 127 institutions. For that same group, 52.0% had increased attendance from 2021 to 2022.

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Of the 113 schools that competed in FCS from 2012-22, excluding the F20/S21 “season”, Montana was the attendance leader (24,153). Jackson State was second, and the only other school to average more than 20,000 fans per home game.
21 of the 113 averaged 10K+ over that period. The ‘median’ school in the group in the time frame was Towson (6,621). Obviously, the median was a bit lower than the mean.
That median-to-mean attendance relationship is present throughout the 2012-22 era, as this chart demonstrates:
Season Average Att. Median Differential
2022 7314 5986 1328
2021 7235 5677 1558
2019 7275 6467 808
2018 7326 6189 1137
2017 7798 6762 1036
2016 7777 6537 1240
2015 7765 6594 1171
2014 7630 6636 994
2013 7870 6894 976
2012 8575 7618 957

For the 2022 season, exactly half of the 130 FCS schools averaged 6,000+ in home attendance. While the average overall was 7,314, only 37.7% of the institutions actually had attendance in excess of that number.

In 2019, 70 of 127 FCS schools (55.1%) averaged 6000+ fans per home game. The 6,000+ mark was reached by 71 of 124 (57.1%) FCS schools in 2016, and 77 of 122 (63.1%) in 2012.

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The spreadsheet also includes a tab listing the yearly attendance throughout the time period for the current (as of 2022) FCS schools. A few of them will not be in the subdivision going forward, of course (Sam Houston State, Jacksonville State, etc.). There is also a column indicating conference affiliation. While some schools changed leagues between 2012 and 2022, the listed conference is the one for the 2022 campaign.

The remaining tabs are for individual seasons. The default sort by year is for average home attendance, although the columns can be sorted in any manner.

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I’ll be posting occasionally this fall about The Citadel’s football program, and FCS in general. There won’t be a set day or time. I’m just going to wing it this year…

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Thoughts on The Citadel and transfers

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Sandlapper Spike

When I write about The Citadel and transfers, I want to first distinguish between basic types.  One of them is the three-year transfer.  It’s a little bit unusual, but not rare, for someone to spend his or her freshman year at another school, and then transfer into The Citadel.

Now, the “system” at The Citadel is designed for a four-year student.  In other words, the typical member of the corps of cadets spends four years at the school, and those four years have very specific benchmarks.  However, it is possible (and not particularly difficult) for a student to transfer in and spend three years in the corps, and have essentially the same experience as a four-year student.  Basically, the sophomore/junior years are combined.

I don’t know anyone associated with The Citadel who has a problem with a three-year transfer athlete representing the school.  I certainly don’t.  It doesn’t happen often, to be sure.  Recently Kenny Manigault, who played high school basketball in the Charleston area for Pinewood Prep, announced he was transferring from Wichita State to The Citadel. Manigault will have three years of athletic eligibility, and will presumably be spending (at least) three years in the corps of cadets.

Another athlete who will be transferring in to The Citadel is Blane Woodfin, who originally committed to Air Force, but was not admitted to the AFA (reportedly because of a physical problem).  Woodfin attended Montana State last year but did not play football, and will thus apparently have four years of athletic eligibility remaining at The Citadel, not three.

These are not transfers likely to cause any cantankerous old alum heartburn, even though Manigault called Chuck Driesell “real laid back”, which is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone call Driesell laid back.  The Citadel as an institution, as Manigault and Woodfin will soon learn (if they don’t know already), is certainly not laid back…

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However, there is another type of transfer that has been popping up more and more at The Citadel in recent years, the “fifth-year” transfer.

This started in football, where a player can transfer from an FBS school to an FCS school and play immediately.  The “trailblazer” in this category for The Citadel was Jeff Klein, a quarterback who transferred from Auburn and played one year for The Citadel (2002).

He was followed the next season by former Clemson QB Willie Simmons and ex-Duke defensive back Anthony Roberts.  Those three players played for The Citadel under former coach (and alum) Ellis Johnson.  In recent years, Kevin Higgins has had two fifth-year transfers — his son, wideout Tim Higgins (who originally played for Florida), and tight end B.J. Phillips (North Carolina).

All of these guys graduated from their original schools and played one year as graduate students for The Citadel, except for Phillips (who had two years of athletic eligibility in football remaining after graduating from UNC).

As students in The Citadel Graduate College, none of these players were members of the corps of cadets (indeed, it’s possible none of them even attended classes with cadets, as graduate classes at The Citadel are held at night).

Reports vary on how seriously these graduate student athletes attempted to bond with their teammates, tried to understand/appreciate what cadets go through, etc.  My general impression, which could be wrong, is that Simmons and the younger Higgins made an effort to try and “jell” with the team and school; Klein, not so much.  Phillips, of course, still has one year left on the football team.

These one-year-only players were not a factor in basketball at The Citadel because there was no lower classification within Division I for them to transfer to without penalty (in other words, no FBS/FCS distinction).  At least, they weren’t a factor until last year, when Joe Wolfinger transferred to The Citadel after graduating from Washington.

Wolfinger had his degree and one year of athletic eligibility in basketball remaining, and he used that year to play basketball at The Citadel, thanks to a technicality.  As this article explained:

Wolfinger will be a fifth-year senior next season and is apparently eligible to play immediately at The Citadel because he has graduated from UW and will enter a Master’s program at The Citadel that is not offered at Washington.

Wolfinger is gone, and so is Ed Conroy, but Chuck Driesell has decided to bring in his own tall transfer for this upcoming season:

Mike Dejworek, a 6-11 center from Belmont University, will play one season for the Bulldogs as a graduate student, new coach Chuck Driesell confirmed…

…Dejworek, a native of Ulm, Germany, sat out last season with a shoulder injury after playing three years for Belmont. In 2008-09, he played in 24 games and started one for a 20-13 Belmont team, averaging 1.7 points and 1.6 rebounds. He was a reserve on a Belmont team that made the NCAA tournament his sophomore season.

I presume that, like Wolfinger, Dejworek will be enterering a Master’s degree program at The Citadel that is not offered by Belmont.

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There are plenty of alums who are less than crazy about athletes competing on varsity teams without ever being part of the corps of cadets.  Ken Burger, then the sports editor of The Post and Courier, wrote about this as far back as 2003:

…the school’s old guard is very vocal about this troublesome trend. They say these young men never spent a single day at The Citadel and don’t deserve the privilege of wearing the school’s uniform. Even its football uniform…

…Over the next three months we will find out how this experiment works out for [Ellis] Johnson’s program and The Citadel. And, there will be plenty of people watching and judging from the sidelines…

…While it’s easy to say the old school should stick to the old ways, there’s another side of this controversy that can’t be ignored.

The Citadel’s military counterpart, VMI, recently left the SoCon and downgraded to the Big South Conference because the Keydets could no longer compete…

Ah, yes, the old “we just can’t compete” crutch.  Poor, pitiful puppies; how can our coaches ever win?

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First, the obvious.  Charlie Taaffe won a Southern Conference title in football without any non-cadet help.  He beat South Carolina and Arkansas and Army and Navy, and all of his players were in the corps of cadets.

Brief tangent:  Just for clarification, Taaffe did occasionally have some fifth-year guys who had already graduated and had an extra year of eligibility remaining after redshirting, but all of them had spent four years in the corps.  That is a completely different situation than the fifth-year ‘program’ I’m discussing in this post, of course.

Eddie Teague won a SoCon title back in the day, too, with members of the corps of cadets.  It’s not easy (after all, The Citadel has just those two league titles in football), but it can be done.

Meanwhile, the fifth-year recruits have not exactly led to dramatic success on the gridiron.  Klein set lots of passing records in 2002, but the team went 3-9.  With Simmons at quarterback (and Roberts in the defensive backfield)  in 2003, the Bulldogs improved to 6-6.  Tim Higgins’ one season at The Citadel came in 2007, the only season since 1997 in which the Bulldogs have finished with a winning record (7-4).

In hoops, Wolfinger did not prove to be a difference-maker last year, as The Citadel went 16-16, a season that followed a 20-13 campaign.  Wolfinger got progressively less playing time as the year went on, as he turned out not to be a particularly good fit for The Citadel’s style of play.

There is another aspect to this, the “recruited over” concern.  If you are a promising high school football player and you are considering The Citadel, should you be worried about the possibility that down the road, when it’s finally time for you to become a regular, the coach will suddenly bring in some graduate student to take your position?  Being recruited over is something normally associated with players at big-time college basketball programs, not The Citadel.

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Those are the on-field results and issues.   What about the off-the-field repercussions?

— The essence of The Citadel, the part that differentiates it from other schools, is the corps of cadets.  Our athletic teams are supposed to represent the students at the military college.  What statement is the school making when it elects to offer opportunities to varsity athletes who have never been a part of the military environment?

— For that matter, the athletic teams represent the alumni as well.  Am I supposed to identify with varsity athletes who did not go through the same experiences that I did?

— If I have misgivings as an alumnus about identifying with these athletes, just imagine how the current members of the corps of cadets must feel.

— There is also the public perception.  Many outsiders are impressed that The Citadel can compete at all with the inherent disadvantages of being a military school.  When you bring in players from outside that environment, do you know what the general public calls them?  Ringers. (So do some alums.)

At that point The Citadel becomes “just another school” in the minds of some people.  Is that something that the powers-that-be at The Citadel want?

I might add that the perception issue is magnified when the player plays a high-profile position (like quarterback) in football.  In basketball, there aren’t that many players, so almost any player is highly visible.

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Having said all that, I don’t blame any of the individual coaches for bringing in graduate students.  Coaches are trying to win.  Winning is not easy to do at The Citadel, so it’s not surprising that coaches try to work the system as much as possible.

Coaches also tend to have a narrower focus; it’s hard to expect Chuck Driesell, for example, to consider how a graduate student playing basketball may affect the school, in terms of the big picture.   Driesell is just trying to find a big man who can rebound.

The administration has the responsibility of telling the coaches to focus solely on recruiting players who will be part of the corps of cadets.  It appears that, for whatever reason(s), the current administration does not share the concerns that have been expressed by some alums.

Maybe the thinking from General Rosa and company is that one or two exceptions don’t really matter.  I don’t know.  It’s also possible that the school wants to have occasional graduate student varsity athletes, in an effort to promote the Graduate College.

I tend to doubt that having an occasional hoopster or football player in the graduate school is going to raise the profile of the CGC, although I couldn’t blame the school for trying every avenue to promote it.  The CGC is an opportunity for The Citadel to make money, which the school needs to do.

Over the past few years, the military college has gradually become simply a state school, as opposed to a state-supported school.  That’s because the State of South Carolina continues to cut back on funding for higher education (in general, the state legislature believes higher education should end after the third grade).

[Sorry for the political jibe, but honestly, our state’s lack of commitment to education is embarrassing.]

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In closing, one thing I want to emphasize is that I don’t have anything against the players who enter the school as graduate students.  They are taking advantage of a great opportunity, as well they should.  I wish them well, and I hope they are successful in class and on the field of play.  I will be rooting for them, as I do anyone who represents my alma mater.

I just wish the administration would revisit the current policy.  I strongly believe that varsity athletes at The Citadel should all come from the corps of cadets.  I know my opinion doesn’t really matter, but I also know that I’m not the only person who feels this way about transfers and varsity athletics.

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Yes, I’m ready for football season…

Filed under: Basketball, Football, The Citadel | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »