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[QUOTE="Scooch, post: 5142, member: 628"]
More color to BK's excellent original post... here are SU's attendance figures going back to 1964:

[URL]http://suathletics.syr.edu/sports/2008/4/23/sufootballhomeattendance.aspx[/URL]

If you consider our "modern" era from 1987 onward, it's clear that every time the program dipped just a little from past performance attendance fell rapidly.

We had a great run attendance-wise in '88, '89 and '90, but of course '90 was that 7-4-2 year.  Low and behold we drop over 3,500 people per game in '91 (with that inexcusable 35K for the opener against Vandy).  We have another stellar three year run from '92-'94 and then a 4,500 person drop in '95.  Same thing with a strong 4-year run in '96-'99, and a drop of 3,600 in 2000.

So, what this tells me is that we always lose around 4,000 fans the moment the program is perceived in the slightest disappointing way.  But we also have gotten them back when things improve.  This is why I'm optimistic, even though we'll get 38K tonight and people here will lose their collective .  Crawl back into the top 25 and we'll be back in the low 40s.  Win more than that (which is what we did in those glory days) and we'll be back in the mid/upper 40s, which is obviously our ceiling.

My only concern, which Chip has spoken to, is that the home schedule is weaker than those days.  No Miamis, Virginia Techs, etc.  So we REALLY need to be good and carry our own water, because the marquee opponents aren't out there like they used to be.
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