Guess The Attendance: BC - Central Michigan

Boston College returns home to take on Mid American Conference foe Central Michigan Saturday at 1 PM. The Chippewas enter the game 2-2 overall and 0-1 in the MAC, losers of two straight, while BC enters at 1-3 overall and 0-2 in the ACC, having dropped three in a row since the opening night MAC attack win at Northern Illinois.

So how many show up to see it?

Let’s take a quick look at factors that might impact attendance:

Weather: Saturday is shaping up to be the first real fall feel football day of 2017. Showers are forecast for the morning, with overcast skies, a northeast breeze around 10 mph and a high temperature of only 57 degrees. There is generally one game a year where weather is an issue. Last year there were a couple, the first against Syracuse. Not sure we reach that level, but cloudy and cool with rain in the forecast won’t help.

Interest: Much like a conference call where no one has questions and the presenter drones on and on, I hear nothing but crickets. Whatever small buzz the Eagles had going heading into Notre Dame and then from the solid three quarter effort at Clemson has vanished more quickly than you can say 27-0.

StubHub has thousands of seats starting at $6, although to be fair, the same holds true for next week’s game vs Virginia Tech.

Add to it that Central Michigan is this year’s version of the FCS game of the year and it’s tough to say that interest is high.

Importance: You bet your booty this one is big. It’s not going to determine a national champion but for Steve Addazio’s future, it is critical. There is essentially no chance of qualifying for a bowl game without winning on Saturday and regardless, losing to a lower level MAC team (according to The Book, only Bowling Green and Kent State are below CMU) may leave a taste in Martin Jarmond’s mouth he can never get out.

Intrigue: Not really. I do believe there is interest in seeing if the Eagle offense can crank it up against any opponent and conversely if the Eagle defense doesn’t wear down against a team they should physically control. Outside that, not so much.

Visiting Team travel: Doubtful that many Chips will travel east. They don’t travel at home either, drawing under 18K in both home contests to date.

Game Time: Dependent on the weather, the 1 PM kickoff may have an impact.

Other Things: A BC-MAC history lesson. The Eagles have faced four MAC teams at home since 2010 and faced CMU twice at home overall (2002 and 2009). Trends are easy to spot as you review the list. The only year where there was not a downward trend since the 2002 game was the Kent State game in 2010, which drew slightly more than the CMU 2009 game. Got a guess as to perhaps why? Keep reading!!

MAC Games

2016 - Buffalo - October 1 - 24,203

2015 - Northern Illinois - September 26 - 30,193

2011 - UMass - September 24 - 30,176

2010 - Kent State - September 11 - 35,122

Central Michigan Games

2009 - October 31 - 34,128

2002 - September 28 - 41,826

For those of you who are curious. The low water mark for attendance in a rain game since the stadium expanded in 1994 is Army 1997 where 13,309 showed up for the final home game of the season in an ice cold rain to watch BC beat the Cadets 24-20. The low water mark for a good weather day, just last season when 22,728 were on hand to watch BC beat Wagner.

The Notre Dame factor: Answer to the quiz question (although you are certainly free to disagree on this one, I found it funny when looking at the numbers that it just worked!)...2010 was a Notre Dame home game year and historically since more people have bought either ND individual game or season tix in those years, the trickle down for other games does happen.

2017 is a Notre Dame home game year. So is it possible that Central Michigan does just a bit better than 2016 Buffalo for the same reason?

So what do you think?