MSU Spring Football Attendance

I was reading around on Darren Rovell's Blog (which is one of my favorites BTW) and he had a short listing of some of the attendances of spring football games around the country. Much to my surprise, Michigan State was pretty high on the list. Here's the schools that Darren had listed:

• Nebraska: 80,149
• Ohio State: 76,346
• Penn State: 73,000
• Florida: 60,000
• LSU: 33,624
• Virginia Tech: 30,000
• Michigan State: 27,000
• Missouri: 26,322
• Oklahoma: 23,306
• Wisconsin: 22,000
• West Virginia: 18,000
• Colorado:17,800
• Rutgers:14,501
• Illinois: 12,531
• Kansas: 7,500
• Idaho: 5,100
• Utah: 4,500
• Arizona State: 3,000

After this piqued my interest, I did a little more digging and I found these figures from around the Big Ten at Spartan Tailgate:

• Illinois — 12,531
• Iowa — 13,352
• MSU — 27,000
• Ohio State — 76,000
• Purdue — 9,500
• Penn State — 73,000
• Wisconsin — 22,000

Overall, this looks very good for MSU. I'm shocked that places like Oklahoma could only draw 23,306. I haven't checked the weather, but I would have to assume there was a tornado ripping through town for the number to be that low.

Back to MSU, while they aren't on the same level as Penn State or Ohio State (we'll give Michigan a pass this year since they were at a high school this year) It seems that MSU might be at the front of that next tier. Wisconsin has had lots of success the past couple of years and they were a few spots behind MSU. And same on the Illinois fans. They just went to the Rose Bowl next year, and look to be an up-and-coming team, and all they could manage was 12,531!

I'm not even going to mention Arizona State. They just were co-champions of the Pac-10! 3,000 people?! Practically 3,000 people go to the Haslett vs. East Lansing girls softball game!

Overall though, nice work by the Dantonio staff on building excitement for this upcoming football season.