With spring football practices winding down at colleges across the country, Georgia appears to have locked up the No. 2 spot in the spring-game attendance rankings.
Yes, everything gets ranked in college football – even spring game attendance.
Nebraska is going to win the spring attendance crown, having drawn an announced 86,818 for coach Scott Frost’s debut on Saturday. The Cornhuskers sold out their spring game one day after tickets went on sale in February.
No. 2 on the list: Georgia, which drew an announced 82,184 for Saturday’s G-Day game in Sanford Stadium.
The rest of the top 10, according to figures compiled by NBC Sports' College Football Talk: Alabama (74,732), Penn State (71,000), Tennessee (65,098), Florida State (60,934), Clemson (55,000), Florida (53,015), Oklahoma (52,102) and Texas A&M (48,129).
(Nine teams have spring games remaining, none of which figure to challenge for the upper echelon of the attendance rankings.)
Caveat: As with announced attendance for almost all sports events, the spring-game attendance figures should be viewed skeptically. (A Knoxville News Sentinel report said Tennessee's announced figure "appeared to be a farce," with the actual attendance "closer to 40,000.") But Georgia's crowd was huge on Saturday – if not literally the announced figure, seemingly close to it.
UGA had said early last week that the Sanford Stadium seating capacity would be limited to 78,000 for the day because construction had closed the seating sections behind the west end zone, but later said that figure didn’t account for suites. In any case, Sanford Stadium appeared essentially full early in the game except for the closed sections and a small number of empty seats near the top of the 600 level.
As for the Bulldogs’ No. 2 ranking on the spring attendance list, that ultimately could affect an even more closely followed list: the recruiting rankings.
Discussing the big G-Day crowd with the media Saturday, Georgia coach Kirby Smart said: “... The impact it has on recruiting, I can’t tell you how many recruits are out there going, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it, I can’t get over it.’ ”
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