Football and March usually aren’t used in the same sentence when it comes to college football.
Let’s face it, for college athletics, most people already have their eyes glued to a TV for March Madness or other NCAA events to keep them entertained during this time of the year. However, Lincoln was once again a football town this past Saturday.
Memorial Stadium was filled with 27,188 loyal members of the Husker faithful for Nebraska’s annual spring game. While this is still an impressive turnout for a March scrimmage, it marks the lowest attendance for a spring game since 2000, when 22,415 fans showed up to see the beginning of the third year of the Frank Solich era.
Some spring games in the past, even less than 10 years ago, have resulted in crowds of well over 80,000 attendees. So, what gives? Why the low turnout?
There are a couple of reasons why that may be.
There’s not much new to see here
Last year, the Huskers didn’t even have a spring game. It was instead replaced with a series of skill competitions and events meant to steer away from the annual glorified practice and make fans feel more involved.
One would think this would motivate people to come back and see the reinstallation of the game this year, but there’s just not much new to see. And that’s exactly it. The team doesn’t have a shiny new coaching staff or a young freshman that everyone has been waiting a while to see in action.
In both 2018 and 2019, more than 85,000 fans showed up for the first two years of the Scott Frost era. Before that, over 76,000 were in attendance for Mike Riley’s debut in 2015 and just over 80,000 in 2008 for Bo Pelini’s.
When a new coach comes to town, fans show up. The same was also true for current head coach Matt Rhule, who had over 66,000 supporters at his first spring game in 2023. Now that he’s in his fourth year, he understands that the team’s offseasons should look different now as opposed to when he first took over the program.
“It’s been a quiet spring for us,” Rhule said in a press conference before the game. “I think that’s good. Anytime as a football player you’re focused inward and on the guy next to you lined up as opposed to everything else [is good].”
After the game, Rhule mentioned how the 11 a.m. CT kickoff possibly kept fans from the western part of the state from coming, but he also said they will look into a potential later start time for future games.
This isn’t your typical March in Nebraska
Some say Nebraskans travel the best out of any fanbase in the country. That was put to the test this past month, not for football, but for basketball.
In his seventh year, Werner Ladder Naismith Men’s Coach of the Year award finalist and head coach of the Huskers, Fred Hoiberg, led his team to the first and second NCAA Tournament wins in program history.
The excitement for this squad had been building for months and an opportunity to see Nebraska play March Madness contests in Oklahoma City and Houston was one many couldn’t pass up.
Thousands caravaned down south for two weekends in a row. In his postgame press conference, Rhule even acknowledged the fact that “people coming back from Houston” was one of the reasons for the low attendance.
He also mentioned how some other Nebraska teams have been drawing attention lately. Husker softball is ranked No. 9 in the nation and hosted No. 7 UCLA for a three-game series this past weekend. No. 19 Nebraska baseball is undefeated at home and also played this past weekend against Indiana. Perhaps more attention was put on the diamond than the gridiron on Saturday.
Overall, a spring game or any scrimmage of the like is not defined as a success by its attendance. Most players were, of course, grateful that fans came out in the first place.
“Insane,” UNLV transfer quarterback Anthony Colandrea said postgame when asked about the fans. “It’s crazy to come out and Husker Nation’s insane, right? They’re wild. They get after it, but it’s awesome to play in front of them.”
Nebraska fans will have to wait until this September for the Huskers to run out of the tunnel in Memorial Stadium again, but in the meantime, many might have to catch a rerun or online highlights from the game this past weekend.