Late this coming Saturday night, Utah State will host the Air Force Falcons in both teams’ Mountain West Conference opener.
After a year-long hiatus, the series between the Aggies and Falcons will be renewed, and there have been some thrillers between USU and AFA over the years.
Will Maverik Stadium be full, what with Utah State fresh off an encouraging showing against No. 16 Texas A&M, even in a loss? It was a performance that now has USU given a better than 50% chance to make it to a bowl game this season by ESPN.
Or will it be a repeat of the Aggies’ season opener against UTEP?
Two weeks ago, the fewest amount of fans showed up for a Utah State season opener in nearly 20 years — since 2007 against UNLV, to be specific, when 15,102 were in attendance. Capacity at Maverik Stadium is 25,513, by the way.
Two weeks ago, 16,448 fans showed up to watch the first game of the Bronco Mendenhall era in person. By way of comparison, 25,513 showed up in 2013 to kick off the Matt Wells era. More than 22,000 (22,247) were in attendance for Gary Andersen’s return. And when Blake Anderson took over, 18,223 showed up to watch the Aggies in their new form.
Even last year, with an interim head coach in Nate Dreiling, who’d taken over only a month before the season started, 17,037 fans turned out.
To be fair, lack of attendance against UTEP didn’t really bother the Aggies much, winning their season opener 28-16 and making Mendenhall just one of four Aggie coaches since 1970 to win their first game at Utah State.
But after the game, reasons for the low attendance numbers were bandied about across social media.
One of the more prevalent suggestions was that Mendenhall’s decision to “lock down” the program during the spring and fall prevented fans from getting excited about and investing in the team. While the strategy paid off in that USU didn’t lose players to the NCAA transfer portal, fans wonder if it backfired within the Cache Valley community itself.
Mendenhall isn’t a believer in that particular theory. And he said Monday that he is excited to see Cache Valley embrace his team over time.
“We’d love to see the fans (out on Saturday night),” Mendenhall said. “And I don’t think the secrecy had anything to do with it (low attendance). So I see a great relationship building. I think the fans will support this team. We’ll do everything we can to represent the community and the institution, so I see it just getting better and better.”
