DeonThomas
- South Carolina
I'm with you. 41,798Any guesses on how many tickets we can sell for Saturday? I'm the eternal sucker I mean optimist, so I am hoping for over 40,000. Here is what we have pulled for the last several years:
2021: 41,064 vs. Nebraska (Saturday at 12:00 pm)
2019: 30,654 vs. Akron (Saturday at 11:00 am)
2018: 31,898 vs. Kent State (Saturday at 11:00 am)
2017: 42,505 vs. Ball State (Saturday at 11:00 am)
2016: 48,644 vs. Murray State (Saturday at 2:30 pm)
2015: 36,693 vs. Kent State (Saturday at 2:00 pm)
I know Nebraska brought a good chunk of fans and they are a Big Ten opponent and all ... but as sad as this is, we actually saw a huge bump for Bret's first game! Also interesting the huge spike in attendance when we switched from Beckman to Lovie.
I'll be a sucker/optimist again and predict that enough fans will like the 3:00 pm start time, weather will be good and there will be some hangover excitement from last year's near-bowl season surprise to push our attendance just past 40,000.
* 5-7 and a near bowl game last year
* Upsets over Penn State and Minnesota
* Bielema year 2
* Favored to win by Vegas
* Anticipated gorgeous weather
* New Offensive coordinator and (probable) new QB
* Hot shot young Defensive coordinator
* Alumni flying-in from out of state may drop $2500 for the weekend, so I'm thinking those in the surrounding community will certainly shell out $10-15/ticket for 5 hours of tailgating and an Illini victory!
Sorta surprised we don't already have 15-20 pages in this thread.......(are we off in our prognostication?)