The Week 3 Big 12 college football attendance numbers came in after this weekend’s games and it was a strong showing across the board, except for one team: The Houston Cougars.
Granted, Houston had the weakest opponent of the home teams in Week 3, but it was a dramatically lower showing from the Cougars faithful than the rest of the Big 12 teams.
Here’s a breakdown of Week 3 attendance numbers.
Big 12 Football Week 3 Attendance (Percentage capacity in parenthesis)
- Texas Tech vs. North Texas: 57,865 (95.72%)
- Kansas State (vs. Arizona): 51,290 (102.58%)
- TCU (vs. UCF): 48,889 (106.28%)
- Baylor (vs. Air Force): 46,212 (102.37%)
- Houston (vs. Rice): 28,146 (70.37%)
- Kansas (vs. UNLV): 21,493 (102.35%)
The Houston game only filled 70% of the stadium on Saturday when the Cougars hosted Rice. Now this is, unfortunately, nothing new for UH, which has had trouble filling the stadium since joining the Big 12. Some of this certainly ties back to the team’s inability to win games, but that’s not the only reason.
Houston’s season opener only drew 25,750, which is less than the team had on Saturday vs. Rice.
Houston is also a pro sports town, so there is a ton of competition for sports dollars from fans, but it is still a disappointing to see this to start the season for the Cougars.
Houston has Big 12 games at home against Iowa State, Utah, Kansas State and Baylor. Three of those teams should be in the running for a Big 12 Title, while Baylor is an old Southwest Conference match up that should have some enthusiasm. Hopefully Houston draws well for each of these games. And progress from Willie Fritz will also continue to get the fans more engaged.
