Tennessee ultimately wasn’t able to live up to expectations in the 2016 football season. That didn’t stop the fans from coming out in droves, however, to support what was one of the most anticipated Vol teams in recent history.
According to stats put out by the NCAA on Monday, Tennessee finished third nationally in “all attendance” for the year, a stat that accounts for every ticket that was sold to home, away and neutral-site games that the team played in.
When broken down into average per game, only Michigan had a higher average since Alabama’s total came over the course of 15 games as opposed to 13 for Tennessee. Tennessee’s total attendance was given a huge boost by playing in the Battle at Bristol against Virginia Tech, a game that drew a world-record football crowd of 156,990. Playing a bowl game in Nashville that drew 68,496 also helped Tennessee’s cause.
Neyland Stadium, which is currently the fifth-largest college football stadium in the nation (102,455) helped Tennessee attract the sixth-highest average home attendance in 2016 with 100,968.
There was plenty to be disappointed about for Tennessee in 2016, but fan support clearly isn’t one of them.
