Boston College at UMass: 5 Big Questions
By Joe Micik
Nov 2, 2013; Foxborough, MA, USA; Northern Illinois Huskies head coach Rod Carey watches from the sideline as they take on Massachusetts Minutemen during the second half at Gillette Stadium. Northern Illinois defeated Massachusetts 63-19. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports
We all have things we want to know about the upcoming Boston College at UMass football game on Saturday. The answers are free.
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We have waited a long time for football to return, and by virtue of it being first, we have thought about this game for a while. Yet, among the questions we will not be answering today: (1) Who is going to win? (2) Who put the UMass gear on the Flutie statue? (3) No, seriously, who’s going to win?
Boston College at UMass: 5 Big Questions
5.) Fancy a guess on the crowd size and composition at Gillette on Saturday?
The average attendance for UMass home games last season — probably including concessions employees, Team Ops security, and janitors — was 15,830.
The Minutemen topped out at around 21,700 for the Miami of Ohio game, which is kind of random considering how terrible both teams were, but barely got ten thousand fannies in the seats for their only home game against a ranked team, Northern Illinois (pictured above).
Expect an attendance of around 20,000 or so on Saturday, but the real question is this: how many will be UMass fans? If you said less than half, you might be right. Considering that Gillette is about an hour closer to Boston College than it is Amherst, Superfans should outnumber the handful of UMass students that make the trip, not to mention a fair number of Eagles alumni are planning to go.
Technically, this is a road game, sans the home-field advantage for the “home” team.