What? UCLA is top 30 in football attendance

The headline is not a typo. I repeat: The headline is not a typo.

You wouldn’t know it from watching UCLA Bruins football games on television, or even being in attendance yourself, but according to a new ranking for attendance for every FBS football program, your Bruins rank inside the top 30 nationally in attendance.

College Football News recently took the time to analyze the five-year attendance average for all 130 major college football programs and found that UCLA’s average over those five years has been 57,074.80 people in the stands. That’s the 27th-best mark nationally.

Though it’s only 70.80% of the Rose Bowl, that still is enough to rank higher than West Virginia, Miami (Fl.), Texas Tech and other big-name programs in the Power-5 conferences that routinely see large crowds on attendance over the past five years.

It’s also larger than the crowds that Oregon sees on average. Larger than the thousands that pack Arizona State games.

In fact, it’s the third-best average number of people in the stands in the Pac-12, behind only Washington (20th) and USC (22nd).

So, why does it seem like there’s no one in the stands?

Well, looking a bit deeper, you see that, of the top 30 teams, no school fills a lesser percentage of their stadium than UCLA. Actually, of the top 30, no team fills less than 85% of their stadium compared to UCLA’s 70.8%.

Digging a bit deeper, of the top 50 programs, only Cal has a lower stadium-filling percentage than UCLA as the Golden Bears sit firmly at 69.57% of their stadium being filled on average.

Perhaps, that’d be a better way to rank them?

Nevertheless, the top 10 shook out as such:

1. Michigan
2. Ohio State
3. Penn State
4. Alabama
5. LSU
6. Texas A&M
7. Tennessee
8. Texas
9. Georgia
10. Nebraska

The full list is here.