BYU football: Fan event in St. George huge success for Cougars

BYU football held an open practice and Fan Fest over the weekend. By all measures, it was a huge success for the Cougars.

BYU football went from Provo to St. George, Utah over the weekend. The Cougars held an open practice at Dixie State and then a BYU Fan Fest.

More than 5,000 people showed up to catch the first glimpse of BYU football’s 2017 squad.

That number is insane. There’s no two ways about it. It’s extremely impressive.

The drive from LaVell Edwards Stadium to Dixie State College is 260 miles and three hours and 40 minutes.

Sure, BYU football has fans throughout Utah, and the United States… but getting more than 5,000 fans show up four hours from your home city… for a practice… that’s impressive.

To put that number in perspective, the Jon Wilner of the Mercury News took a look at 2016 spring game attendance.  He was analyzing the difference between spring game attendance in the Pac 12, SEC and Big Ten. While he discovered that the Pac 12 is really lacking in that department, check this out.

Utah’s spring game attendance: 6,300.

BYU football’s open practice/Fan Fest that was nearly four hours from LES: 5,000+.

According to Wilner, that’s better than Arizona (1,500), Cal (2,000), Stanford (2,500) and Washington State (4,129). It’s on par with Illinois (5,000), Purdue (5,050) and Colorado (5,100).

The event was also a recruiting tool for Kalani Sitake and his staff.

Four-star tackle prospect Penei Sewell was also in attendance. Sewell, a 6-foot-4 and 320 pound standout at Desert Hills High School in St. George, also has offers from UCLA, USC, Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Oklahoma, Notre Dame… the list goes on and on and its a who’s who of college football. Among his 22 offers are ones from BYU and Utah.

For what it’s worth (probably not much), the Cougars were in on Sewell back in April of last year – one of the first schools to offer him (along with Utah).

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But it seemed to be much more than a recruiting tool or change of scenery for the Cougars.

“It means a lot,” senior linebacker Fred Warner said in a press release. “It means so much to see the type of passion people have for BYU football and the love they have for us.”