BYU Football: There’s little roar in the ROC this season
By Shaun Gordon
The sparse turnout by the student section at BYU football games has been disappointing this season. It’s time for the ROC to earn their seats.
LaVell Edwards Stadium seats 63,725 fans. Roughly 11,000 of those are set aside for the ROC, BYU’s student section.
Seeing all 11,000 of those seats full has become a rarity.
Through the Cougars’ first five games of the season. the ROC section has only been full once, and that was against Utah.
They couldn’t muster a full section when BYU football hosted Top-10 team in Wisconsin.
They couldn’t muster a full section in a Friday night showdown against Boise State.
And against San Jose State, they couldn’t even muster enough students to hold the giant flags that are pulled up during the pump-up routine going into the fourth quarter. Fans from nearby sections had to run over to help get the flags up.
The ROC has often proclaimed itself “the best student section in the country.” That kind of anemic turnout disqualifies them for that title.
It’s even more disappointing when you compare the ROC’s attendance versus the rest of the stadium.
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Even against Portland State and San Jose State the rest of the stadium was much more full than the student section.
On Saturday against the Spartans, final attendance was 46,451. Not bad when you pit your 1-7 team against another 1-7 team (and still more than Utah’s entire stadium holds).
It’s becoming painfully obvious that the ROC won’t fill up their allotted section for most games – regardless of how the BYU football product is looking – so what’s the solution?
Shrink the ROC section.
Take 3,000-4.000 seats and open them up for general admission during most games.
By making them available as single-game tickets, it would give BYU football the flexibility to open those seats back up to the ROC for big games.
If future ROC students start to consistently fill up the smaller section in later years, then the school can give them back all 11,000 seats for every game.
But it’s time to make the ROC earn their keep.