College Football

Penn State is the biggest spring game draw in the Big Ten for 2022

Penn State is the biggest spring game draw in the Big Ten for 2022

For the first time since 2019, Penn State allowed fans to step into Beaver Stadium for a spring preview of the football team. The annual Blue-White Game is traditionally a big draw for Penn State, and the crowds that make their way into Beaver Stadium for a spring game or glorified scrimmage every April tends to rank among the nation’s best when it comes to spring game attendance figures.

And this year was no different.

With a reported crowd size of 62,000 fans, Penn State’s Blue-White Game will once again go in the record books as one of the top spring game crowds for the 2022 season. And, unofficially, Penn State probably locked in a top-five crowd for the spring game, if not a top three.

Oklahoma, the lone Big 12 school that generally packs a big crowd for its spring game, is a bit of a surprise spring game attendance champion. The Sooners welcomed over 75,000 fans to witness the start of the Brent Venables era and to celebrate the new statue in honor of former Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield. Oklahoma fans surely took joy in comparing the spring crowd size for the Oklahoma spring game compared to USC‘s spring crowd, with former Sooners head coach Lincoln Riley taking over the Trojans this year (and bringing along former Oklahoma quarterback Caleb Williams for the ride).

An updated look at the reported spring game attendance figures across the country recently had Penn State at No. 3 overall this spring. Part of that is because some traditional heavy hitters in spring game crowds have been hampered by inclement weather leading to significant reductions in crowd size. It’s also worth considering the COVID pandemic could still be playing a small fraction into the crowd size figures for a practice that doesn’t carry near the same weight as a game in the fall.

Whatever the case, Penn State will have the largest spring crowd among Big Ten schools this season. The Nittany Lions passed Nebraska and Ohio State, two other perennial spring crowd…

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