Syracuse vs. Penn State: MetLife Attendance 'Will Exceed' USC Game

Last year, the Syracuse Orange lost to the USC Trojans at MetLife Stadium in front of an announced crowd of 39,507. The actual crowd is said to have been somewhere between 30-35K. Not great, when you consider you're talking about a stadium that could hold about 82K (though the upper bowl was closed off).

Considering MetLife is Syracuse's "home away from home," and you can stop laughing now, one wonders if attendance will perk up this year since the region-friendly Penn St. Nittany Lions will be joining us.

Having PSU nearby means PSU students are able to attend, and attend they will. And we can assume there will be a solid Nittany contingent on hand, much more so than Syracuse. They're bigger, have a bigger alumni base, and all they have in their lives is football. It's just facts.

What about Syracuse, though. Are we going to have a solid crowd? SU is using the Netflix Model when asked. They're not going to tell you any numbers, but they'll tell you it's looking GREAT!

"Many of our fans have purchased through (MetLife Stadium). I can tell you we expect a great crowd and we will exceed last year's USC game."

Giansante wrote the school expects a "strong contingent" of students to attend the game as well.

The reappearance of Groupon and Living Social deals doesn't bode well. Ticketmaster has even put together a two-fer deal for this year's game and next year's SU vs. Notre Dame game, though there doesn't seem to be any kind of discount involved.

Of course, all of this is really moot since the point of this game has never been about attendance. But still, if attendance is in the 40K range, that's going to leave a lot of empty seats for the second-straight year. And even though you can talk about the many ways these games help SU in the long-run, that's just not a good look in the short-term.