Duke Football: Saturday night’s outcome is vital to future attendance

Not to put any extra pressure on the Duke football team as it hosts Virginia Tech on Saturday night, but the final score will weigh heavily on future attendance numbers.

When the Duke football staff members are searching for ideas to consistently fill the stands in Wallace Wade Stadium — despite recent improvements, low attendance has remained an issue — they need only concern themselves with one solution: having the squad win when fans do show up for ultra-hyped games.

And they will show up on Saturday night.

In addition to the opponent, Virginia Tech, still being ranked No. 24 in the Amway Coaches Poll — where Duke is No. 23 — despite its loss at Old Dominion last weekend, the temperature at the 7 p.m. kickoff should be hovering around 70 degrees with only a slight chance of rain. So the necessary ingredients will be present for Wallace Wade to flirt with its capacity of 40,004.

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While it is true that a huge chunk of those fans will be Hokies — they travel well — many will be casual Duke fans who will be returning to give the experience another shot after leaving in disappointment when the Blue Devils’ highest-attended home game last season (36,314) ended in a disappointing 31-6 loss to Miami.

Duke enters this contest with the same record (4-0) it had entering that game a year ago. Last season’s squad lost five more in a row after the loss to the Hurricanes. And, as could be expected, attendance plummeted over the course of the next three home games (31,073 vs. Florida State, 22,621 vs. Pitt, and 20,141 vs. Georgia Tech).

Now, it’s true that die-hard Duke fans would continue to show up even if the team loses on Saturday.

But considering that so many alumni live hundreds or thousands of miles away from the campus, the program must count on the local supporters — many of whom did not attend the school and have to be sold on the idea of leaving the comfortable confines of their couch — in order to fill the bleachers. And the only surefire way to sell these types of fans on the experience is for the home team to win, thereby having them leave while thirsting for more.

After all, so many local fans have been debating whether to be season-ticket holders for decades — Wallace Wade is notorious for being one of the cheapest places in the Triangle to spend a Saturday in the fall watching football — but so many blowout losses and last-minute choke jobs from the eras of previous coaches still weigh heavily on the memories of these fans.

So while it’s nice that the stadium’s concessions, restrooms, seats, and concourse have all improved, it will take huge home wins by the Duke football team to keep fans coming back.

Because winning tends to solve everything.