Several college football teams have drawn attention for sparsely attended games this season. A photo of the Oklahoma Sooners stadium during their Saturday game against the South Carolina Gamecocks is going viral as similar photos of other college football venues are also popping up. Fans began noticing the trend this year, when USC opened its 2026 campaign to a small crowd, and now more sparsely attended games are being witnessed.

Games at other schools are also reportedly seeing attendance problems as many now begin to wonder why some teams are struggling to get fans to watch in person. Former ESPN analyst Jason Whitlock believes he has an idea why this is happening.

“The growing attendance problem in college football isn’t difficult to understand. The games don’t matter nearly as much. No one cares about conference championships. Rivalries have been diminished. Reg season diminished. Playoffs & mega conf, transfer portal ruined CFB,” he noted.

Other College Football Games Also Struggled To Get People To Watch

While many made fun of USC for itssparsely attended opening game, it turns out other schools have not been able to attract as many fans to watch their games live either. A post from The Secret Bruin Society highlighted the limited number of season-ticket holders in attendance at the UCLA vs. Nevada matchup, while noting that the student turnout was satisfactory.

Meanwhile, Maryland has also gone viral for having a small crowd at kickoff for its Oct. 31 game against Illinois.

Penn State, which is known to have one of the most loyal and passionate fan bases in college football, also had few people watching the Nittany Lions play as they hosted the Purdue Boilermakers.

Even SEC teams struggled, as a lot of empty seats were also spotted at OU during the Oklahoma vs. South Carolina game, which the Gamecocks’ X account mocked.

For now, analysts such as Jason Whitlock have already started pointing to the reasons why.