UK football home openers used to draw massive crowds. How will Cats do Saturday?

At last count Tuesday, more than 10,000 tickets remained available for Saturday’s home opener between Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky at Kroger Field.

With a stadium capacity of 61,000 since the 2015 renovation, that would make for one of the smallest opening day crowds at the former Commonwealth Stadium this century. This despite the Cats coming off their best season since 2010, finishing 7-6 and scoring a rousing win over archrival Louisville.

Guy Ramsey, UK athletics director of strategic communications, said Kentucky has seen a good response since its Tuesday announcement of 47,600 tickets allotted. Saturday is a Heroes Day promotion honoring all active and reserve members of the armed forces along with police, firefighters and first responders. While Ramsey said he could not predict a sellout, he did expect UK to close the gap when it announces its attendance Saturday.

Kentucky responded to a dramatic decline in attendance since 2009 by reducing stadium capacity by almost 7,000 seats when it renovated, but it still struggles to fill the upper corners many weeks. Those upper reaches were the bulk of the unsold tickets displayed by Ticketmaster.com on Thursday afternoon.

Fan disillusionment, parking pass complaints, a season ticket reconfiguration, HDTV and ticket and concession prices can all be blamed for the turnout decline in recent years. A look at attendance since 2000 shows a disturbing trend for UK, because up until recently, its football fans have been loyal and present to a fault.

Consider this: Since 2000, Kentucky has had 11 losing seasons out of 16. In every year but 2012 when Joker Phillips led the Cats to a 2-10 season, UK has averaged more than 50,000 fans per game. In 12 of those years, they’ve averaged more than 60,000 at home.

Phillips’ moribund 2012 was the low-water mark for home opener attendance when just 48,346 turned out to see UK play Kent State. That was the year most ticketholders just stayed home rather than watch Phillips’ team. Only 18,885 bothered to show up for that year’s Vandy game. Phillips was fired soon after.

Coming off a scandal-plagued 2-9 season, 70,838 people turned out in 2001 for Guy Morriss’s debut as UK coach against Louisville in the old stadium configuration listed at a capacity of 67,942. They saw a 36-10 beatdown. The Cats went 2-9 that year, as well.

Coming off another 2-9 season in Rich Brooks’ third year, 70,752 turned out for the 2005 Governor’s Cup showdown with Louisville and a 31-24 loss. The Cats went 3-8 that year.

Winning does help. In 2009, coming off an 8-5 season and bowl win, 70,988, one of the largest crowds in stadium history, saw Kentucky beat Louisville 31-27 (2007 against Florida is the record at 71,024) .

And while big crowds could certainly be expected to turn out for Louisville, the quality of the opponent in the home opener didn’t used to matter much either. In 2010, 66,584 came to see Western Kentucky. In 2008, 69,118 came to see Norfolk State. In 2007, 66,512 came to see this same Eastern Kentucky program. In 2006, 57,136 came to see Texas State.

But give recent fans some credit, two years ago after a 2-10 season, 62,933, the fourth largest crowd in the Mark Stoops era, came to see Louisiana Lafayette on the strength of a nice recruiting buzz and hope that the Cats were turning a corner.

This story was originally published September 8, 2017 at 9:31 AM with the headline "UK football home openers used to draw massive crowds. How will Cats do Saturday?."