Colorado Expecting More Fans than BYU For Alamo Bowl?

The College Football Playoffs are officially set in stone with the inaugural 12 team’s of the new format set to square off as soon as the 21^st of this month.

With that secured, solid teams who didn’t get to make the big dance now look forward to the upcoming slate of non-playoff bowl games to cap their season.

70 of college football’s 134 FBS programs, all having 6 or more wins, will participate in a non-playoff bowl game to end their seasons providing one last heavy hurrah of gridiron action.

And just because these teams weren't “playoff teams” doesn’t mean that there are no match ups worth watching.

For example, the Alabama Crimson Tide, just on the outside of the playoff picture get to take on a 7-5 Michigan team in the ReliaQuest Bowl.

The Miami Hurricanes, also on the outside looking in, will take on the Big 12 runner up in Iowa State for the rights to claim the Pop-Tarts Bowl.

One of the biggest non playoff bowl games involve the BYU Cougars, who at one point had an inside track to making the 12 team playoffs but fell just shy, taking on the Colorado Buffaloes, who were another playoff option a month ago.

These are two teams who once had expectations of winning the Big 12, getting a crack at what could have been the conference championship at one point if things went as projected.

They will meet in the Valero Alamo Bowl in San Antonio as the #17 (BYU) and #23 (Colorado) teams in the nation respectively.

Yes, its odd that a conference game is taking place in a bowl game, but these teams didn’t play each other in conference play this year and haven't faced off since 1988, providing a unique contest.

Not to mention, Colorado is still a part of the Pac-12 setup for bowl game selections despite joining the Big 12 again this season.

It’s a big time bowl game (playoffs not included) with a Saturday night kickoff time of 5:30 on the 28^th of December.

In between the first and 2^nd round of the playoffs, a lot of eyes will be on this game, especially with a Heisman hopeful in Travis Hunter expected to play for the Buffaloes.

BYU has one final chance to make some noise at the end of the year with most of the college football world watching what happens in San Antonio against one of the most marketable teams in college football.

And you know for a fact, BYU fans hoping to see their unexpected season punctuated with a win over some of the biggest names in football, will travel well to see their squad square up one more time this year.

Let’s be honest, many BYU fans won’t even have to travel far as there is a large group located within Texas already who will be willing to swing by San Antonio.

Much like Notre Dame, BYU with it’s religious affiliations has members who are fans scattered throughout the world and Texas is no exception.

That being said, those within Colorado circles are feeling very confident that the Buffalo faithful will be the ones to fill up the majority of the Alamodome.

The athletic director, Rick George, at the University of Colorado, had this to say about the advantage of the game being in Texas:

Claiming a "home crowd" atmosphere at a bowl game is no small feat and George believes Colorado is about to do just that.

Whether those fans are true blue members of Buff's nation or just Dallas Cowboys fans who want to cheer for Deion Sanders for the first time since 1999, George is expecting them in full force.

Buffaloes head coach, Deion Sanders, would also touch on this slightly in his welcome presser by mentioning that he “knows how deep our fans come.”

He even mentioned that he feels this game could “break that one” in terms of George Strait’s Alamodome attendance record of 70, 956 during his “The Cowboy Rides Away Tour” in 2013.

How much of that he anticipates to be Colorado fans is unsure, but he does know they will “sell this game out, expeditiously.”

Colorado has been bowl eligible 7 times since the year 2000, and has won one of them, the 2004 Houston Bowl vs UTEP.

This likely means that Buffalo fan attendance in bowl games has likely been less than stellar for some time now.

What Coach Prime and Rick George seem to be counting on is the immense popularity of the Colorado Buffaloes brand at this point in time.

Few teams in college football have the popularity and recognition factor that Colorado has, meaning there will be causal football fans without a dog In the fight, who show up to watch a close competitive football game and will end up cheering for the Buffaloes.

True fans or not, the brass at Colorado seems confident in the support they are about to get in San Antonio and BYU has a proven track record in getting fans to games like this.

What fan base prevails in the sections of the Alamodome could certainly help determine who walks away with a season ending win and it will be fun to see it unfurl.