Unlike Buzz Bissinger --- well, at least the pre-apologetic Buzz Bissinger --- you don't need to convince me there are some useful sports blogs out there run by fans.

One that I consider appointment reading at least a few times a week is Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician, a highly entertaining look at Syracuse sports.

Anyway, that blog linked to an interesting graphic from the Birmingham News about attendance at spring football games of BCS conference schools in the last couple months.

(You can go ahead and note the irony of finding any useful football-related tidbit in any way connected with Syracuse).

I'm not sure which a more frightening statement on society: That most people struggle to name all of the justices on the Supreme Court, or that 16 BCS schools (plus Southern Mississippi) could claim attendance figures in five figures despite actually charging fans for the privilege to watch a glorified scrimmage.

At least Missouri and Oregon can claim three food items would get you in the door.

Anyway, the median number for the 64 schools that produced attendance figures was 14,308, the average of No. 32 Rutgers and No. 33 Oregon. Michigan had a closed spring game and North Carolina held a regular scrimmage after poor weather fouled up its spring game plans, accounting for the two BCS schools not included.

It should come as little surprise that much of the ACC was below the median figure. Miami (11,000), Maryland (10,221), Georgia Tech (8,500), Wake Forest (4,100), Virginia (4,000), Boston College (3,500) and Duke (3,250) all checked in on the second half of the chart. Florida State and Virginia Tech both claimed attendance of 30,000, but that still didn't crack the top 10 nationally.

On the bright side, no ACC schools charged admission. It's oddly heartwarming to know no one was snookered out of any money in the Land of the Larger Geographic Footprint to watch vanilla football.

At least not yet this year, anyway.

--- Patrick Stevens