Record crowd for G-Day?

ATHENS, Ga. — Nearly a year after 92,138 Alabama football fans packed Bryant-Denny Stadium for Nick Saban’s first A-Day spring game, Georgia players remain amazed by the feat.

“I remember thinking they must love Coach Saban, because I know they weren’t there for the players,” middle linebacker Dannell Ellerbe said. “They had a new name in town, and a big name at that.”

Alabama’s crowd set an NCAA spring-game record and was the result of several factors, most notably Saban’s aura. The game being free of charge on a gorgeous April afternoon also contributed to the mammoth audience, which dwarfed the 21,407 spectators who attended last year’s G-Day game at Sanford Stadium.

Georgia officials are hoping this year’s G-Day, which occurs two weeks from today with a $5 charge, will attract a crowd at least a third of the size of last spring’s Tuscaloosa throng.

For the past three years, G-Day has been on the same weekend as the Masters golf tournament, but that is not the case this year. Last year’s game fell on Easter weekend as well, which also isn’t the case this time.

Throw in the high hopes many Bulldogs fans have after last season’s team finished with an 11-2 record and a No. 2 national ranking in the Associated Press poll, and a record crowd in the 35,000-40,000 range might be possible. Georgia’s largest G-Day crowd of the last decade was 25,134 in 2004, when the Bulldogs also had high expectations with David Greene and David Pollack as seniors.

“I would think it’s possible, particularly if we have good weather,” said longtime sports information director Claude Felton. “There could be a little bigger crowd because of the expectations and because we don’t have the Masters.”

Alabama’s spring crowd broke the previous national record of 73,801 set by Tennessee in 1986, and there were other strong SEC turnouts last year as well. A crowd of 47,500 watched Florida’s spring game; South Carolina drew 35,153 fans and Auburn had 31,757.

Three of Georgia’s recent G-Day crowds failed to amass even 10,000. The 1996 game had to be played at Clarke Central High School because of Olympic soccer preparations at Sanford. The 1997 game was played in a drizzle, and a glorified scrimmage was held on the practice fields in 2000 because of leaking sewage under Sanford’s playing surface.

Georgia hasn’t planned anything special for G-Day — country singer Alan Jackson is performing in Tuscaloosa the night before A-Day — so the lofty expectations will have to do.

“A big crowd would be great, it really would,” defensive coordinator Willie Martinez said. “It would be great for the players. It would make it more high-energy, and it would be a great way to end spring ball.”

Said Ellerbe: “Without fans, it would just be like another boring practice.”

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Georgia’s spring football games in recent years have not been known for huge crowds:

2001 20,445

2002 17,812

2003 17,500

2004 25,134

2005 24,117

2006 18,530

2007 21,407