5-at-10: College football attendances, college football facing a big recruiting decision, NFL draft prop bets and Rushmore of sandwiches

College football attendance numbers

Just about everything you wanted to know about the 2016 college football season in terms of attendance can be found here.

The NCAA numbers are pretty interesting. Most notably, the Tennessee Vols were sixth in attendance among the FBS college football teams last year with 100,968 fans per home game. Here's the top five:

1. Michigan - 110,468 average

2. THE Ohio State - 107,278

3. Texas A&M - 101,917

4. Alabama - 101,821

5. LSU - 101,231

There were seven SEC schools in the top 12 - Georgia was ninth, Florida 11th and Auburn 12th - and 11 in the top 30. (Only Vandy, Kentucky and Missouri ranked outside of the top 30.) UTC was not in the top 30, averaging 8,886 per game last year. Montana, to no one's surprise, led the FCS with 25,377 per game. There were a couple of interesting trends among the numbers too.

First, the stats list the programs with the largest average attendance increase from 2015 to 2016.

Eastern Michigan went from a touch less than 5,000 to more than 17,000. Others that garner attention are Miami, which was second on the list with an average per game increase of more than 11,000 in Mark Richt's first year, and LSU which drew more than 7,700 more in '16 than in '15.

The other trend that caught our eye was that across FBS games, the average attendance dropped 426 fans per game and 455 per game at neutral site venues. That feels like a number that could be a outlier to stats - be it scheduling quirks like years that Vandy gets more home games or the swing of coaching struggles or what not.

That said, the average attendance of bowl games dropped by 2,099 per bowl game, and that is something that is of note in this view.

All totaled 49,315,857 people attended the 3,717 NCAA football games offered across all divisions in the 2016 season.

photo In this Saturday, Dec. 31, 2016, photo, Clemson quarterback Kelly Bryant (2) warms up during the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football game against Ohio State in Glendale, Ariz. The only downside about having a player such as Deshaun Watson is that it can be hard to convince an elite recruit to come sit behind him for a year or two. That leaves the Tigers with no clear replacement. The holdovers are promising, but not Watson-level talents. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

Draft prop bets

We love the draft. You know this.

Tomorrow - and then again on the following Thursday - we will offer our run at first-round mock drafts. Deal? Deal.

Until then, we offer a look at some of the proposition bets for this year's NFL draft, as offered by the famed William Hill sportsbook in Las Vegas.

Number of Alabama players selected in the first round? Over/under 4.5 (We'd go under even with Allen, Foster and Howard as first-round locks. Are there potentially more first-rounders from T-Town? Sure, but undersized plus edge rushers, a limited corner in a very deep secondary draft group and a sliding tackle all feel like second-rounders.)

Number of LSU players selected in the first round? Over/under 2.5 (Under again. Yes, Fournette and Adams are top-10 studs, but who is next?)

Round of first place kicker taken? Rounds 1-3/Rounds 4-7 (Round 4-7, and if anyone drafts one before that, they should be forced to watch Roberto Aguayo highlights for the entire month of June.)

Number of quarterbacks selected in first round? Over/under 3.5 (Over. Trubisky, Watson, Mahomes and Kizer, who we think will sneak into the final couple picks of round one, be it for the Saints or someone willing to deal with the Falcons to get back into the late part of round one.)

Number of running backs selected in first round? Over/under 2.5 (Over. Fournette, McCaffrey and Cook are clear picks and there is a chance another one could get there.)

The rest, and feel free to play along:

  • Number of SEC players drafted in the first round? Over /under 11.5
  • First round conference head-to-head matchup: SEC players -5.5 vs. PAC-12 players
  • First round conference head-to-head matchup: SEC players -4.5 vs. Big 10 players
  • First round conference head-to-head matchup: PAC-12 players +.5 vs. Big 10 players -.5
  • More offensive or defensive players selected in first round? Offensive players +5.5 vs. Defensive players

A quiet shift in landscape?

According to this story, either tomorrow or Friday could offer the biggest change in college football recruiting in 25 years.

The NCAA Council in Indianapolis will look at a bundled proposal that offers among several things, an official football signing day in December as well as the one in February. But, this being college football, it is not just as easy as that.

Apparently, according to the CBSsports.com story, the proposal is packaged with several rule changes, not unlike a Congressional bill with various amendments designed to please different groups to secure support. (And we all know if you are doing anything in this life and get compared to our current Congress, well, you properly need to re-evaluate.) Among the other parts of the proposal in addition to the early-signing period are:

* Allow teams to hire a 10th assistant coach;
* Forbid teams from hiring a IAWP (individual associated with a propsect) to non-coaching jobs two years before prospect's enrollment and two years after;
* The Harbaugh rule, which would limit the Michigan coach's Satellite camps across the world to a 10-day period in June;
* Allow juniors to take official visits (this one is part of the proposed recruiting-calendar changes);
* Look at serious solutions to coaches oversigning recruits.

The end of the CBSsports article from Dennis Dodd quotes an anonymous source who states if a lot of these issues are not looked at by the council and the coaches associations, the NCAA Board of Governors will take over the reform process, and few would want that.

This and that

* TFP all-around ace and Press Row cohost David Paschall has a fun interview with Darrell Waltrip here. Mr. Boogity, Boogity, Boogity was on the show recently and covered a variety of NASCAR topics. In case you are curious, UTC football coach Tom Arth will be on from 3:30 to 4 and new UT AD John Currie will join the show at 4:30 p.m.

* Not sure why this is making the rounds, but according to this dude who wrote a book on Steph Curry, apparently the NBA's biggest stars like LeBron and Russell Westbrook are not chummy with the Warriors' two-time MVP. Side note: Man, it's a strange place in today's NBA when first the players get criticized for being too buddy-buddy with each other and now people want to know why LeBron and Steph aren't BFFs. So it goes.

* Happy birthday to David Letterman, who is 70 today.

* Braves played Tuesday. Braves lost Tuesday.

* Here are the most popular NFL jerseys from April 1 to the end of February 2017. Tom Brady is number 1, followed by Ezekiel Elliott, Dak Prescott, Odell Beckham Jr., and Rob Gronkowski.

* And we thought Jason T.'s Masters picks around these parts was spot-on. Here's a guy who bet $60 in a parlay that Rickie Fowler would win the Honda Classic and Sergio would win the Masters. The payout? Almost $42K. Well-played indeed.

Today's question

It's National Grilled Cheese Day, and we can all agree that the grilled cheese is a beautiful thing.

Two quick things: First, for the local folks, who around the 423 has the best grilled cheese sammich? We know the 5-at-10 tots are GC connoisseurs, and they give River Street Deli very high marks. (And truth be told, the Waffle House GC is pretty dang tasty in its own right.)

Secondly, we think it belongs on the Rushmore of sammiches. What else you got?

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