Far before the time of capacity, sellout crowds that seemingly transformed Raymond James Stadium into a sea of green and gold, is a forgotten time of sparse crowds in the early days of the USF Football program. The average night at Ray Jay would draw about 25k-35k fans in the stands, the low turnstile figures were commonplace despite strong nationally ranked programs traveling to Tampa.
The perfect example takes us back to 2005 when the 9th ranked Bobby Petrino led Louisville Cardinals collided with Jim Leavitt’s Bulls, and only managed to draw an underwhelming crowd of 33,586 out to Ray Jay, despite Bulls’ 45-14 shellacking of the Cardinals in the marquee win.