<p>Goldenboy:</p>
<p>That’s just the point: as Duke is a medium-sized university without millions of “adopted” fans throughout the state, its athletic spirit CAN’T compare with the large state universities simply because of the difference in size. </p>
<p>I’ve been lucky enough to go to football games at large state universities, and nothing really compares to that. A bunch of my friends attended Duke and they had a great time going to basketball games, but it’s much, much different to go to say Wisconsin on a Saturday for a Big 10 football game. There are just seas of people out and the entire town is taken over by football fever. </p>
<p>Duke has strong (but perhaps declining, as recent reports indicate) support for a handful of its teams, but you just can’t compare school spirit at Duke to the massive state schools. It’s like comparing apples and oranges, primarily just because the sizes are so different.</p>
<p>Also - as an addendum, I don’t know if school size specifically has much to do with attendance WITHIN the football stadium. Notre Dame gets 60k+ attendance for every game, and Stanford regularly got 50k+ attendance for every home football game this past fall. ND has great football tradition, but Stanford just has a good team nowadays. Attendance seems much more based on the strength of the team. If Duke didn’t have an awful football team, they’d probably get much better than the ~25k per game they’ve had this past fall.</p>
<p>(Of course, my greater point still stands - outside of ND, which is an anomaly, medium sized universities just can’t generate the crazy, take over the town atmosphere that big state Us have on football saturdays.)</p>