On Saturday September 23, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UW-L) Football team will step between the white lines of Roger Harring Stadium to face Carroll University. Some might know this but, it is doubtful most do.

Whether you are an incoming freshman or a senior, you can most likely count on your hands how many UW-L football games you have been to. Why is that?

According to uwlathletics.com, over the past decade the football team is 37-63 (.370), in the past five years 19-32 (.373). Losing games never attracts any fans, nor will it make any comeback. Now that may be some peoples answer to the question, but not everybody’s.

“I really have no interest in the (football) team, unless I know somebody on the team, which I do not,” said, Kory Matsen, UW-L Junior, “It has only been two years of attending this school so I can’t say there is not any passion or connection.”

At the first game of their 2017 campaign stands filled with 3,206 fans in attendance. Out of the 10,546 students enrolled, roughly 30 percent of the school population was present. About two hours south of La Crosse at UW- Platteville, they filled their football stadium with 3,128 people out of their 8,662 population which is around 37 percent which does not seem like that much of difference, according to athletics.uwplatt.edu.

However, the city of La Crosse has a population of 52,109 as where the population of Platteville is 11,224. So, for the UW-L week one game, seven percent of the city’s population attended this game to Platteville’s 29 percent.

Now this might seem a little odd at first, but think about it this way. With only 11,224 people in Platteville, it is about one-fifth the size of La Crosse. With almost five times the population of Platteville, La Crosse has many more opportunities for the students to explore on a Saturday afternoon.

Matsen said, “Division one college football is usually on TV all day, so I find myself watching a lot of those games because of the convenience and the talent level.”

All in all, nothing will be changing for UW-L football until they start winning games. It may be easier to say than do, but this year they are off to a 2-0 start which is a step in the right direction. The problem of attendance at UW-L football games cannot be fixed this year or next.

Over the past decade UWL has the worst winning percentage out of the WIAC the next closest is UW Eau Claire with a .386 winning percentage. It is going to take several years of success to turn this program’s attendance around.