In an emotionally-charged night, a crowd of 57,826 cheered on Virginia football as the Cavaliers defeated Florida State in dramatic fashion.
With the first 12,000 students receiving a free “The Standard” shirt, Scott Stadium was teeming with fans well before kick-off.
As more and more fans entered the stadium, the attendance number rose to over 57,000 — marking the largest Scott Stadium crowd since 2015.
The University made a concerted push to break the single-game student attendance record — including a video on Twitter of President Jim Ryan asking students to attend the game — but the Cavaliers fell short. Instead, Virginia set the opening two-game record with 18,942 students attending the first two home games of the season, according to an email distributed to the student body by Virginia Athletics.
The electric crowd — including families, students and alumni — provided plenty of support for the Cavaliers who took down the Seminoles with some late-game heroics.
“I’m just so thankful that the community, the state, the students came out to support us and they made a tremendous difference,” Coach Bronco Mendenhall said in an on-field interview after the game.
Amongst other things, it seems like the changes made to Scott Stadium in 2019 are having the exact impact Virginia Athletics Director Carla Williams intended.
"[I’ve thought about] what we can do to help enhance the game day experience for our students, for our families that come to the games, for our alums, and also for our student-athletes, our players,” Williams said before the season began. “It's a big deal for them to know that there's a lot of excitement and enthusiasm in the stands. They feed off of that, and we want to make sure that we can provide that for them.”
From selling alcohol to installing a new sound system and improving WiFi access, fans seem to be enjoying the new Scott Stadium experience.
After the final whistle blew, Virginia fans descended upon David A. Harrison III Field to storm the field and celebrate yet another victory. With a fourth-straight night game Saturday against Old Dominion, Scott Stadium will likely be packed again as Virginia tries to stay undefeated.
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