From the Fringe: Wish more fans would show up, but small playoff crowds have always been electric in Missoula

I like big crowds at playoff games in Missoula. Some of the most exciting live sporting events I've ever been apart of have come inside Washington-Grizzly Stadium, dating all the way back to when the FCS was still Division 1-AA.

The big crowds part, I'm going to be disappointed come Saturday night when the Grizzlies host Southeast Missouri State in the first round of the FCS playoffs. Thanksgiving weekend alone assures attendance will below and, but then you add a fan base who's mad at Montana for getting crushed in Cat-Griz last week, a small minority of Griz Nation (stupidly) protesting the game because they are MAD their favorite team got in, and a nigh game on national television, and Saturday night could be the worst crowd I've seen in the history of Montana playoffs. In fact, I'm almost certain it will be the slowest attended game of any since Wash-Griz was last expanded.

It's funny, next year when the Griz host NCAA Division II Ferris State, an absolutely awful opponent that at this juncture I wish Montana could get out of playing, a massive crowd will show up for that game, but they won't show up for something really meaningful like the playoffs. That's just the way it is and it will always be that way.

And I hate it because, on ESPN2, the nation isn't going to see what Washington-Grizzly Stadium is all about - at least not the big crowd version.

Having said all of that, there will be an enthusiastic crowd there Saturday night. It will actually be very loud in the stadium and the crowd will be raring to go. Why? Because some of the most intense and electric crowds in all of Griz' history have also been some of the smallest in history.

I go back to 1994 when the Griz made a miraculous comeback in the snow against McNeese State - a game in which Super Dave Dickinson left with an ankle injury. That crowd, me and my friend Scott Larson included, was insane. To this day one of the best games I've ever seen. The following year, the playoff run to the national championship, not one of those games was sold out, and the Griz' first-ever home game in the FCS semifinals, a game against S.F. Austin in near below-zero temperatures, that crowd was one of the loudest pre-expansion crowds of all time.

And there are tons more examples of how small crowds have still been electric at Grizzly playoff games. For so many years, the FCS playoff bracket was 16 teams, and the first round was always on Thanksgiving weekend. So back then, pretty much every Griz' first-round game was small crowds. But with so much at stake, the diehards would show up, no matter how early the games began, no matter how cold it was, hunting, season, Thanksgiving, it didn't matter, a small, but loud and rowdy crowd would always show up of those games.

Perhaps no greater example of that was when the Griz stormed back from a 48-21 hole in the fourth quarter against South Dakota State in the 2009 first round. Montana was the No. 1 seed, undefeated and rolling, yet only about 18,000 fans showed up for that game against the Jackrabbits, and by the time Marc Mariani returned a kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown, there was probably only 15,000 fans in the stadium. And yet that fourth quarter matched any other Griz crowd for noise and excitement. It was an electric 15 minutes, and if you weren't there, you just don't understand what I mean.

And I could go on and on about how the small Wash-Griz crowds do their part and create a great playoff atmosphere, and a great home field advantage for the Griz, because I've been to so many of them myself. And that's all true, and it will be true again Saturday night.

The problem with that however is, just because it's true that, 12-15K diehard fans will create a great crowd Saturday night, doesn't mean it wouldn't be better of the stadium was sold out or at least near capacity. Can you imagine what that would be like? You don't have to because it has happened before. Unfortunately it just doesn't happen in the first round of the playoffs, and it won't again this Saturday night.

So instead of a wild, frenzied full Washington-Grizzly Stadium Saturday night, we'll have to settle for a small, but wild and frenzied crowd inside the stadium, and it will be rocking. It just won't show well on national TV and that's too bad. But, after all these years of seeing how awesome small crowds have been art Griz playoff games, it will still be a lot of fun, and Amy and I wouldn't miss it for anything in the world.

Note: The Grizzlies kick off against SEMO at 8 p.m. Saturday in Missoula. The game will be televised on ESPN2. The fourth-seeded Montana State Bobcats have a bye this week. They host either Weber State or North Dakota next weekend in Bozeman.