Tennessee football vs. WVU: Vols and Mountaineers keys to the game

8. Who brings more fans?

The game is in Charlotte, and Tennessee football and West Virginia both have connections to the Mid-Atlantic region. This was a factor last year when the Vols faced the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the season-opener. That game was at the Mercedes-Benz stadium in Atlanta and still had more fans slanted toward UT.

Knoxville is clearly closer to Charlotte, by three hours. So that should give them a bigger advantage to fill up the stadium. After all, not only is West Virginia by nature further from Charlotte, but Morgantown is near the northern border of the state. It’s next to Pennsylvania.

On top of that, Vols fans are all excited about the start of a new era with Pruitt at the helm. They filled the stadium last year with the energy fading away from Butch Jones and talk of his hot seat beginning. What will they do with Pruitt?

However, there are plenty of things working in West Virginia’s favor here as well. Consider the fact that WVU is beginning a season in the Top 25 with the return of a ton of talent and Will Grier getting healthy again. Many fans are thinking about a potential Big 12 title.

In this regard, it’s hard not to get excited if you’re a WVU fan when you open the season up against a big-name program like Tennessee, even if they are in a rebuilding phase. So you have to believe that their fans will show up as well.

The crowd can dictate lots of things in a first game. After all, opening-game jitters exist, and early mistakes can make a huge difference. So the team with the best home crowd can help accelerate that process, which works to their advantage.