MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — In a way it has sneaked up on us like an overnight snow storm. The stars were twinkling as the lights went out and it was refreshingly brisk.

Oh, you knew it was coming. The weather reports told you to expect it, but you weren’t really sure it wouldn’t slip around you and that come morning all would be fine.

Then silently, during the night, it began softly, silently, relentlessly. Unlike a summer thunderstorm it wasn’t loud and violent, just soft, beautiful snowflakes fluttering to earth until you awoke and looked out the window, smiled and then suddenly realized that the walk needed to be shoveled, the car cleaned off, the roads tended to.

So, it has been with West Virginia’s football attendance. You knew the day would come when you had to pay the piper for losses and COVID and uncertainty, for a coach in trouble and trying to save his job while existing in a conference that suddenly was looking at its two biggest, richest franchises were leaving.

You knew it was happening but you had to see it black and white and that came this week when collegefootball.com published a summary of the D-1’s 131 schools’ 5-year attendance averages and where they ranked and with the 2022 attendance figures and largest crowds drawn.

Taken overall, it was hardly disastrous for West Virginia, ranking 33rd in the nation in 5-year average attendance of 44,032, a figure drastically lowered by the COVID year of 2020, but that affected all schools.

When you brought it up to new athletic director Wren Baker, who is still trying to feel his way through so much that is foreign to him, he took it without panic.

“It’s a trend at our institution and nationally,” he said. “Most people have not had the same kind of crowds post-COVID as they had pre-COVID. Some people (fans) just got out of going. The fans are the lifeblood of our program and we understand that.”

But, like those weather reports we get, there are scary signals in the raw data.

For example, WVU over the last five years has played at just 73.4% of its stadium capacity. Of the 14 teams that will make up the “new Big 12” competing this year before Texas and Oklahoma leave for the SEC, that is lower than any schools other than Kansas and Houston.

The Mountaineers have gone from an average of 58,158 five years ago in 2018 to 55,907 to the COVID year of 6,653 per game to 51,584 in 2021 and just 47,658 last year.

The 47,658 is the lowest home attendance other than in the COVID year since 2001 when Rich Rodriguez’s team averaged 48,323 per game.

What’s more, last season’s largest crowd was 52,188 for the home opener against Kansas. By the time they got to the season’s final game at home against Kansas State the attendance was 37,055.

Since 2002 WVU has drawn at least one crowd of 60,000 every year other than 2013 when the biggest crowd was 58,570 and last year when only 51,288 came to the top game.

Baker warns not to read too much into such numbers but notes that they can’t be brushed aside, either.

“You have to take into account a lot of things when you are looking at the raw data in terms of who was the opponent, when did those games fall, there are a lot of anomalies. You have to be careful not to read too much into a single snapshot.”

But this is crucial in all areas of a football program’s success, from a home field advantage to recruiting to finances.

“In terms of what it means to the home field/home court advantage for our programs, we certainly know we’ve enjoyed some home field advantages over the years, but also what it means to the bottom line because we need to create revenue any time we have an opportunity to,” Baker said.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve hit any alarm bells. I am studying to make sure we are maximizing the number of people who would like to come to games, giving them an opportunity to come, how is their experience, how is the home schedule playing into that,” he added.

Baker, of course, has been hired with the first priority being to evaluate beleaguered coach Neal Brown’s performance as coach and to decide whether to retain him beyond next season.

Will the attendance play a role in that evaluation?

“As to how it would play into the evaluation of a coach, I’m generally pretty cautious in putting too much on fan attendance in those evaluation methods. It’s the same reason coaches talk about the process all the time as compared to the results on the scoreboard,” Baker said.

“What’s most important is for coaches is recruiting the right kind of student-athletes, coaching the student-athletes, providing an experience the student-athletes can enjoy and feel good about, connecting with the community, doing their part to represent the institution and the state well … so I would stop short of saying attendance has no role, but it’s not a central focus of the process of evaluation.”

This is all going on as the Big 12 changes around WVU with Oklahoma and Texas, the two attendance leaders in the conference and the two largest national faces in the conference, heading for the SEC after this season while Cincinnati, Houston, BYU and Central Florida join the conference.

The round-robin schedule is gone and how those four teams are accepted in Morgantown becomes important as they will play all four of them, Cincinnati and BYU at home.

What kind of effect will it have on the Mountaineer attendance?

“I think Cincinnati will be a net positive for us. They may not have had the national brand or history that Oklahoma and Texas has, but I’ll be shocked if that’s not a very well attended game,” Baker said. “Cincinnati will bring a lot of fans here. People will come out to see a regional rival, something we’ve lacked the last few years.”

BYU, while a foreign land to WVU fans, is probably the biggest addition to the conference. When Texas and Oklahoma leave, it will have the highest average attendance over the past five years of any Big 12 team, barely edging out Iowa State

“BYU historically brings a lot of fans. People who are Mormon all over the country follow them, so whenever they are in an area, they come out to see them,” Baker said. “BYU has a very passionate following. When you look at the league, BYU fits in with a lot of the passion of our fan bases. They haven’t been in a conference in a while but they are a very tradition-based program.”

As for Houston and Central Florida, Baker sees them as good opponents for WVU.

“My guess is as long as (former WVU) coach (Dana) Holgorsen is at Houston that game will draw pretty well,” he said. “I think people will be excited to see UCF. That’s a brand that’s trendy, that is emerging. That’s new money, so to speak, to use an old term. I think they can develop quite a following.

“I don’t think the new league membership will have a negative effect. It’s more likely it will have a slightly positive effect upon the league, at least early on.”