re: Why does this section of fans never show up?

I guess none of you have ever worked in a ticket office or for a stadium/team before....

Those tickets are blocked off for students. Obviously students all try and cram down as close as they can and fit twice as many people on a row than they should.

The ticket office has to make a decision a week or so before game time, "will the students fill the section". On big games like this they generally give them the benefit of the doubt, they aren't in the business of predicting weather. That being said, if there are 30,000 student tickets allocated it is likely for most games they will only actually have 20,000-25,000 seats allocated for them and they will cram into them.

They actually do sell those tickets up there for a lot of games when they don't think the students will use them but three things happen.

1. Nobody buys them: If students aren't willing to use their pre paid $12 ticket to sit there what makes you think people are going to pay $40+ to sit there?

2. People buy those tickets just to get in and go sit with their friends: Very common, buy an extra ticket for a kid or a friend ect... Just walk in and go sit with everyone else that you know

3. People don't know they're available: Happens a lot actually, not enough people think to even check with the ticket office for seats because they assume it's sold out