very beginning of the game, so you have some late-arriving students who aren't there yet. Additionally, the way the student section works is that everyone smashes down near the front, so there are way more people in the lower portion than there are seats. This means that there are always lots of apparently open seats at the top even when the corresponding people for those seats are at the game. The U can't sell more seats for that section even though they could fit more people in based on what the students do.

I was at the WSU game and a lot of fans left early because it was our worst game of the year and we were down 26-10 at the start of the 4th quarter. So yes, a decent number of fans left, unfortunately. But that doesn't mean that the tickets weren't sold or that people didn't go. They just left early. And I don't think BYU fans want to start showing images of fan attendance at games.