FAYETTEVILLE — With only three more opportunities to avoid its first two-win season in more than six decades, Arkansas is also at risk of hitting a historic low in attendance.

Barring a crowd of 69,884 - a number they haven’t hit in their last eight games in Fayetteville - for next week’s LSU game, the Razorbacks will have their lowest average attendance since Reynolds Razorback Stadium expanded in 2001.

With just the one home game remaining, Arkansas’ average attendance is 59,175. The previous low was 60,705 in 2001, the first season of the expanded stadium and a year in which the Razorbacks had to reschedule a game because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

That is the paid attendance, too. Photos of large empty sections at Razorback Stadium have elicited strong reactions on social media and show a lot fewer fans actually at the game. For the first time, Arkansas has released a “tickets scanned” number this season and the five Fayetteville games have averaged 43,992.

For comparison’s sake, though, the paid number must be used because it is how attendance has been tracked through the years across all of college football.

The drop in attendance is not a phenomenon unique to Arkansas. In fact, all but four SEC teams are currently averaging a lower attendance than they did last season.

These numbers could change with several big games yet to be played, but only LSU, Missouri and Texas A&M have experienced a bump in attendance, while Georgia’s hasn’t changed.

As a result, the conference as a whole is on its way to a third straight year of decreased attendance. In 2015, the SEC set an NCAA record with an average crowd of 78,630. Since then, that number has fallen by 7.6 percent, tumbling all the way down to 72,638 with 31 games remaining this season.

It is a national trend, as well. Attendance figures for this year won’t be released by the NCAA until after all games are played, but the 2017 season experienced the largest single-year drop in 34 years and marked the first time ever that attendance has decreased in four consecutive seasons, according to CBS Sports.

The Razorbacks had initially managed to buck that trend, seeing their attendance grow by 13 percent from 2013-2016, but that changed last year. In Bret Bielema’s final season as head coach, attendance fell 9.1 percent.

It has fallen another 6.4 percent so far this season. Only Vanderbilt has experienced a steeper decline, dropping 13.5 percent since last year.

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