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Jackets hoping strong start draws more fans
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ATLANTA — Georgia Tech has given its fans plenty of reasons to get excited in the opening month of the season.

The Yellow Jackets are off to their best start since 2005 and ranked in the Top 25. They’re leading the nation in all sorts of offensive categories, averaging nearly 60 points a game.

That’s not enough to ensure a full house for the Atlantic Coast Conference opener against North Carolina.

Athletic director Dan Radakovich made a public plea for more fans to turn out Saturday, a sign of just how challenging it is for the Yellow Jackets to fill 55,000-seat Bobby Dodd Stadium in a faltering economy.

“When you have empty seats, everyone has a great idea about moving forward to get those seats filled,” Radakovich said Tuesday, speaking after coach Paul Johnson held his regular weekly news conference. “We are not adverse to trying a lot of different ways to get people to experience Georgia Tech athletics, and football in particular.”

He rattled off various seating plans. He gave out a toll-free number to reach the ticket office. He even repeated the forecast for the noon kickoff.

“It’s supposed to be 76 degrees and sunny,” Radakovich said. “We have a lot of great history and tradition at Georgia Tech. It’s a fun atmosphere to come out and watch a college football game.”

The atmosphere may be fun, but the Yellow Jackets (3-0) have long struggled to fill their stadium. In hindsight, the decision to add about 14,000 seats before the 2003 season — mostly in a towering upper deck above the north end zone — looks like a blunder, especially since the coach who pushed for the expansion, George O’Leary, left just as the new seats started going up.

The Yellow Jackets haven’t sold out a game since they hosted Georgia in the 2009 finale. That unwanted streak is now at eight in a row after crowds of around 42,000 attended the first two contests this season against Western Carolina and Kansas, both played before huge swaths of empty seats.

There should be a better turnout for the Tar Heels (3-0, 1-0 ACC), but Radakovich said there were still nearly 10,000 available tickets as of Tuesday.

Johnson is hoping for a big crowd as the Yellow Jackets face their toughest test of the season.

“I know our players feed off that,” he said.

North Carolina, which hasn’t won in Atlanta since 1997, can’t worry about Georgia Tech’s attendance issues. The Tar Heels are expecting a hostile crowd — no matter how many fans show up.

“It’s a very challenging place to play,” quarterback Bryn Renner said. “They have a great fan base and they’re right on you and they’re very loud. We’ve got to get used to the noise this week in practice and just stay focused and hopefully it’ll be a good trip.”

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