It might help if there are not many empty seats at Bobby Dodd Stadium for the game. When choosing between teams with similar records, bowl committees sometimes are influenced by the interest level from fans. Bowls want teams who bring excited fans who pump money into local economies by staying in hotels and eating in restaurants.

One of the final statements made by fans at Georgia Tech’s last home game against Virginia Tech on Nov. 1 was boos when coach Chan Gailey delivered a public service announcement on the video board.

The boos stung Georgia Tech players and couldn’t have impressed bowl scouts. Fans could also make a statement with a poor turnout against North Carolina, although athletic director Dan Radakovich says he’s not too concerned that a low attendance total would necessarily influence a bowl committee.

"Georgia Tech fans have shown in a number of places in a number of years its fans will follow Georgia Tech to a bowl game," he said.

Radakovich said North Carolina simply isn’t an easy sell for Georgia Tech fans, especially when many may be more excited about the Nov. 24 home game against Georgia.

"North Carolina is a fine team and Coach (Butch) Davis is doing some good things there and they’re moving in a good direction," Radakovich said. But he added that the Tar Heels may be overlooked by some fans "when you have such a big rivalry game on the horizon the following week.

"It’s not a whole lot different than when we had Duke here for the last game last year."

There were 46,768 tickets sold for the Duke game in Atlanta last season, slightly below the turnout for an early season game against Samford.

Radakovich didn’t release figures but said "there are great seats available" for the North Carolina game.

"We hope everybody comes out," he said. "Let’s just have a great Saturday afternoon at Grant Field. ... I think it is important that we do have a good crowd and an enthusiastic crowd. It’s a big game and we hope that’s going to happen."

Radakovich said North Carolina used only 2,000 tickets.

"That certainly gives us much more of an inventory to sell," he said.

North Carolina’s last visit to Atlanta on Sept. 10, 2005 was a home-opener for Tech, and the reported attendance was 46,459.

Tech’s average attendance through five home games this season is 50,296. Last season, Tech opened with a sellout of 56,680 for the Notre Dame game and averaged 49,607 for its other six home games.

Georgia Tech (6-4) has qualified for a bowl bid, but it may need seven wins to land an invitation.

Some players, perhaps remembering the boos for Gailey in the last home game, say they want to play well for their coach, as well as to boost their bowl status.

"A lot of people are down on us but we’re a very good team and we’re behind Coach Gailey and behind each other and we just want to finish our season with a big win," said running back Jonathan Dwyer.

Georgia Tech won the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Coastal Division last season with a 7-1 conference record. It needs to beat North Carolina for a 4-4 ACC record that would give Tech its 13th straight non-losing ACC record.

"Really, I haven’t been thinking about the bowl game," said running back Tashard Choice. "I’m just really upset about the games that we lost. We’re in the position we’re in now. We just have to finish up strong and go to a bowl game."

Safety Djay Jones said a poor turnout by the fans could help prevent the team from realizing its goal of playing in a bowl close to Atlanta.

"I feel like the better we do on the field and our fan base, if they’re backing us these last two games, everybody starts buying tickets, we could end up in a pretty good bowl," Jones said. "We don’t want to have to go to the West coast. We’d like to stay closer to home, closer to our fan base. That’d be better for my family members and most of the guys on the team."

Added receiver Correy Earls: "We want to stay as close as possible so we can have the support that we need and people can come see us play."

Gailey said he didn’t know if the turnout and enthusiasm of the fans Saturday might be important to the team’s bowl hopes.

"We’re just going to try to go out and play as hard as we can play and try to win the ballgame. All that other stuff normally takes care of itself. I say normally. Not every time, but normally takes care of itself."