The most profound ear-bender Oliver Luck  let loose last week was the fact season ticket sales and attendance mattered in his decision to make a change at the top of the football program. People, he believes, vote with their feet.

This is where we can engage in a discussion about how the numbers right now are about where they were before the product peaked under The Product, about how a coach’s performance is judged by a fan’s bank account, so on and so forth. I don’t think anyone or anything, rooted in reality, is wrong or irrelevant in this instance.

This is also where we can say ticket sales for the Champs Sports Bowl have been similarly disappointing. WVU has sold around 4,500 tickets and can account for about 7,000 of the 12,500 it must sell or eat. Yikes  … with an asterisk.

Wells said the lack of support for the 22nd-ranked Mountaineers (9-3) seems to be mostly due to the game’s midweek date and its proximity to Christmas – or at least that’s why WVU athletic officials are hearing from the buying public.

“We thought we’d do better than this, obviously,” Wells said, pointing out the different destination for WVU’s postseason and the other attractions in the Orlando area. “It’s kind of surprising to us.”

And yet, the university can understand and probably anticipated this a while back.