The Pac-12 (53,586) was the only BCS conference with an increase. But that's largely due to California returning to its renovated stadium after playing last season in a smaller stadium. The Pac-12 average has declined 8 percent since setting a record in 2007.
That alone defeats the claim that the declining attendance is due to the admission of several small school programs bogging down the overall numbers. Fact of the matter is that attendance is down everywhere, including the SEC, and that has been the case for years now. And it's not just struggling programs, either, we saw a lot of empty seats this year even at powerhouse programs that were having a lot of success (Florida comes to mind, in particular).
The Great Recession kind of kicked things in the rear from the outset, and that was met with the ill-timing of expansions of several stadiums (including our own) and increases in not only ticket prices but also overall cost of attendance. Combined, you see attendance coming down a good bit, and significantly so for lesser opponents.
Long-term, I think schools have overbuilt, and we have excess capacity in terms of stadium seating at countless venues. In time, I think a lot of schools will eventually run into the problem that Tennessee has in recent years. No program is going to consistently sell 100,000+ tickets every weekend to watch an 8-4 team hoping to make the Peach Bowl, and eventually every program runs into that on-field situation. 100,000 seat stadiums are fine for ongoing powerhouse dynasties like we have, but that is a big burden even for programs otherwise having only decent success.
Beyond that, schools are going to have to take direction from the NFL and making serious effort to greatly improve the game day experience, which is downright terrible in most places now. It's largely a parade of horribles in many places, and a lot of people ultimately invest the entire weekend, hundreds (and ultimately thousands) of dollars, and in return they get bad parking, horrendous traffic, no cell phone service, bad seats in cramped quarters, high dollar concessions, sporadic replays, and a few infrequent score updates from around the country. And that's all the case even if you have a decent game on the field to watch. No surprise, then, that a lot of people choose to stay home and watch it on their big screen TV in high-def.
Again, at some point schools are going to have to start paying real attention to the quality of game day experience.