I am hoping this was all due to a perfect storm of situations. First, it was Halloween and anyone with kids were looking to dump their tickets but had a market saturated with potential buyers that wouldn't take them because... well... it was Halloween.
Next, there were MANY high school football playoffs on Saturday. This further reduced the crowd due to conflicts and a smaller secondary market.
Last, the student section was barely over half full because despite being a night game, it was halloween and there are just too many party traditions. The student section really emptied out after half time.
Two additional thoughts... I have no idea who the people are in front of my seats but I think they have only attended one, maybe two games, but did have the seats filled for the open house in August. Why bother?
And lastly... there is always a few people that get all worked up and take it as "ripping on the students" when you share an observation of the empty student section. THIS IS NOT A RIP ON THE STUDENTS. For all I know they may be the best student fans in the history of college football. I am not disputing that. However, the FACT the student section has progressively been more empty with each passing game, does at least create a question about what can be done to fill the seats. Again, repeat... this is not a rip on the students that do show up, or even those who make other plans and do not attend the game. This is only a suggestion that some creative solutions be explored, or else just live with empty student sections to varying degrees.
I used to subscribe to the theory that the second deck corners of the student section were empty due to 'crowding' on the first deck. I held on to that through the Cal game. But, the one big fact that flies in the face of that idea is during the Air Force game the corners did eventually fill up. The next big problem with that is those empty corners grew between the Air Force and Cal games, grew again before the Wisconsin game, started to stay open at the very top of the second deck between the open corners for the Purdue game, and finally a large portion of the second deck student section stayed open for the entire MSU game (and nearly fully draining after halftime).
I have noticed the student section at Wisconsin is often half empty at kick off but it does eventually fill up each week.