The 9 FBS Teams With The Smallest College Football Stadiums

There’s nothing like watching a college football game in a massive stadium packed with screaming fans trying to boost their team’s home-field advantage. However, there are plenty of squads that face an uphill battle in their quest to gain that kind of psychological edge due to the underwhelming size of their stadium.

These are the FBS teams with the small football stadiums

Michigan can claim the largest stadium of any college football team, as the venue that’s appropriately known as “The Big House” can officially accommodate 107,601 spectators. However, there are some programs that firmly fall on the other end of the size spectrum to the point where there are high schools in the United States that can put them to shame.

Before we dive in, I should note Northwestern and Hawaii each would have earned a spot here if we were taking their temporary homes into consideration. However, I’ve decided to omit them and only consider teams that currently don’t have an escape plan.

9. Coastal Carolina (Brooks Stadium): 21,000

Record Capacity: 22,217 (2025)

Fun fact: Coastal Carolina plays football inside a stadium named after the man who turned Hooters into a breastaurant empire (it is technically named after the children of Robert H. Brooks, a Clemson graduate who was born and raised in South Carolina and eventually settled down in nearby Myrtle Beach).

The stadium only had a capacity of 6,408 when it opened for business in 2003, but the initial plan was to eventually expand it to 20,000. It took more than 15 years, but that box was checked (and then some) when it grew to its current size of 21,000 in 2019.

The Chanticleers set a new attendance record in 2025, and it seems safe to assume that becoming the first team to offer free concessions with the price of a ticket may have played a role.

8. FIU (Pitbull Stadium): 20,000

Record Capacity: 22,682

I somehow forgot Mr. Worldwide himself, Pitbull, decided to secure the naming rights to FIU’s stadium in 2024 with a deal that requires him to fork over $1.2 million a year. There’s no telling how much of a return he gets on that investment, but it is a hilarious flex.

FIU didn’t even have a football team when the stadium was completed in 1994, and it has undergone a series of renovations that have raised its initial capacity of 7,500 to the 20,000 fans it can currently accommodate. However, the school struggles to get near that mark on a consistent basis.

7. Delaware (Delaware Stadium): 18,500

Record Capacity: 23,619 (1973) 

It’s sort of appropriate that the flagship university for one of the smallest states in the country also has one of the smallest college football stadiums.

2025 marks the first year Delaware is eligible for this list, as the Blue Hens (as well as another team we’ll discuss in a moment) just made the leap to the FBS level. They’ve called Delaware Stadium home since 1952 (it held 9,000 people back then), and it peaked at 23,000 between 1979 and 1988 before being reduced due to renovations.

Its current capacity of 18,500 put it behind only North Carolina A&T for the biggest in the CAA, but Delaware now has some slightly stiffer competition as a member of Conference USA.

6. San Jose State (CEFCU Stadium): 18,265

Record Capacity: 31,681 (2003)

CEFCU Stadium has a history stretching back close to a century and is the oldest on this list. San Jose State has been playing at what was known as “Spartan Stadium” upon its inception in 1933 (when it could welcome 4,000 people) until the name was changed to its current one in 2016.

Capacity peaked at over 30,000 in 1985, but it was reduced to a little more than 18,000 due to a massive renovation that saw the Spartan Athletics Center constructed on the east side of the stadium at the expense of a good chunk of its seats. There is a plan to restore some of those stands, but the execution of that idea does not appear to be imminent.

5. Missouri State (Robert W. Plaster Stadium): 17,500

Record Capacity: 18,386 (2014) 

We’ve got our second newcomer courtesy of Missouri State, which started playing at the stadium it calls home in 1941 (back when it was called SMS Stadium and held 8,500 people). The Bears are now able to accommodate a little more than twice that number and have been doing so since 2014.

4. UMass (Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium): 17,000

Record Capacity: 20,000 (1972)

It’s been 60 years since UMass opened up a stadium that could officially accommodate 17,000 fans, and unlike the rest of the ones on this list, that number has remained fairly static.

It did undergo some renovations in conjunction with the Minutemen making the leap to the FBS level in 2012, but it didn’t have any significant impact on the capacity (which is a bit of an afterthought when you consider UMass has averaged around 10,000 fans per game over the past five years).

3. Charlotte (Jerry Richardson Stadium): 15,314

Record Capacity: 19,233 (2025)

The Charlotte 49ers moved into their current home in 2013, two years before they made the leap to the FBS. The school opted for a fairly modest approach to the new venue that served to help facilitate that transition, which ended up being a pretty smart move when you consider its average attendance usually ends up near that capacity.

2. Sam Houston (Elliott T. Bowers Stadium): 14,000

Record Capacity:16,148 (1994) 

2025 marks the third year Sam Houston has played at the FBS level, and they spent their first season with the big boys playing in what was then the small stadium at college football’s highest level before being dethroned.

The venue fit 14,000 people when it opened in 1982, dipped down to just less than 13,000 toward the start of the 2010s due to renovation, and then returned to the original capacity in 2014 while remaining there ever since.

1. Kennesaw State (Fifth Third Stadium): 10,200

Record Capacity: 11,040 (2024)

Last and, well, um, least, we have Kennesaw State, which managed to wrest the top spot from Sam Houston when they arrived at the FBS level in 2024. The school decided to start small before its football team made its debut in 2010, and it doesn’t appear it has any imminent plans to boost the capacity for Owls games.