Stick a Fork in This Pigskin, It’s Done : Commentary: A paltry attendance of 28,513 signifies the death knell for this football series.

Don Andersen was watching the last five years of his life flash before his eyes, checking the fading pulse of his dying football game from a joyless, all-too-private suite atop Anaheim Stadium.

Andersen probably preferred it this way, to spend these last few moments alone in quiet contemplation, but come the third quarter, the men from the newspapers were knocking at his door.

Vultures.

Obituary writers.

Andersen greeted them one by one with a firm handshake and as steady a smile as he could muster.

On the field below, Fresno State was losing to Ohio State in the fifth and final Disneyland Pigskin Classic, down, 21-7, at the time, but things were looking much worse in the stands.

“I don’t know if we’ve got 25,000 in here,” Andersen said as he leaned out his window, surveying a sea of unoccupied orange seats, seats that should have been filled with red-shirted Fresno State boosters, or so Andersen had been led to believe.

“Jim Sweeney said he thought they’d bring between 30,000 and 40,000 fans,” Andersen said, referring to the Fresno State head football coach. “He said that at a luncheon here.”

Gary Cunningham, Fresno State’s athletic director, “felt they’d bring 20,000 or better,” Andersen said.

“Obviously, that led to their selection to play in this game. We were counting on Fresno doing the same thing for this game as they did for the Freedom Bowl two years ago. They brought 26,000-plus down for that one.”

Monday night, the count was 7,000-plus.

“I think I heard 7,300, a number like that,” Andersen said, shoving his hands in his his pockets. “That’s disappointing, obviously.”

And that’s the end of the Disneyland Pigskin Classic, obviously. Disney had committed five years and $5 million to the project, and the contract expired with Monday’s game. Andersen, executive director of the coordinating Orange County Sports Assn., was struggling to keep his chin up, but one OCSA official said Disney has already informed the organization that the contract will not be renewed.

“Oh, it’s definitely done,” the official said. “It’s the end of a five-year deal and Disney will not renew. They won’t announce it; they’ll probably say something like ‘We’re re-allocating the money to fund something else.’ But they’ve already told Don they’re not coming back.”

Disney learned the hard way that good college football is a bad investment in Orange County. Hockey teams with silly names and goofy uniforms, sure, OK. But football games with Heisman Trophy contenders and national championship contenders well, it’s EuroDisney all over again.

Monday’s announced attendance was 28,513, a five-year low. Granted, Ohio State-Fresno State just kind of sits there on the stadium marquee, but previous Pigskin Classics featuring BYU-Florida State, Colorado-Tennessee and Stanford-Texas A&M; drew about 35,000.

“Maybe this is just an inherently bad market for preseason football,” Andersen said as he watched Fresno State chase down another dropped football. “Even when the Rams were winning, they didn’t draw well in August. USC and UCLA never draw well in their openers. USC traditionally opens with someone like Washington State and they get 40,000. Six weeks later, Cal or Stanford come in and they draw 80,000.

“I don’t know more we could have done. You couldn’t ask for better games. The previous eight teams we’ve had won 82% of their games the season they played here. And all eight went to bowl games in those years.”

Sadly, slowly, Andersen recited the roll call.

Colorado-Tennessee, 1990. “A great game, 31-all,” Andersen said. “Both teams were in the top six going in and finished in the top four. We had 33,000 in the house.”

BYU-Florida State, 1991. “My gosh, we had Ty Detmer coming back as the Heisman Trophy winner and Florida State was the preseason No. 1. I mean, what else can I get for you? We had 35,000 or 36,000. I started to have my doubts then.”

Stanford-Texas A&M;, 1992. “Bill Walsh is coming back to coaching after winning 11 Super Bowls--and Stanford sells 4,000 tickets.”

USC-North Carolina, 1993. “By God, John Robinson’s coming back to USC after a down experience here against Fresno in the Freedom Bowl. It’s a new era. John Robinson! USC! That ought to knock ‘em dead. But it didn’t fly. USC sold 12,000 tickets.”

Andersen was asked for a theory on why the game failed.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I guess you come back to the location--there’s an awful lot of things to do this time of year in Orange County.”

Andersen was asked if he’d do anything differently if he could turn the clock back five years and start the Pigskin Classic again.

“Yeah,” he said. “Play it in Knoxville. Or Tallahassee.”