A strong football season can really help recruiting. Victories can help land the next five-star defensive lineman, but also attracts students who are not athletes.
The website Capture Higher Ed says the proof is clear as it tracked traffic to the University of Tennessee's academic website during recent victories by the Vols.
Capture claims traffic for UTK.edu generally goes up overall on game days. After the Vols defeated Georgia on a Hail Mary touchdown pass, visits spiked to the UTK site. The site says there was specifically a surge in visits to UT's admissions and financial aid pages.
The relationship between touchdowns and spikes in enrollment are nothing new. In the spring of 1999, applications to Tennessee jumped 15 percent after the Vols won the Fiesta Bowl and the National Championship.
Simply put, winning a championship wins students.
Forbes has reported big jumps in enrollment at the University of Alabama during the Nick Saban era.
Football success seems to especially excite fans from afar. The amount of applications from out-of-state students surges with a school's gridiron glory. Forbes reported in 2007 before Saban took over as Alabama's head coach, around one-third of the incoming freshman class was from out-of-state. In 2013 after the Crimson Tide had won several championships, the amount of out-of-state enrollment for the freshman class increased to 52 percent.
Out-of-state students pay higher tuition and create more revenue for the school.
An increase in applications also means the school can be more selective, boosting the quality of its class incoming scholars.