Hi! My D is an average student who enjoys watching sports. She thinks she would like a big university with a football team but my husband and I are not sure a big university would work for her. Does anyone know of any smaller colleges preferably on the east coast that have a lot of school spirit where many students attend sporting events?
What do you mean by average student? State? Cost constraints?
Duke, Boston College, Fordham, Syracuse
Figure shes a B-B+ student. No real cost constraints. State doesnt matter. We live in NY so can be anywhere in the New England area, NY, maybe some southern schools on east coast/
Union
Lafayette.
Univ of Delaware
Elon?
Wake Forest springs to mind as a relatively small school (5200 undergrads) with tons of school spirit, though basketball is more popular than football. A mere 1.3% of classes have more than 50 students – a percentage smaller than several highly selective liberal arts colleges like Swarthmore, Williams, and Bowdoin. Like Dartmouth, Wake has only a handful of MA/PhD programs, mostly in the sciences.
Wake has gotten fairly selective (27% admit rate for women), but it’s test-optional.
Providence College is a smaller school (around 4000 undergrads) where basketball is huge (also hockey), but no football. Median GPA is between 3.3 and 3.5 so it could be a good fit stats-wise.
I do not think she would get in there. 
@twoinanddone only on CC when a parent describes the kid as a average student is the first recommendation Duke
How about a top flight football program, 10k undergraduates, a Sports Management program and a 25-75% ACT range of 21-26? That school would be North Dakota State.
People I know who went to school at Dayton all loved it.
I don’t know anyone who went to Xavier in Cincinnati, but it seems to have one of the better basketball programs in the country.
She posted about being a B student after I posted. I was just responding to ‘smaller and good sports attendance.’
I will second Union College (strong/high B student)
St. Lawrence University (Hockey is big and an overall sporty school)
Western New England University
Springfield College
Plymouth State (New Hampshire)
Seconding St. Lawrence.
Similar size to Delaware would be James Madison University. They are playing previously mentioned North Dakota State in the FCS football finals. Large football stadium. Also, Villanova, although that would be a reach.
Gettysburg, Loyola Maryland, Lehigh
Lehigh is unlikely for a B-B+ student.
Loyola Chicago (sorry, a little further west). Basketball, midsize Jesuit university. Run the Net Price Calculator; it might include a merit estimate as well.
if @momteaches could provide some more detailed information (ex. unweighted GPA, SAT/ACT, level of activity in ECs) then more meaningful suggestions can be put forth. There is a difference between where a 3.5 GPA student and a 3.0 student has a reasonable chance of acceptance
If a Catholic school is OK I’d look at the list of Jesuit colleges - there is a range in terms of academics and location. Many are mid-size schools with small classes and a number of them have strong basketball programs. http://www.ajcunet.edu/institutions St. Joes (Phila) is one on the east coast that comes to mind. https://www.sju.edu/admission/undergraduate/admitted-student-profile