Grab the Kids! It's Cheaper Than a Minor League Baseball Game

"Those (Cotton Bowl) tickets are dropping to unforeseen territory for a bole game of that magnitude."
--Sean Pate, StubHub Spokesperson

"Ten dollars is as low as anyone would sell them (Cotton Bowl tickets) for, so you could say the ticket has hit bottom with the Cotton Bowl."
--TicketLiquidator CEO Don Vaccaro

Let me say this up front: NO group of fans in any sport travels like Nebraska football fans, and I make that statement while knowing some Iowa Cubs fans. These people come in droves of over 60,000 to watch what is basically a practice every April. I've been to South Bend, and in my mind there are no better college football fans than Notre Dame fans.

But Husker football fans would travel 3,000 miles to watch Billy C try to win a potato sack race against Houston Nutt.

In the 2000 Alamo Bowl when Nebraska throttled Northwestern, the only fans who bothered to show up were Husker faithful. I'm telling you, the beyond thousands of Husker fans plan their holiday vacations around Bowl games. Now they've got one where all they have to do is immediately hop into their car, drive down to Dallas, and pay less than they would for reserved seats to an Omaha Royals game and get to see a New Year's Day College Football game.

I don't blame Husker fan here, even though for the first time that I can remember, they still haven't sold out their allotment of 12,500 tickets. Here are a few of the biggest problems involving all things COTTON BOWL in general:

1. They play at 10:30am. On New Year's Day. That's right, 10:30 AM CST, which means anyone on the West Coast would have to get up at 8:30 for this bastard. You know, HANGOVER Day. They expect people to literally make an attempt to come to a game that starts first thing in the morning on the day after the biggest party night of the year? I don't think so. The greatest alternative is stumbling out of bad at 10:29 AM, still half-assed drunk, find some hair of dog, plop yourself in front of the HDTV (The game is on FOX after all, not CBS), and nurse your hangover while watching the Corn try to upset Auburn. But actually getting dressed to go out and go to the game at that time of day after the night you just had? I'll pass.
2. The horrible stadium. A lot of people, when they first heard of where Nebraska was going for this year's bowl game, said, "Hey, this'll be great, we get to go and play where the Cowboys play." As in, the Stadium that Jerry Jones thinks God put a hole in so he could watch his favorite football team. Uhm no, the game is still actually played at the actual COTTON BOWL. Even our boy (hee-hee) Tom Shatel is joining in the fun with his take on what a joke the stadium is.
3. Auburn doesn't give a shit. They started the season with National Championship dreams. Even Beano Cook, who believe or not is usually right about these things, had Auburn has his pre-season pick to play for the National Championship. I'm sure Auburn folks in particular are staying away in droves.
4. For some reason, everyone's throwing around a phrase known as "Unpredictable Dallas weather." Oh, and all of a sudden we can predict the Nebraska weather? What, is everyone like the Detroit Tigers and hasn't heard of the Weather Channel?
5. The Omaha World Herald ran a front page story last week on what a disappointment the stadium is. Did we mention the stadium already? Yeah, thought so.

Finally though, Shatel of all the people in the world brought up a good point. Oklahoma State and Kansas State fans showed up in droves for the Cotton Bowl. There were no $5 or $10 tickets to be had. So why are "only" maybe 12,000 in Husker red making this trip? My personal opinion is that after seeing 70,000 of them hit Kansas City and hit it hard, they all had Fiesta Bowl visions in their head. They didn't want to spend New Year's Day MORNING in Dallas when they could have recuperated all New Year's Day long in Arizona for a great night game. And oh by the way, as we stated here a few weeks ago, we're still not sure that Billy C knows he's got to get up so early Monday morning and play a football game.

Nebraska fans have all moved on to next year. Everyone's ready for Sam Keller and a pre-season top 10 ranking. But like most people on Monday morning, everyone, even Husker Nation, wants to sleep in, nurse that final 2006 hangover, and get through it all with a game on HDTV. If Callahan doesn't care about this game, and tickets are only $10, why would anyone treat this with anymore urgency than they would say an Omaha Royals game in late April?

Only difference is that in late April, more than 60,000 strong will come watch a football practice in Lincoln.