Unfortunately, the reality is that only 150 students will be in the student section for the away game at Georgia this Saturday. So when we found out that SEC rivals Georgia and Tennessee provided 1,000 and 219 tickets, respectively, for their students to make the pilgrimage to Columbia when the game is in our house, we were appropriately appalled.
The university received 10,000 tickets from UGA for this Saturday's game.
Sounds great, but a paltry 150 of them fell into students' hands. Where did the others go? Unfortunately, they were bought out by season ticket holders, who earn their right to first dibs on away game tickets by purchasing home game season tickets.
While we think it's great that our passionate alumni snapped up 9,850 tickets the university offered as goodwill for previous lucrative donations, we feel students were given the sleight of hand.
The real shame is giving students more tickets could increase alumni donations in the future. Will current students remember how they were treated when it comes time to open their eventually thick pocketbooks 10 or 20 years down the line?
Maybe, maybe not; but 150 of 10,000 tickets isn't going to help. This short-sighted decision is like running a 5-yard pass play on 3rd and 15; it's just not enough.
And we're not saying we deserve every, single, ticket. But at least match what our rivals are offering to their students!
If the athletics department really needs the extra money that comes from the 850 alumni that were sold tickets before students had a chance at them, then there are bigger issues to tackle.