Tickets a rare find for Dallas

By By Will Bardwell / staff writer
Dec. 18, 2003
More than 17,000 Ole Miss fans will make the trip to Dallas next month for the 16th-ranked Rebels' first Cotton Bowl appearance in 42 years.
Another 5,000 or so who wanted to go will stay at home.
Earlier this week, the school ticket office sent out the orders it filled for tickets to the Jan. 2 bowl game against No. 21 Oklahoma State. It also sent out thousands of letters to fans whose requests were not met.
But the tickets were not available. The ones that were available were doled out to season ticket holders. Preference was given to members of the Loyalty Foundation, the fund-raising arm of the Ole Miss athletic department.
All season ticket holders in the Loyalty Foundation received Cotton Bowl tickets if they ordered them. Many regular season ticket holders also secured tickets, but about 2,000 season ticket holders were left empty handed.
No one got tickets to the Cotton Bowl without buying season tickets at the beginning of the year.
The bowl office also sold its entire allotment of tickets for the 68,252-seat Cotton Bowl. The game was ruled a sellout on Dec. 9 just two days after the Ole Miss-Oklahoma State match-up became official.
Boone said the fervent demand for tickets is a new and welcome problem, and will help Ole Miss pitch itself to bowl committees in the future.
Boone said Ole Miss almost secured 3,000 more tickets from the Cotton Bowl, but that arrangement fell through.
That is why the Cowboys were given 22,500 tickets about 5,000 more than Ole Miss got. Those tickets have all been sold.
As they were for the Rebels' game against then-No. 3 LSU a month ago, tickets are a hot commodity to the Cotton Bowl. Tickets in bunches of four sold for more than $800 on Ebay today.
The bowl fever is new to the Rebels, whose fans groaned through three Independence Bowl trips in 1998, 1999 and 2002. Ole Miss has not played in a January bowl game since the 1991 Gator Bowl.