Good cause or shady accounting?
After seeing some sparring on the ACC message boards about which school bought more tickets for the Charlotte bowl -- UNC last year or N.C. State this year? -- I checked around to see how some other schools are doing with bowl ticket sales. I came across this interesting item about buying proxy tickets for the Music City Bowl at UVa's athletics Web site.
The guiding principle: Buy tickets to be donated to local families so you don't have to travel to Nashville to see your lousy team and the school will still get credit for ticket sales, thus helping to eradicate this nasty image of Virginia as a school that doesn't travel to football games. Wonder how that reputation got started. In any case, it's a pretty crafty plan. But it means we can't trust the numbers.
Actually, it is funny to read -- on message boards and elsewhere (quotes from GT AD Dave Braine, for instance) -- that Georgia Tech would've brought a huge contingent to Nashville. Sure, the Jackets are coming off the upset of Miami, but since when do their fans travel? And didn't they lose to Virginia? So I don't really understand the uproar.