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Texas, the eyes of Nebraska are upon you.
Hungry Husker football fans started snapping up package trips to the Big 12 championship football game even before Nebraska qualified for it. By mid-morning Tuesday, the official University of Nebraska allotment of tickets were sold out.
About 1,000 of NU's 11,909 allotment were offered to the general public Tuesday after donors had first crack at buying tickets for the Dec. 5 game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The general public tickets sold out in an hour.
And all the face value tickets could be gone by now -- a Ticketmaster customer service representative said just after 10 a.m. that only three scattered, single seats remained, each selling for $66.
Many Big Red backers were making travel plans by Monday for the Dec. 5 game between Nebraska and the Texas Longhorns at the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Nebraska football donors, who had first crack at NU's official allotment of 11,909 tickets, purchased all but about 3,000 of the tickets by the Monday afternoon deadline. The remainder were to be offered to the public beginning at 8 a.m. today. Ticket prices range from $55 to $88.
Interest also was solid in travel, hotel and ticket packages being jointly marketed by the Nebraska Alumni Association and several Nebraska travel agencies, representatives said.
The groups' air and land package, including two nights' lodging at the Husker team hotel, the Westin DFW Airport Hotel, runs $1,197 for one person staying in a double-occupancy hotel room. It also includes rides to and from the conference championship.
The groups' all-inclusive land trip by motorcoach costs $619 for one person to stay in a double-occupancy room.
“Every time I go by our front desk, the person working there has her head down and is taking another reservation,” said Andrea Cranford, an alumni association spokeswoman.
“People are excited. They want to follow Bo to his first Big 12 championship,” she said of Husker coach Bo Pelini.
Excited would describe long-time Nebraska fans Marlene and Paul Skophammer of Tekamah, Neb. They have a package booked through the Norfolk-based Allied Tour and Travel of Nebraska.
“We're going down because I think the Huskers are going to beat Texas,” Marlene Skophammer said.
A little perspective here: Nebraska fans are unlikely to approach their showing of an estimated 60,000 who watched the Huskers play at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium in the 2006 Big 12 championship game.
Nor is the Big Red travel interest as high as for the 2001 Rose Bowl, said Steve Glenn, president of Executive Travel in Lincoln.
“I'd say it's solid interest,” Glenn said. “We'll have a couple of charters going down to good old Dallas.”
He said the interest in packages was coming primarily from baby boomers and retirees.
“The kids are probably going to drive,” he said.
It's about 675 miles by land to Cowboys Stadium from Omaha.
By air, according to a check of Web sites Monday, many round-trip flights to Dallas from Omaha's Eppley Airfield ranged from about $400 to more than $700.
It was too early to tell about private charter flights.
“We don't usually learn about charters until closer to the departure dates,” said Steve Coufal, executive director of the Omaha Airport Authority.
Donn Seidholz, an Omaha-based spokesman for NetJets Inc., a company in which people own shares of private jets, said he expects several customers will fly to Dallas for the game. But he's not naming names.
“We've got lots and lots of owners who are Cornhusker fans,” Seidholz said. “I would imagine that quite a few of them will be going.”
In Norfolk, Dave Busskohl of Allied Tour and Travel said he had filled one 38-seat “ultra coach” bus at $599 a person, all-inclusive. He hopes to fill another.
In Omaha, Rose White of AAA Nebraska said several people had booked package trips before NU's Saturday night victory over Kansas State clinched the Huskers' berth in the game.
More called halfway through the Nebraska game. And reservations were steady Monday.
While odds-makers might not give Nebraska much of a chance against Texas, confidence brimmed during the regular Monday morning Big Red analysis at the Right Next Door coffee shop in Tekamah.
“I'd say ‘Dallas, here come the Blackshirts!'” Marlene Skophammer said.
Contact the writer:
444-1057, christopher.burbach@owh.com
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