Tough Day for the Jackets

Tuesday January 5th 2010 was a day that most jacket fans would love to forget. While coming up short in the Orange Bowl against the Iowa Hawkeyes down in Miami, the Tech basketball team had it taken to them by none other than the hated in state rival. UGA took the jackets down 66-73 for Tech's 13th straight loss in Athens. Talk about adding salt to the wound of a dissapointing night.

While Tech fans can't be too disappointed with the outcome of the 2009 season; many are concerned that this offense will continue to be exposed in bowl games for years to come. When the opponent has over a month to prepare for the running offense it seems to not be as effective.

Orange Bowl Press Conference

Bowl Tickets on sale - AJC.com

The football programs at Georgia Tech, Georgia and Georgia State share one mindset today: Sell.

John Spink, jspink@ajc.com GSU Assistant Ticket Manager Racquel Whyte (left) puts a GSU sticker on Preston Stancil (right), who was first in line to order Georgia State season football season tickets Dec. 7, 2009, for the inaugural 2010 season.

Georgia Tech and Georgia began hawking tickets to their respective bowl games, while Georgia State started offering season tickets for its inaugural 2010 season.

Fresh off a pulsating ACC title game win over Clemson, Georgia Tech has an allotmentof 17,500 tickets to sell for the Jan. 5 Orange Bowl in Miami.

"Being the 2009 ACC champion, playing in a BCS bowl, I think it sells itself," said athletic director Dan Radakovich, who expects Tech to sell its entire allotment.

The $125 tickets are available on Tech's website. Last year, Tech sold its allotment of 17,500 tickets to the Chick-fil-A Bowl in less than four business days.

Tech (11-2) will face Iowa (10-2) in a matchup featuring the ACC and Big 10 coaches of the year.

The Hawkeyes faithful travel extremely well. When Iowa played in the Orange Bowl following the 2002 season, about 35,000 Iowa fans made the trip for a blowout loss to USC. This year, they've already sold 14,000 tickets, or 80 percent of Iowa's allotment, thanks to a presale to season-ticket holders.

"We'll certainly use our minimum of 17,500, and we'll work with the Orange Bowl to get however many more we need," Iowa athletic director Gary Barta said.

Georgia could face a tougher challenge selling its allotment of 12,000 tickets to the Dec. 28 Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La. The 7-5 Bulldogs will face 6-6 Texas A&M in a 4 p.m. kickoff.

"We'll push tickets as we always do at the University of Georgia," athletic director Damon Evans said. "Winning that last game (30-24 over Georgia Tech), we expect our fans to have some excitement and travel well. And their support is crucial to our overall success. We are going to sell as many tickets as we possibly can."

Tickets cost $30 or $35 and are available on UGA's Website.

UGA and Tech are offering travel packages as well.