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KLMNO COLLEGE FOOTBALL Virginia Tech again has trouble selling its bowl tickets


Hokies have sold around 6,500


of 17,500 allotment BY MARK GIANNOTTO


blacksburg, va. — Two years after falling more than 14,000 tickets short of selling its ticket allotment to the Orange Bowl, Virginia Tech is again facing tick- et sale issues as it prepares to face No. 5 Stanford onMonday. In conjunction with member-


ship in the BCS, each participat- ing school is expected to buy one-fourth of the tickets available for its bowl game. In the Orange Bowl’s case, that means Virginia Tech and Stanford are on the hook for 17,500 tickets each. When the Hokies came to


South Florida following the 2008 regular season, they sold just more than 3,300 of their 17,500


Orange Bowl Virginia Tech vs. Stanford When: Monday, 8:30 p.m. Where: Sun Life Stadium, Miami Gardens, Fla. TV: ESPN


tickets. Virginia Tech again ex- pects to takeaheavy loss this year. As of last week, the Hokies had sold around 6,500 of their ticket allotment. Tim East, Virginia Tech’s associate athletic director for external affairs, said they ex- pect sales to continue asgameday approaches, but “we’re not gonna sell out our allotment, that’s for sure.”


Stanford, meanwhile, has sold


just more than 10,000 of its tick- ets, according to a school official. Plus, the Pacific-10 Conference will cover the cost of any unsold tickets, per league policy. ACC schools are fully responsible for the costs of 6,000 bowl tickets, and partially responsible for the next 2,000 tickets sold. After 8,000 tickets are sold, the confer-


ence’s 12 schools share the cost of any remaining unsold tickets. The problem, according to Vir-


ginia Tech officials, is two-fold. For one, neither school is given the best seats in the house. While Virginia Tech did have some low- er-level tickets to sell, most were end zone or corner seats at Sun Life Stadium in Miami. The ma- jority of the best sideline views are kept by the Orange Bowl to sell to its local patrons. “If you’re out marketing the


other 50 percent of the tickets to the general public, you’re gonna want to get the best seats you can get and that’s what the bowls are doing,” East said. “But you’d like to think you can sell the tickets, and if the demand’s there, it’s gonna sell.” That, it seems, is the problem


the Hokies once again have run into this year. An Orange Bowl official confirmed this week that they are expecting a crowd of around 65,000 at the Jan. 3 game,


about 10,000 short of Sun Life Stadium’s 75,540 capacity. Even though a matchup with


the fifth-ranked Cardinal is much more attractive than two years ago, when Virginia Tech faced Cincinnati, the slow sales have created a secondary market through online retailers such as StubHub that feature cheaper prices than what the school can offer. The price range of tickets in


Virginia Tech’s section runs as low as $65 for the upper deck or as high as $225 for the lower bowl. But as of Tuesday, tickets in the lower level were going for as low as $40 on StubHub. Upper- level seats were available for just $12.


Despite how this appears, Or-


ange Bowl chief operating officer Michael Saks contends the sec- ondary market is not the issue this year and that bowl officials haven’t seen a dramatic shift in ticket sales through sites such as


StubHub over the past 12 days. He said there are many factors


thatcanaffect ticket sales, such as how a team got to the bowl game or how much a team’s fan base has already traveled that season. Not to mention this year’s Orange Bowl is on aMonday, when most children have returned to school from the holiday break. “We look at the secondary mar-


ket, not ascompetition, but that it can aid you,” Saks said. “A lot of times it can drive ticket prices up. I think you have to look at the bowlsystemin its totality, not just snapshots of single bowls. I think when you look at the system as a whole, there’s a lot of bowls that have the highest demand of tick- ets.” This, though, doesn’t change


the fact that Virginia Tech will be forced to pay a sizable amount for its unsold tickets even though it expects more than 17,500 of its fans to be in south Florida over the next week.


For future years, the school’s


athletic department is debating whether to sell off its ticket allot- ment at reduced prices or offer alumni club benefits to entice fans to buy through the universi- ty.


Ultimately, though, it’s a con- sumer-based decision. As East tells it, he received one e-mail from a fan who, despite finding cheaper tickets online, was ada- mant about buying bowl tickets through the school because of the school’s poor ticket sales two years ago. But more often than not, that doesn’t seem to be the case. “Fans are savvy, and every-


body’s got their own prerequisite or objective that they’re looking for,” East said. “A lot of fans want to sit on the 40- or 50-yard line and if they have to spend a little bit more money or go on the secondary market to do it, that’s what they’re gonna do.” giannottom@washpost.com


Friedgen exits with a triumph


terps from D1


nation during the regular season, a team that brings back the same core of players that finished 9-4. Oneplayerwhowill not be back is junior wide receiver Torrey Smith,whograduated Dec. 19and announced after the game he will forgo his senior season to enter the NFL draft in part because of family considerations. When asked about the quality


of the Maryland job, Friedgen — without specifying the issues — said that it is “notaneasy job”and that there are a lot of things uni- versity officials“needtochange to reach its potential. I don’t know if they are willing to do that.” It is uncertain whether any


other candidates will visit Mary- land’s campus. Kevin Anderson, Maryland’s first-year athletic di- rector,whowas on theRFKStadi- um sideline late in the game, had said he wanted to name a head coach by Tuesday of next week. In his 125th game as Mary-


JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST Maryland junior wide receiver Torrey Smith eludes East Carolina defenders. After theMilitary Bowl victory, Smith announced he is declaring early for theNFLdraft. MIKE WISE The big man leaves some small people behind wise from D1


order bride fromTexas arrived? “I have three daughters and


120 sons,” Friedgen said amid the postgame celebration as his 120- player extended family encircled the patriarch ofMaryland football for onemore night. “I am going tomiss these kids.” Maryland didn’tmerely fire


Friedgen; it took the only job the Class of ’70 alumeverwanted.As he spoke forlornly after the game, you didn’t feel Friedgenwas losing his job asmuch as his essence,who he is beyond a father and a husband. His ultra-supportivewife,


Gloria, and his daughters sat in the back, but not like the proud family of themanwho somehow made the Terrapins count in college football again, 10 years afterMarylandwas nowhere. No, they and every one of


Friedgen’s supporters looked like the losers in a family-court custody case. The state took away all 120 of his adopted children. To the Fridge-Needs-to-Go


folks: You can trot out your stats and your figures forever. You can make persuasive arguments about lapses in recruiting and interest.And even if youwere right—and you, like the newred necktie inCollege Park calling the shots, believe this is a “strategic business decision”— thiswas noway to bring an end to themostmemorable era of Maryland football sinceBobby Ross employed a pretty good offensive coordinator named Ralph Friedgenmore than two decades ago. Friedgen knows it’s big-time


college footballwithmonster money involved and sometimes there is no easyway to usher peoplewho don’twant to leave out the door. Butwhen the athletic director guarantees your job security for


land’s head football coach, Fried- gen stood on the sideline of a five-decade-old stadium that is yearsremovedfromits glorydays, a harsh backdrop for a coach whose administration has con- cludedthesameabouthim.Mary- land’s performance offered no ev- idence that Friedgen has lost his touch. The defense forced four turn-


overs, made two fourth-down stops and contained an explosive spread offense. Senior running back Da’Rel Scott scored on two touchdown runs of more than 60 yards and rushed for a career- high 200 yards. D.J. Adams be- came the firstMaryland player in eight years to score four rushing touchdowns in a game. In all, Maryland rushed for a season- high 297 yards. But the images that will most


resonate over time will be of Friedgen, who was given a Gato- rade bath by players late in the game. Chants of “Frie-dgen! Frie- dgen!” were heard periodically throughout. Inthe fourthquarter, fans carried a large banner that read “Thanks Ralph” around the upper deck of the emptying stadi- um.


Scott said that he felt his coach


would get the contract extension he had wanted because of a turn- around season in which Friedgen earned ACC coach of the year honors for the second time. In- stead, Anderson announced that Maryland will buy out the final year of Friedgen’s contract. “I feel he is a great coach,” Scott


said. “I don’t feel that [firing] should have been done. But it’s a business decision.” Early in the fourth quarter,


JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST OutgoingMaryland Coach Ralph Friedgen, Class of ’70, pauses to look at the clock in the final minutes of his final game with the Terrapins.


2011, then rescinds that pledge a month later;when university officials can’t just flat-out say, “We screwed up in howwe handled this”; and finally,when his hoped-for replacement is in College Park the very day he is taking the Terrapins to their seventh bowl game in his 10 years and their fifth postseason victory, well, that’s just about as classless as it comes. Hemay be gone, butwhat a


nice bookend to Friedgen’s redemptive season, no?What a dominating end, theway Maryland’s defense stifledEast Carolina in the fourth quarter, much like theway itmade a fourth-and-goal stand to upset Navy inBaltimore in early September. Seconds after that stop,


MilitaryBowlMVPDa’Rel Scott took off on a flyer, 91 scintillating yards, to put the game awaywith


less than 12minutes remaining. “Thank you, Friedgen! Thank


you, Friedgen!” As the bigman lumbered off


the podiumat about 8 p.m. Wednesday night and out the door for the last time, they can saywhat theywant about him and debate howgood of a coach hewas or not. They can’t debate this: Forty


years after his oldman swore he would change the locks if his


disenchanted kid leftCollege Park—because, as his father said, “quitters don’t live inmy house”— Ralph Friedgen never quit onMaryland. It’s a damn shame that on the


night of his last triumph, in the cold atRFKwhere they chanted his name and he sang the alma mater as the band played, the university he continues to love can’t say the same. wisem@washpost.com


Scott broke free and raced 91 yards for a touchdown in his final college game. But most of the attention during and after the game focused on Friedgen, who lifted Maryland to national rele- vance during his first three sea- sons and who capped his Mary- land career with a decisive bowl victory. In the locker room after the


game, linebacker Alex Wujciak said, Friedgen was relatively sub- dued. He thanked the players for their effort and told them to call him whenever they wanted. Friedgen told members of the


media he will take some time to decompress before he figures out his next venture. But he said if he gets the itch again to coach, “I think someone will hire me.” prisbelle@washpost.com yandas@washpost.com


THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2010


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