The Five Toughest Tickets at Jordan-Hare Stadium
by Van Plexico
Of course, I'm limited to my own experiences here, and I only started attending Jordan-Hare regularly in 1985. But, with only the exception of 1992 (when I lived in Washington, DC), I've attended almost all of the big games and a bunch of the smaller ones since then. Some years, I had a student ticket, others I had to hunt down a regular one. This, then, is my evaluation of the five toughest tickets to get-- the five that were the hardest to find, and were selling for the highest prices.
5. GEORGIA 1994
I was fortunate to have a student ticket to this game, since I'd already
finished grad school and couldn't buy them myself any longer. I'd been smart, back
in the summer, and bought all 11 tickets for the year from a fellow grad student who
didn't like football. Some buddies visiting from out of town never did find a
ticket, and ended up watching the game at a bar, after driving all the way to Auburn.
Auburn had won 20 games in a row, and this was the final home game of the year-- a chance to prolong "the streak" and carry it to Legion Field the next week. Ray Goff had been quoted that week as saying words to the effect of, "You don't just win and win. Eventually you have to lose." Well, Auburn didn't exactly lose to Ray's dawgs that day, but the pups did manage to salvage a tie at the end. The winning streak was over, and it ended the same way Alabama's had, the year before-- with a tie at home. It was the first game Terry Bowden coached for Auburn that would not end in a victory.
4. FLORIDA STATE 1990
This was the quarter I graduated from Auburn, and is one reason why I'm glad
I waited and graduated in the fall, rather than cramming classes in and finishing earlier.
I got to sit with my underclassmen friends and, when it was over, enjoyed the
biggest group hug/celebration I think I've ever experienced.
Tickets to this one were tough to find. Auburn hadn't beaten FSU since Bo's senior year in '85, and a whole lot of pent up hostility was waiting to be released on the Seminoles that night. When Jim Von Wyl's winning kick sailed through the uprights at the end, it triggered a solid half-hour of tomahawk chopping in the direction of stunned and shaken FSU fans, who didn't know enough to clear out of the stadium immediately (I've always said that bama fans would have been gone long before the Auburn fans could taunt them--heck, I think Eli Gold does the fourth quarter of losing Tide efforts from the bus on the way out of town!) A great win, and a very tough ticket.
3. FLORIDA 1997
A very, very tough ticket. This was the game to which I've come the
closest to not getting a ticket at all. In the hours before the game, while visiting with
old friends, everyone observed that I was a nervous wreck. I was! I didn't
have a ticket, and they were going for a lot more than I was willing to pay. I
couldn't believe I might get frozen out of this contest. Fortunately, at what was
almost literally the last minute, a friend of a friend found one ticket and sold it to me
at cost. What an incredible relief! Unfortunately, the game didn't turn out
quite as happily.
This was the year Terry's Tigers were to get back on track, after two seasons of sub-par performances. This was the year Auburn was supposed to at least play in, and possibly win, the SEC Championship Game--finally. This was the "national champion" team Terry had been working toward all along, we were told during the off-season. And, indeed, the 1997 team was spectacular to watch--mostly because of the incomparable Dameyune Craig, at the controls of an air-it-out offense. The problem was, all they could do was air it out. Lack of a running game, and the tendency of the defense to give up a big play at key moments, doomed this team to achieving less than it might have. Coming into this game, the Tigers were undefeated, Florida had lost only a very bizarre game in LSU the week before, and this looked like a preview of the game in the Dome later in the year. Tickets were understandably scarce, and were not cheap. Florida pulled out a close one, but then went on to lose to Georgia, and so it was the Tigers who made it to the Dome after all.
2. ALABAMA 1993
"I'll just stay home or go to a bar and watch it on tv."
Nope! Not this year! Probation for the Tigers meant you had to be in
Jordan-Hare-- or in Bryant-Denny, where giant televisions were set up--to see this one at
all. This was the only football game in history to sell out two stadiums
simultaneously (this is also the game where fans dialing up a telephone system that was
broadcasting the game long-distance actually melted the telephone interchange, with the
sheer volume of traffic!). Tickets were, understandably, incredibly tough to get,
and you had to pay dearly for them. Those same friends from out of town ended up
missing this one, too, and had to listen on radio! Thank goodness for graduate
school.
Not only was it not allowed on television, it was the culmination of Auburn's undefeated '93 season. Alabama had all the incentive in the world-- win for the first time in Jordan-Hare, and prevent the Tigers from completing an 11-0 year. It wasn't a pretty game. Bama's scores came on big plays, early. Auburn fought and scrapped back, a few points at a time, and won late. In between, it was just a brutal, tough affair, with both starting QBs knocked out of the game before it was over. A tough game, and a tough ticket.
1. ALABAMA 1989
This has to be the toughest ticket ever in the state of Alabama. Sure,
it was on tv, but everyone wanted to be there. It was the first time the Tide
visited Jordan-Hare, and they were 10-0 and ranked second in the nation. Bama fans
were confident that they would show up the Tigers. Auburn fans were horrified that,
after years of working to get the game moved to Auburn, they'd lose to a strong Tide team
the very first time! Fans of both teams converged on the town, and I saw tickets
selling for hundreds of dollars each. I have never seen Auburn tickets sell for as
much as they were on this day.
Of course, everyone knows how it turned out. This group of players was determined not to be remembered for losing in the first bama visit to Auburn. They surged into the lead, then held on late for the 30-20 win. Jordan-Hare officially holds 85,214 people, yet somehow this game's attendance was about 100 more than that. I'm not sure how they did it, but until someone's stadium increases in capacity, this attendance record should remain in place. A hundred more specators than in the usual sell-out game, and even so, it was the toughest ticket in Jordan-Hare history.