Ticket pull for Texas A&M football vs. Texas reportedly spiraled out of control

Texas A&M football ticket pull for Texas game descends into chaos and accusations

As you might expect, the student tickets for Texas A&M football vs. Texas are an extremely hot commodity—as any tickets for the game are. As we've written about on this very site, the price of even the cheapest tickets exceed that of even the Super Bowl rematch earlier this year between the Chiefs and 49ers.

That much is unsurprising. What should also be unsurprising, especially with the benefit of hindsight, is the manifold issues that have apparently come to pass with the ticket pull process for the students.

As all Aggies are probably aware, A&M has students come get their football tickets in person prior to the game rather than using a virtual queue. This results in students camping out for extended periods of time prior to the window in which they can actually get their tickets so that they can get better seats than they otherwise would.

As soon as the New Mexico State game ended this previous Saturday, students began to camp out and wait for their ticket pull window for the Texas game—due to Thanksgiving break, that window was this week rather than occurring after the Auburn game. Again, this should not be surprising.

But this is no ordinary big time matchup—this is the renewal of a rivalry that runs deep in the blood of the Lone Star State. The anticipation is off the charts, especially given that this is potentially a SEC Championship and College Football Playoff make or break game for both squads.

Anecdotes from ticket pull late last night and into this morning have begun to surface that are filled with dissatisfaction and accusations. Many are claiming that certain people rushed to the front of the line—at or around 2 AM, when Bonfire Memorial was taking place—to pull large numbers of tickets for groups with which they are associated, and on the evidence of a Twitter burner account, have pinned the blame on one fraternity in particular.

Now, it's important to note that this is behavior that maybe more accurately fits someone wishing to ruin the reputation of an organization than someone actually affiliated with it. That fraternity has since issued a statement denying that the burner is associated with any of their members.

The most treacherous part of these allegations is that some have claimed that the extra tickets and guest passes that were pulled are going to be resold to Texas fans and students associated with the same organization. I cannot stress enough that this is mostly conjecture, but even the suggestion of this possibility has gotten A&M fans extremely upset.

An account has been published on the Aggies subreddit that is a humorous recounting of events. It clearly is aiming to entertain at least in part, so it's tough to know how much the author intends it to realistically represent what happened, but if it's true, it doesn't look like there is one group in particular to blame.

The outcry is growing loud enough that it seems like there will inevitably be a response from the university in some capacity. Will A&M move to a virtual ticketing queue in response to this? Especially given things like the reported 2 AM charge to the front of the line, scary factors like a crowd crush have to be considered.

One thing is clear: if these accounts reflect what happened, the procedures need to be revised in some way. Hopefully, the university can take action soon.