SOUTH BEND, Ind.—Notre Dame isn’t worried it won’t sell out its final two home football games, ending a streak of 197 sold-out games, even though Air Force and Duke have returned several hundred tickets.
“I don’t think there’s any sense the game isn’t still going to be sold out, in great part because there’s always a lot of traffic on game days,” said John Heisler, Notre Dame’s senior associate athletic director. “Nobody is concerned about it here.”
Because demand for tickets is so high, the university holds lotteries each season for alumni wanting tickets. All those tickets are sold out. But both Air Force and Duke returned some of their allotment of 5,000 tickets.
Josh Berlo, director of athletic ticketing, declined to give an exact number of tickets left for each game, but said they had received a “few hundred tickets” from Air Force and about 500 for Duke.
Heisler said even in high demand seasons it’s not unusual for tickets to be available during game weeks.
“Every home game there’s a lot of tickets that kind of float around. People are looking for them, some people send them back, it’s constantly in flux,” he said. “There’s always a few tickets floating around here or there, even for the biggest games.”
The number of tickets returned by Air Force and Duke is unusual, however, Heisler said. It’s also unusual for the ticket availability to be posted on the university Web site at .
“For all the things people hear about how impossible it is to get tickets for a game, in reality there are opportunities like this that come about every so often,” Heisler said. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing because it is going to provide opportunities to people who aren’t going to get into the stadium otherwise.”
Notre Dame has sold out every game played at South Bend since 1966 except against Air Force on Thanksgiving Day 1973. Back then, the stadium had a capacity of 59,075 and 57,236 attended the game.
If fewer than 100 tickets went unsold the university would not announce it, Heisler said.
Notre Dame stopped counting the number of people attending games 30 years ago, he said. The listed capacity at Notre Dame Stadium is 80,795.
The available tickets are the latest sign of interest in Notre Dame football being down this season. NBC ratings are down 36 percent this year, with a 2.1 rating and a 5 share this year compared with a 3.3 rating and an 8 share last year.
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MILITARY ACADEMIES: If Air Force beats Notre Dame, it would be the first time since 1944 the Irish have lost to two military academies in the same season. Since then, the Irish have played at least two military academies 36 times. They went 3-0 six times, 2-0 21 times, 2-1 twice, 1-1 five times, 1-0-1 once (1946) and 0-1-1 once (1945). … Notre Dame is 129-23-5 all-time against military academies: 37-8-4 vs. Army, 22-5 vs Air Force and 70-10-1 against Navy.
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BY THE NUMBERS: Air Force is 7-0 when it has a player rush for over 100 yards and 0-3 when it doesn’t. The Falcons are 6-1 when they outrush their opponent. … Notre Dame is 0-5 when an opponent rushes for more than 100 yards. … Notre Dame defensive end Trevor Laws had 15 tackles against Navy’s option last week, giving him 81 for the season. He is 58th in the nation in total tackles, but the only player in the top 100 who is a lineman. He is on pace to finish the season with 108, which would make him just the fourth defensive lineman in Notre Dame history with more than 100 tackles.
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INJURIES: Nose tackle Pat Kuntz, who missed much of the game against Navy after getting a knee in the back, practiced on Tuesday. “He’s considerably better than we thought he was going to be,” coach Charlie Weis said before practice. … Safety David Bruton, who saw only limited playing time against Navy because of a nagging hamstring injury sustained against USC, is healthy, Weis said.
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HONORS: Safety Tom Zbikowski is one of 12 semifinalists for the Jim Thorpe Award, given annually to college football’s top defensive back. Zbikowski is third on the team with 61 tackles. He also has one interception, three forced fumbles and a fumble recovery. … Notre Dame will dedicate plaques honoring the school’s previous athletics directors during a ceremony Saturday before the game against Air Force. Former athletics directors Gene Corrigan (1981-1987) and Dick Rosenthal (1987-1995) are scheduled to speak.
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WEIS SAYINGS: “You’d like to think that the chances of things moving in the right direction in the spring would be greatly aided by a strong rally down the stretch. You’d have to think that that would be the most logical answer you could get. Now that being said, there’s no rule that says that how you play in the last three games is going to have anything to do with San Diego State, but I think the better you play down the stretch, the more information you have going into the spring.”—Charlie Weis.
