Todd Dodge Is Helping Ticket Sales at The University of North Texas

New York Giants defensive end Adrian Awasom knows it’s tough to earn respect after playing college ball at North Texas. He always hears thinks like “Is that D-1 football, do you all have a stadium, you all this and that, I'm fighting them off though man. I'm fighting them off,” he says.

But the hiring of former Southlake Carroll Head Coach Todd Dodge as the schools new field boss during the off season may change all that.

To take advantage of the surge in ticket sales, season ticket holders have to make a bigger donation to the Athletic Department.

“We need to take advantage of a product that is valuable, that people put a value on, and will help us to continue to increase our funding,” says Rick Villarreal, Athletic Director for the University of North Texas. “We wanted to put a situation in that protected fans that didn't allow people to come off the street, being a new fan, and getting 50-yard line seats.”

What they have done is added a priority points system used by other Universities around the country for their most loyal fans. In this case, an extra 5-hundred dollars will allow fans to buy seats on the 50-yard line in section E. They've added this system because there is more demand on tickets now, since Dodge was hired.


Larry Collister of Denton, Texas, is one of those season ticket holders who have already secured his seats. “Dodge and his staff, they were meeting and greeting everybody. It was unbelievable watching how all that was going on,” said Collister as he recalled a gathering of season ticket holders. “I thought it was great what they did. When they hired Todd Dodge, we decided to double our pledge immediately, because of the buzz that was going on and having watched him stop Denton Ryan all the time.

In the meantime, donations are up and so are ticket sales.

“We've sold just about every seat in the center section and are now starting to both sections on the other side,” says Villarreal. But what start it will be, when they travel to Norman, Oklahoma for the season opener on Saturday, September 1, 2007.

Sat, Sep 01 Oklahoma at Norman, OK 6 p.m.
Sat, Sep 08 SMU at Dallas, TX 7 p.m.
Sat, Sep 22 Florida Atlantic Denton, TX 6 p.m.
Sat, Sep 29 Arkansas at Fayetteville, AR 6 p.m.
Sat, Oct 06 Louisiana-Lafayette at Lafayette, LA 6 p.m.
Sat, Oct 13 Louisiana-Monroe Denton, TX 6 p.m.
Sat, Oct 20 Troy at Troy, AL 2:30 p.m.
Sat, Oct 27 Middle Tennessee * Denton, TX 6 p.m.
Sat, Nov 10 Navy Denton, TX 3 p.m.
Thu, Nov 15 Arkansas State at Jonesboro, AR 6 p.m.
Sat, Nov 24 Western Kentucky Denton, TX 3 p.m.
Sat, Dec 01 Florida International at Miami, FL 6 p.m.