Texas Bowl tickets available to public

Advance ticket sales for the 2007 Texas Bowl have topped 35,000, it was announced today. More than 15,000 of those tickets have been sold to the Houston community. The 2007 Texas Bowl will be played Friday, Dec. 28, 2007 at Reliant Stadium.

The Texas Bowl reached the 35,000-ticket mark nearly a month ahead of last year's pace. The inaugural Texas Bowl sold 30,305 tickets prior to the initial public sale last year and didn't reach the 35,000 mark until Dec. 4, 2006. Total paid attendance for the 2006 Texas Bowl was 52,210.

"We set out with a mission to make this more than just a football game for our community; we have made it a celebration of the culture, heritage and football tradition of the Lone Star State," said Texas Bowl director David Brady. "Our pre-game festival, TexFest, with Texas food, games and music along with the 'largest holiday fireworks show in Texas' after the game make this a tremendous day of family entertainment all for the price of a game ticket."

Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Friday, Nov. 9. Fans may purchase tickets online at www.ticketmaster.com. Fans that purchased tickets to the 2006 Texas Bowl had an exclusive opportunity to renew their seats for 2007 and keep their seating location or upgrade to better seats. Fans who buy their 2007 tickets prior to December 1 will have that same option for the 2008 Texas Bowl.

The 2007 Texas Bowl will feature teams from the Big 12 and Conference USA. The game will be televised nationally on NFL Network. The Texas Bowl holds the eighth selection among Big 12-affiliated bowls and will select a team among Conference USA-affiliated bowls.

Texas Bowl officials will visit three games this weekend: Texas Tech at Texas, Kansas at Oklahoma State and Houston at Tulsa. This will mark the second consecutive week in which Texas Bowl officials have seen the Cougars play.

"We are obviously very interested in our home town team. They are having another fantastic season on the field and this is a very important game in deciding the division winner," Brady said about attending the Houston-Tulsa game. "The race in both conferences is starting to become clearer, but there is still an awful lot of football to be played and we have a lot of good football teams that we want to see over the next three weekends."

The Cougars picked up their sixth victory of the season last Saturday with a 38-28 win over SMU at Robertson Stadium, making them eligible to play in a bowl game. Three other Conference USA schools also gained bowl eligibility last weekend as East Carolina, Central Florida and Tulsa all picked up win number six. Three Big 12 schools – Kansas State, Colorado and Oklahoma State – will be gunning for their sixth wins of the season this weekend, qualifying them for bowl eligibility.