Students learned that the selection for most away game tickets requested through the TCU Ticket Office had gone to a random lottery by either getting an email confirming their order or informing them of a refund Thursday afternoon. 

First year graphic design major Cody Cox said she had no idea the lottery was an option.

Cox said the lottery system should have given priority to seniors instead of being completely random.

“All I know is that if I was a senior, I would have wanted priority. Especially if I had been here for four years, it was the inaugural year of the Big 12 and it was the last year I was going to be able to go to the football games,” Cox said. “I would be really, really annoyed if it was my senior year if I purchased all those tickets and didn't get them and maybe some freshman did.”

Senior strategic communications major Heather Hughston agreed.

“Since I am a senior, it was upsetting not to get a ticket for an away game since it's my last season here,” Hughston said. “It seems like a lot of freshmen and underclassmen got tickets and they have three or four years left.”

The lottery was public knowledge, Assistant Athletics Director for Ticket Operations Sean Conner said. It could be read in the ticket emails and in the policy at GoFrogs.com, he said.

In the student away games ticket sales section on GoFrogs.com it states, “If more students request tickets than available, TCU will assign tickets based on a lottery.”

Both Cox and Hughston said it would have been better if a first-come first-serve method of distributing tickets had been used instead of a lottery.

Conner said that method would be impractical because not all students were back on campus when the tickets went on sale and they would have been at a disadvantage trying to get tickets through the ticket office later than others.

Also, not every game went to a lottery. Neither the game against West Virginia or Kansas sold out the student allotment, Conner said.