Nebraska AD Tom Osborne states the obvious in a story about ticket sales for the Capital One Bowl.

Georgia’s doing reasonably well, selling 10,000 of its 12,500 allotment so far for the January 1st game. Nebraska has only sold 4,000. There are several reasons for their slow sales: Nebraska isn’t around the corner, the economy isn’t all that hot, the Huskers played in this same bowl last year, and did you see their last game?

Osborne identifies another “problem,” at least from the perspective of the school.

“The problem is so many people buy tickets now from the secondary market,” Osborne said. “People sometimes feel like you get better location and cheaper prices buying over the Internet. It’s really difficult anymore to assess how many fans you’re really going to have in that stadium.”

He estimates that as many as half of his school’s fans in Orlando last year didn’t buy tickets through the school. Teams are often held accountable for the unsold portion of their allotment, so it’s in their interests to sell as many tickets as possible. But fans know they can get better seats at a discount elsewhere. Fans don’t want to see their school take a hit, but they’re only loyal to a point.