Despite the fact that about 20 to 25 general admission ticket-holders were unable to find seating at Thursday’s Huskie football game, Athletic Director Cary Groth said the seating situation was a success.

Thursday’s crowd of 28,018 was the largest in Huskie Stadium history. But without seating in the north end zone, the normally 31,000-capacity stadium was smaller.

The decision to close off the end zone was made for a few reasons, Groth said. First, there were nearly 3,000 tickets still available days before the game.

With so many tickets still available, Groth said the athletic department didn’t want to risk having a sparse end zone crowd, which Groth said would look bad for the university on national television.

Students’ safety also was a concern, Groth added.

History has shown that having students so close to the field makes it easy to run out and tear down the goal posts, as they did at Huskie Stadium in 1998 and 1999.

The reduced seating left some without places to sit. Many students and ticket-holders who were supposed to sit on the stadium’s east side were forced to the west grandstand. Most people went along with the switch, Groth said, but some ticket-holders did not want to sit on the west side.

Those fans, along with fans unable to find seating on either side, made up about 20 to 25 ticket holders without seats. They were offered seats to games later in the season, and none of them seemed to object too much, Groth said.

“I didn’t get any nasty e-mails,” Groth said. “If people were really upset, I would have heard about it.”

Assessing situations like Thursday’s in advance is sometimes difficult, athletic ticket manager Mike Rockovich said.

With students getting in free at the gate, it’s hard to tell how many will attend a given game.

Normally, the athletic department will reserve 6,000 seats for non-paying students on the stadium’s east side, Rockovich said. Once 6,000 students enter, they would begin shifting them to the west side into sections A and G.

At Thursday’s game, the crowd was larger than any crowd Huskie Stadium ever has seen, and moving everyone to find a seat – especially in general admission bleachers – proved difficult, Rockovich said.

“The game plan is to never turn students away,” Rockovich said.

But the game did serve as a learning experience.

Both Groth and Rockovich said the seating situation would be reevaluated before the Iowa State game on Sept. 27, when attendance numbers are expected to rival those of Thursday’s game.

There are a few things to consider for the remainder of the season, Groth said, including advance ticket pick-up for students and what, if anything, could be done with seating in the north end zone.

Groth said there are a few possibilities for the end zone, but she would not comment on any specifics.