A greater number of students should receive full-season football ticket packages, said Tim Cearley, director of ticket operations for the University Athletic Association.

The number of students requesting football tickets fell this year by more than 4,000 – despite increases in overall enrollment.

But some students say the number fell because they didn’t even know ticket registration was going on.

“I honestly think the only reason it went down is because people forgot about it,” said Carly Krei, a junior from Alpharetta.

“I can name at least nine or 10 other people who didn’t get tickets – and that’s just in my sorority,” she said.

Lizzy Nephew also missed the 48-hour window to electronically request tickets. By four minutes.

“I called to see if there were any other options and I was told ‘you had 48 hours and that’s it, it’s your tough loss,’” she said. “It’s really unfortunate that [this happened] my senior year.”

Krei and Nephew are two of the thousands of University students who did not request tickets. In Krei’s case, she said she forgot to check her e-mail. For Nephew, it was just bad timing coupled with a busy week.

As of Friday at noon – the cutoff for requesting student tickets – 18,790 students had logged on to vie for either split or full-season packages.

And with 18,026 seats in the student section, the odds of receiving full-season packages are more favorable than those of last year’s season. Last year, 22,852 students requested tickets, Cearley said.

“We’ll have more students with full season packages and a fewer number of freshmen and transfer students who will get split-season packages, based on the numbers we’ve seen at this point,” Cearley said.

Cearley said he believes fewer tickets were requested this year because students who purchased tickets in the past for the sole purpose of scalping them are not participating. The new system requires students to show their UGACards, onto which electronic tickets are loaded and scanned.

The 18,026 student section allotment excludes students in the Redcoat Band and student athletes. Admission of these students will lower the number of available student seats by roughly 1,000, he said.

But it may be “game over” for students who did not request tickets by last Friday’s deadline.

“There will not be another opportunity for students to request tickets,” Cearley said.

Krei said she called the Athletic Association after the cutoff to inquire about requesting tickets. But she was told there was nothing she could do about it.

If Krei and Nephew want to watch the Bulldogs, they may have to search for alternatives.

“There may be an opportunity – and I want to stress may – for students to purchase general public tickets,” Cearley said.

Any unused single game tickets returned from the visiting team are then offered to Hartman Fund donors. If tickets are available after the donor requests have been fulfilled, they would be made available to the general public starting Sept. 1.

Cearley said 500 tickets from each of three games – Tennessee Tech, Arizona State and Kentucky – were returned and will first be offered up to the donors.

Additionally, only students who requested tickets are eligible to participate in the ticket donation program, where students who know they will not be able to attend the game can donate their ticket, Cearley said.

“I understand what the e-mail said,” Nephew said. “But at the same time I think they could have been a little more merciful.”