AUSTIN, Texas — Delta Flight 2886 from Atlanta was jam-packed with Georgia football fans Thursday morning. That should come as no surprise because if one had a seat on this particular flight, it would’ve been secured many, many months ago.
That was the case for Atlanta’s Bryce Holcomb and his wife, Mary Lou. They actually booked their flight to Austin the same day that the SEC announced that the Bulldogs would be playing the Texas Longhorns here during the 2024 season.
When that news finally was released Dec. 14, the Holcombs were ready to pounce. Six months earlier, the SEC announced the eight opponents that each of the 16 teams in the newly expanded league were going to play, but did so without dates attached. So, the Holcombs were among many fans anxiously awaiting an actual date.
“We’ve been looking forward to this trip for a long time,” Bryce Holcomb said.
Booking their flight 308 days before taking it served the Holcombs well. They were able to secure passage for “about $500″ each. Some of their fellow passengers who waited until this summer to purchase a ticket paid three times that to fly on the same flight.
The Holcombs’ lack of hesitation had more to do with their family tree than their Bulldog family. Their daughter, Madison, lives and works here in Austin. Like her father, a retired investment banker with Citigroup, Madison Holcomb is a “double-dawg,” having earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from UGA.
Accordingly, they knew that whenever the Bulldogs and Texas finally played, they would use the trip as part reunion, part football pilgrimage.
Having their daughter in town also paid dividends when it came to securing a place to stay. They were able to rent an ideally located house through Airbnb for a “fairly reasonable price,” Holcomb said.
Hotel and house rental prices are “through the roof” this weekend. They were driven up by Sunday’s U.S. Grand Prix Formula One race at the Circuit of the Americas track. According to the Austin Visitor’s Center, the hotel occupancy rate this week is between 80-90% at an average cost of $477 a night. That’s considerably higher than for last year’s FI race, when rooms averaged $427.
Unfortunately for the Holcombs, Madison’s connections were unable to help them when it came to tickets to Saturday’s game at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium (7:30 p.m., ABC). They had to get those on the secondary market.
“Yeah, our daughter hooked us up on all that other stuff, but we paid out the wazoo for tickets,” Bryce Holcomb said. “They were $1,300 apiece on Seat Geek.”
But they’re in the lower level on the 50-yard line on the visitor’s side, so the Holcombs weren’t complaining.
On a few rows of Thursday morning’s flight, Bulldogs and Longhorns were thrown together. The conversations overheard mostly were deferential.
“I’m afraid y’all might get the best of us,” one Georgia fan said to his neighbor in a burnt-orange Texas hat. “We didn’t look too good against Mississippi State.”
“I don’t know about that,” the Longhorn replied. “We haven’t really played anybody yet. I’m pretty nervous about it, to be honest.”
