Soft-Ass University of South Dakota Canceled NDSU Fans' Tickets for Their Playoff Game This Week Because the Bison Fans Were Able to Guess 'Playoffs' as the Password for the USD Booster Pre-Sale

Source — The drive back from Bozeman, Mont., for a group of North Dakota State football fans included a look ahead to the following weekend. The dramatic 35-34 win over Montana State advanced NDSU to the quarterfinals this Saturday at the University of South Dakota.

A friend in Rian Nostrum’s car suggested when ordering tickets on the USD ticket sales website that they use a password “playoffs,” which was buzzing around phones and message boards in this day and age of instant communication.

“It didn’t require any credentials,” Nostrum said. “You can buy tickets and you can buy as many as you want.”

NDSU fan George Vinson bought tickets, had his credit card charged and made travel plans to Vermillion, S.D.

“I entered the code and bought like everyone else,” he said.

Later, however, Vinson received an email from the USD ticket office saying his tickets were canceled, with the message “the presale is for season ticket holders and (H)owling (P)ack members only.”

USD director of ticket sales and operations Adam Riley said it was clear on the order form that tickets were for Howling Club members only. 

"The code got out, whether it's our fans or somebody out there who shared the code with NDSU fans," Riley said. "NDSU fans went on there and bought tickets. It lets them, but it says in there it's for Howling Pack members."

The line isn't out yet, but once it's available, I will be responsibly hammering the North Dakota State Bison on Saturday. That's usually a pretty good bet in the FCS Playoffs, but now NDSU has karma on its side too after South Dakota pulled one of the softest moves you're ever going to see.

Hey Adam, if you want to protect your tickets from getting into the hands of opposing fans, maybe come up with a better fucking password than "playoffs." It doesn't take a Mensa member to try that one when checking out. I have to have a capital letter, number and special character in my password and then complete six CAPCHAs to log in to Instagram, but an institution of higher learning went with "playoffs" as its secret code and then got mad someone was able to crack it.

South Dakota may need to go back to Division II with this kind of candy-ass ticketing policy. This is the quarterfinals of the FCS Playoffs and you're playing the best program in the country over the last decade. This is big boy football. Grow up.

Bison by 40 this weekend.