I've been told by someone that bought tickets during that period that the ticket office was selling a final 750 tickets, that their ranking was in the mid 27,000's. Also, I played around with the "What If" scenarios during that time, and if I bought tickets at that time, my new tickets also showed a proposed ranking in the mid 27,000's. I'm sorry I can't link the "What If" site, because it's no longer available.
I didn't claim any conspiracy, I'm just saying that there aren't 40,000 public season tickets sold, which is what the denominator is when they report rankings. I don't know what they are capping season tickets sales at because, as I said before, I'm sure they're holding some back for faculty and others (a couple thousand? just a guess). They should still be able to sell several thousand more season tickets this summer, but until the current season ticket holders are situated in TCF, they really don't know what the can offer to new purchasers. Thus the ticket sales were suspended for a while.
Call me silly if you want, but how could we possibly have 40,000 public season ticket holders when we had crowds of 40,000 total (including students) this past season? The U has a tradition of counting tickets sold and everyone else in the building to puff up the announced attendance figures. And if we really sold 15,000 season tickets since May, Iowa shouldn't have been able to take over the Metrodome in November, just like they had in previous years.
I guess we'll find out more in the months ahead. But my firm belief is that people on the waiting list should have no problem getting tickets.