CHICAGO – Gophers head football coach Tim Brewster said he is not concerned about a slump in student season ticket sales for TCF Bank Stadium’s sophomore season during his podium address at Big Ten Media Days today.

"In talking with President  Bruininks and Joel Maturi, I don’t think there’s any slump in our ticket sales," Brewster said, adding, "We think we’re going to be sold out."

The Daily reported this week that, as of press time Tuesday, the team had only sold about 5,500 of its available 10,000 student season tickets, which is about 1,000 short of student ticket sales from last season.

Brewster said he feels the program has done a great job of reaching out to students in the past, and needs to continue to do so in order for the ticket sales to remain strong. He said the greater student involvement is key to possessing a real home field advantage over opponents.

"In my mind – no slight to any other stadium in the conference – we’ve got the best stadium in the country. There’s some that are bigger, I don’t think there’s any that are nicer. We want a great home field advantage Saturday [during the season]… We want to make [coming to TCF Bank Stadium] hard on the teams and I think we will."

Brewster backed up his confidence by pointing to a regular season schedule that is among the most difficult in the nation — including a non-conference home game against the University of Southern California — and said the fan base is "absolutely jacked" about many of the teams visiting this year.