TEMPE, Ariz. — So there was Brian Cooksey, wearing a white Georgia golf shirt and a red Georgia hat as he perused his Arizona State football brochure on Friday’s flight to Phoenix.

That’s right, his Arizona State brochure.

Cooksey, a 1994 UGA graduate and the president of Dalton’s Bulldog Club the past several years, has received Arizona State mailings ever since he purchased a Sun Devils season-ticket book in May for $99. He bought the book after learning he would not be among the 7,300 Bulldogs fans who could obtain tickets through Georgia’s ticket office.

The desire to witness Georgia’s farthest regular-season road game in 48 years was so substantial that only those who had lifetime contributions of more than $27,000 to UGA’s athletic association were eligible for tickets. In other words, competition these days isn’t relegated to the playing field.

“Home games aren’t a problem,” Cooksey said. “The Florida game is getting close to being a problem, and with big road games like this — I just haven’t accumulated enough points.”

Georgia athletic director Damon Evans said before Saturday’s kickoff that there were 13,000 requests through the UGA ticket office, so nearly half of those had to be rejected. That didn’t keep Bulldogs fans from attending their fourth victory this season en masse, as an nearly 20,000 red-clad supporters filled the 71,706-seat Sun Devil Stadium.

“I’m excited for our fans and for our team,” Evans said. “The fans wanted to get outside of the Southeast region, and I think it’s a great experience for everyone involved. It’s like a bowl game, to a certain extent.

“The 13,000 ticket requests we had for this game is more than your usual bowl allotment.”

Evans had a goal of taking Georgia football from the regional to national exposure when he replaced Vince Dooley as athletic director in 2004, and the program’s first trip to the state of Arizona was the opening act. The Bulldogs hosted Colorado in 2006 and Oklahoma State last year and will repay those schools by opening next season in Stillwater and playing at Boulder in 2010.

Georgia also has trips scheduled in future years to Louisville (2012), Clemson (2013) and Oregon (2015).

“The more we get around the country,” Evans said, “the better brand identity we’re going to have.”

Until this trip, Georgia’s furthest regular-season road ventures against non-SEC opposition since the league split into division play in 1992 have been to Clemson and Georgia Tech. Actually, those have been the only nonconference trips.

The Bulldogs historically haven’t needed significant travel to face quality, nonconference foes. Throughout the 1960s, ’70s and some of the ’80s, the Bulldogs used three of their five nonconference slots to play Clemson, Georgia Tech and South Carolina.

Cooksey has missed just one Georgia football game in the past 12 seasons, that being the 2000 Oahu Bowl against Virginia that was played on Christmas Eve and drew less than 500 Bulldogs fans. He hopes to eventually get to where he isn’t turned away by Georgia’s ticket office but has shown resiliency in keeping his streak intact.

“I am so glad Georgia is playing games like these now,” Cooksey said. “I love home games, but I think I like road games even more. Especially something like this.”

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