It’s becoming a growing trend in college football. Big trips for big bowl games? Give the rowdy – and traditionally poor- fans a little extra incentive to go.

Missouri University announced this week that it was giving away 1,000 tickets for students who would make the trip to El Paso, Texas, for the Sun Bowl on Dec. 29. It’s similar to what Kansas University did for both the 2003 Tangerine Bowl and the 2005 Fort Worth Bowl – let the student body know that the cost of a ticket shouldn’t serve as a deterrent.

“I think there’s a lot of ways the departments look to assist their students to getting to games away from home,” MU associate athletic director Eric Morrison said. “I think we all try to find ways to reward those kids.”

Missouri’s not alone this year, either. The University of Minnesota’s Goal Line Club gave out 100 free tickets for students for the Gophers’ Dec. 29 trip to the Insight Bowl.

Ohio University’s athletic department is handing out free tickets to students for the Jan. 7 GMAC Bowl.

Missouri gets about 8,000 tickets from the Sun Bowl, and one-eighth of them were in turn handed out to the students. Missouri also has publicized to fans the possibility of buying tickets and donating them to El Paso-area causes, such as the military and charities.

Kansas didn’t put a ceiling on the number of student tickets passed out in the past, though associate athletic director Jim Marchiony estimates about 1,000 KU students took advantage of the opportunity at last year’s Fort Worth Bowl.

“We think it worked,” Marchiony said. “It was during Christmas vacation, so it was a great incentive to come to the game. We thought it was a good idea.”

In addition to the free tickets – which were gobbled up in 24 hours, according to Morrison – Mizzou put together a cheap bus trip for students that will make the long trek to western Texas for the game. About 150 students have signed up for that.

“We know kids can make their own way down there, but we wanted to put together a transportation option for them instead of just giving away the tickets,” Morrison said. “We’re pretty excited about that. It was a really good turnout.”