photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Kansas fans celebrate after a touchdown during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Missouri State Friday, Sept. 1, 2023, in Lawrence.

For the first time this season, the Booth will indeed be packed.

Kansas Athletics announced Tuesday afternoon that it has sold out tickets for the KU football team’s Big 12 Conference opener Saturday afternoon against BYU at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium, which has a capacity of 47,233.

This will be the Jayhawks’ first sellout since they hosted TCU last October. That game concluded a streak of three consecutive home sellouts which were, in turn, KU’s first since a matchup with Duke on September 19, 2009.

The university sold out eight games between 2008 and 2009 so still has a ways to go to match that pace, but is making substantial progress in that direction. This year’s 3-0 start marks the first time KU has reached 3-0 in a second consecutive season since 1992. One more win would yield the first back-to-back 4-0 starts since 1914 and 1915.

In comes fellow unbeaten BYU, which is playing its first ever Big 12 game fresh off an upset of Southeastern Conference foe Arkansas, and whose fanbase is already known to travel well. (This is in fact the fifth “first conference game” for BYU in the program’s history; the Cougars were most recently independent in football for a dozen seasons.) That makes for a compelling matchup even before the other storylines: the 1992 Aloha Bowl rematch, the Lassiter brothers on either side and so on.

The game earned a 2:30 p.m. time slot and a spot on ESPN. The following week, KU will play a road game at Texas at the same time on ABC. That’s a pair of afternoon matchups after three night games to open the year.

The Jayhawks will then be back at home Oct. 7 to face another new Big 12 foe, UCF.