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USF Fans Are Primed For Party And Game

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By KAREN HAYMON LONG, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 16, 2007

TAMPA - Look for lots of green and gold Bulls T-shirts at the University of South Florida-Rutgers football game Thursday night on ESPN.

USF's allotted 1,500 game tickets from Rutgers sold out shortly after the Bulls beat the West Virginia Mountaineers on Sept. 28 - before anyone knew the team would be ranked No. 2 in the nation.

Bulls fans will be able to party down before the game at a tailgate party outside Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, N.J. Under a USF tent, they will feast on hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, beer and wine. USF's marching band, Herd of Thunder, and the USF cheerleaders will entertain.

As of Monday afternoon, 170 USF fans - half from the Tampa Bay area and half from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania - had signed up for the party. It's sponsored by the USF Alumni Association, Athletic Association and Development Office.

'That's a pretty good size tailgate,' says Rita Kroeber, communications director for the USF Alumni Association. 'It is a great year to be a Bull. It really is. This is a nice showing for an away tailgate.'

Not to mention on a Thursday night.

Some game tickets were still available Monday on www. goodcheapseats.com, selling for $50 to $300. USF and Rutgers sold them for $30.

StubHub.com, the official ticket exchange provider of Rutgers University, had only 50 Bulls-Scarlet Knights tickets left as of Monday afternoon. They were selling for an average price of $93.

'Even with so few tickets left, the game is still on pace to be the second-best-selling game of the season by week's end, based on dollar volume,' says Joellen Ferrer, StubHub's public relations specialist for sports.

Only the West Virginia-Rutgers game sold more through StubHub.com.

It's not going to be cheap to fly for those who haven't bought their airline tickets yet.

As of Monday, AirTran Airways, which flies into Newark, was charging $191 to $301 for flights from Tampa to Newark on Wednesday and $191 to $406 for flights home on Saturday.

Reporter Karen Haymon Long can be reached at (813) 259-7618 or klong@tampatrib.com.

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