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Crowd breaks heavy for Tennessee before Outback Bowl

 
Tennessee Volunteers fans tailgate in a parking lot near Raymond James Stadium in Tampa on Friday afternoon.
Tennessee Volunteers fans tailgate in a parking lot near Raymond James Stadium in Tampa on Friday afternoon.
Published Jan. 2, 2016

TAMPA — A blazing sun beat down as lines of orange T-shirts snaked along sidewalks and through grassy parking lots around Raymond James Stadium. Thousands lined up along fences, at the backs of pickup trucks and in the shade of tents hours before the noon kickoff for the 2016 Outback Bowl.

This year's game pitted the Tennessee Volunteers against the Northwestern Wildcats. But if the pregame revelry was any indication, the crowd was decidedly partisan. Flags bearing the bold white letter "T" rippled atop car roofs, orange banners fluttered over American flags and orange tents stood like outposts in the shadow of Ray Jay.

"Florida is my favorite Tennessee colony," said John Hancock of Knoxville. That's Hancock, like the signature. He holds season tickets to Vols games and attends most of them.

"There's so many Tennessee fans out here, it's like having my team at home," Hancock said. "And Tennessee is one of the best traveling football teams in the country."

Hancock, who works as a maintenance director for an aircraft service center, met up with Bill Vest, a fellow Tennessee alumnus and old friend. The two stood, beers in hand, near an orange tent in a grassy lot south of the stadium. For them, the pregame was a sort of class reunion.

"We're meeting a lot of people. The game brings everybody together," Vest said. "Driving up from Sarasota, seeing all the Tennessee flags was just awesome."

But even amid the sea of orange, there were drops of purple, signs of the most-dedicated Northwestern fans.

"We've been to every bowl game since we've been alive," said Brett Spencer, 57, who attended the game with Doug Flowers. They met at Northwestern in the late 1970s. Since then, they've run four marathons together, and even climbed Mount Everest. They stayed loyal Wildcats even when times were tough.

"We watched them set a record in NCAA losses," Spencer said. "Then the 1995 Rose Bowl team came along … We went from the worst team to a nationally ranked team in 30 years. I was there the whole way."

On this New Year's Day, they were out early with their families, and a table spread of potato chips and donuts. A half hour before the kickoff, a man in an orange shirt, whom Spencer didn't know, shook his hand.

"I won't say 'good luck,' " the man said. "But we're hospitable."

For others, the tailgating was less about Friday's game as it was about maintaining tradition.

Hunter Ahrens, 17, came with his family from Stamford, Conn. They've come to the Outback Bowl for the past two years.

"Originally we came to see LSU — my brother is a big LSU fan," said Ahrens, referring to Louisiana State University, which won the Outback Bowl two years ago. "We like the warm weather and we play golf yearly."

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Robin Ciupidro, 47, of Clearwater donned a Florida Gators shirt as her husband, B.C. Ciupidro, 49, grilled sausage and toasted an English muffin. The Gator fans have tailgated at the Outback Bowl for 11 straight years. Their tickets come courtesy of an annual family gift.

"It seems like it's a good game every year," B.C. said. "It's fun meeting people from all over."

Contact Dan Sullivan at dsullivan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3386. Follow @TimesDan.