For Terps, a stuffed Byrd doesn’t come easy

Randy Edsall has made it clear that, if it were his choice, his Terrapins football team wouldn't open its season against Miami.

A lesser opponent would've made his first game at Byrd Stadium an easy one. But a prime-time, Labor Day matchup with an ACC foe offered a cash-strapped athletic department a dream scenario.

And after an NCAA investigation into the Miami football program left eight players suspended for Monday's game and the eyes of the nation trained on the Hurricanes, a matchup already rife with the intrigue of two new coaches and transitioning programs became even more compelling.

With that, the Terps are presented with a golden opportunity to do something they couldn't last season: fill Byrd Stadium.

It seems an easy sell. But for a lukewarm fan base whose often-fairweather support might have cost former coach Ralph Friedgen his job, the athletic department has had to pull out all the stops to fill seats.

In partnership with Under Armour, the department initiated "Operation 54K," an effort to color the stands with sections of red, white, black and gold shirts.

And in a late effort to sell the roughly 2,000 tickets that remained unsold as of Wednesday morning, the department posted a deal on coupon website Groupon offering a ticket to the game with a T-shirt for $22.

"I think ticket sales are outstanding for the Miami game right now," Deputy Athletic Director Nathan Pine said yesterday. "It's a marquee game and a marquee opponent that our fans want to see."

Compared to the state of ticket sales last year, an almost-certain sellout Monday and a boost in season-ticket sales are definite steps in the right direction. Last November, a prime-time matchup with Florida State fraught with ACC Championship implications yielded an attendance several thousand short of capacity.

Yet despite the significance of and storylines surrounding Monday's game, the department's stadium-stuffing measures show that fans still aren't sold on a Terps team that has been largely disappointing over the past several seasons.

But for now, at least, it seems student interest has returned.

Pine said that plans are in place to expand the student section for Monday's game to meet the high demand for student tickets.

Despite the campus-wide buzz surrounding the season opener, the upcoming game is no more interesting than those of years past for many students.

Asked if he was attending Monday's game, junior chemical engineering major Phil Crump said, "Probably, but I really haven't decided yet. It's basically the same thing as last year. … There's interest [among students], but it's not like it's super important."

For others, the circumstances surrounding Monday's game, coupled with the changing face of the Terps, has piqued their interest.

"I'm more interested than I was last year with the new coach and everything," psychology graduate student Will Bovender said. "I also like that they're starting off against the most hated of the ACC teams. They've got the new uniforms coming out, it's nationally televised, and obviously with Miami being as evil and rule-breaking as they are, we've got an opportunity to do something big on a national stage."

Still, Bovender's optimism was guarded.

"We've also got an opportunity to embarrass ourselves in our fancy new uniforms," he added.