By MATT VAUTOUR
The title is on posters, public transportation ads and all over the internet.
UMass is hoping its heavy promotion of the Battle of the Bay State brings a lot of fans to Gillette Stadium for Saturday’s noon game between the Minutemen and Boston College.
“We’ve done a lot of outdoor stuff and visual stuff around Boston, similar to the stuff we did in 2014,” UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford said. “It worked pretty well for that game.”
That game, the first between UMass and BC at Gillette Stadium, drew 30,479 for a 30-7 Eagles win.
Bamford said the school has worked with BC to give Eagle fans access to as many tickets as they need for the game.
UMass quickly filled its initial 12 student fan buses and have added four more. It’ll be accepting reservations until 3 p.m. Friday.
Bamford said ticket interest picked up this week, helped by UMass’ solid showing in its 24-7 loss at Florida.
“Until you get to game week it doesn’t seem like it resonates for people,” he said. “Fortunately we acquitted ourselves well on Saturday. I think people are excited about the matchup,” he said. “Any chance you get to play a Power 5 opponent is a chance to legitimize our young, growing FBS program. Whether it’s BC or UConn, regionally it means something for us and for our fans. We’re excited about it. They’re games we can rally UMass people around.”
He hoped a lot of those UMass people, as well as plenty of their BC counterparts, would be in Foxborough, Saturday.
“We’re trying to get as many people out to support the battle as we can,” said Bamford. “We’re hoping for a good walk-up to get to 25,000-30,000. I’d be very happy if we were in the high 20,000s. If we could somehow get to 30,000 that’d be magnificent.”
Among the crowd is expected to be Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, who’ll participate in the pregame coin toss. Polito is a 1988 BC graduate.
Bamford said UMass President Marty Meehan as well as several members of the board of trustees are expected to attend.
PEP RALLY — Eric Frede, who’ll do play-by-play for most of UMass’ televised home games this season, will lead a pep rally, Friday at 12:30 p.m. at the Boston Harbor Hotel.
UMass coach Mark Whipple and Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy will speak and the marching band and cheerleaders will perform at the event.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage