University football student season ticket sales have

doubled since last week, University ticket officials said on Thursday.

As of Wednesday, 8,700 students have purchased football season ticket packages, Betsi Sherman, athletics office associate marketing director, said.

“There seems to be more of a hype and talk in football just with the high expectations of the team, and the way they’ve finished the past few years,” she said.

Ticket sales director Dan Teschke said student season ticket sales have already surpassed last season’s total by more than 1,400 tickets.

Approximately 35,000 to 40,000 people are expected to attend Saturday’s game against Illinois State, he said.

During the last three seasons, Sherman said, 7,000 to 8,000 student season tickets have been sold on average.

Athletics Director Joel Maturi said he enjoyed seeing students at Saturday’s football game wearing the gold T-shirts they received with their season tickets.

Maturi said there’s a lot of excitement about this team.

“I really expect this team to continue to entertain us and represent us extremely well,” he said.

Sherman also said more tickets have been sold because they can be purchased by students in the bookstores and with their U Cards.

Sophomore Dustin Coleman said he enjoys going to the games.

“It’s a good time to get together with a bunch of people and go crazy,” he said. “It’s school pride.”

Though she didn’t buy season tickets, first-year student Sarah Belcher said she heard from other students it was a good deal.

“It’s easy with the voucher – you can go with whoever you want to sit with.”

– Branden Peterson and Naomi Scott contributed to this story.