The Hurricanes have sold more than 31,000 season tickets this season – “more than we’ve ever sold since we moved to Sun Life Stadium in 2008,’’ said Chris Freet, UM’s senior associate athletic director for communications, marketing and sales. "We're really pleased, really excited."

There are 27,000 seats in the lower Sun Life bowl, and the Canes have sold 95-percent of the seats that aren’t allocated to students (5,500), visiting teams (about 800) and recruits and high school coaches (about 1,500), Freet said.

The capacity of Sun Life is 75,000, but goes down to 67,000 when the four corners are covered with tarp.

Last year the Canes sold 29,917 season tickets, Freet said.

"The impact of the Florida game on the schedule last season was fantastic and we've only played the Gators at home once every 10 years historically,'' Freet said. "This year, with Florida State on the schedule, which comes in every two years, the fact that we're outpacing last year is really, really exciting for us in terms of growing our fan base No. 1 and the impact it will have on revenue for our department.''

FSU TICKETS

Now, the more pressing issue for Canes fans: single-game tickets to FloridaState on Nov. 15 have already been sold out through the Hurricane Club, Freet said. The only way to still get a ticket to FSU is by buying a “mini-plan’’ that encompasses both the FSU and North Carolina (Nov. 1) games. The least expensive mini-plan is $108.00 for upper-bowl seats.

The cheapest ticket Friday for the FSU game on StubHub.com was $112.89.

Freet said the 1,500 tickets UM got for the Sept. 1 Louisville opener have been sold out.

“What we heard from our fans is that it’s a difficult trip because they’d have to travel back on Tuesday, a work day,’’ he said.

Freet added that there will be “a much larger group of UM fans at Nebraska’’ on Sept. 20. He did not specify how many seats have been allocated to the Canes.

SUSAN MILLER DEGNAN