Posted on Sat, Dec. 31, 2005 USF fan colors parted the 'Red Sea' ANDREW SHAIN ashain@charlotteobserver.com• ----------------------------------------------------------------- N.C. State dominated Saturday's Meineke Car Care Bowl in the stands (and on the field), but it was hard to miss South Florida fans. Excited about reaching their first bowl game, they were a brash and boisterous small army in uptown streets and Bank of America Stadium seats. They donned green wigs and streaked their faces with gold paint, and possessed a hair-trigger to holler, "Go Bulls." Rafafel Santayana was part of a group like that. He and four heavily painted friends landed in an uptown parking lot at 7 a.m. Saturday after a 10-hour drive from USF's home Tampa in a rented minivan. "We'll sleep Monday," Santayana said, promising not to sleep through New Year's Eve and the pro football games today. A block away, a baker's dozen of N.C. State fans climbed one-by-one out of the back of a 42-foot stretch Ford Expedition limousine near the stadium. They used the three-hour drive and spacious ride from Raleigh to tailgate. The limo can hold 20 people, but food (ham biscuits, sausage balls, quiche) and drinks (beer, wine, champagne) took up any remaining space. "We thought this was a classy way to go," said Bill Howard, vice president of a Web marketing firm. While Howard's group arrived happy, hundreds of other N.C. State fans were miffed about missing some of the first quarter because they waited up to an hour in line to get tickets from a single set of will-call windows. "I can't imagine how this could happen," said Kurt Ryback, a Greensboro contractor who waited 45 minutes before getting his bowl tickets right after kickoff. "I thought this would be better organized." The school did not mail tickets to fans because seating was not settled until about a week before kickoff, said **** Christy, the school's associate athletic director. Tickets were available in Raleigh the week before the game and at the team's Charlotte hotel the night before the bowl, but about a quarter of the tickets were waiting for fans at the stadium, he said. "This is the last thing we wanted to happen for our fans," Christy said. Inside the stadium, Pack fans found a Carter-Finley atmosphere 175 miles from the campus. Much of the crowd of 57,937 bellowed "First Down" every time the sideline chains moved for the Pack. Red consumed the stands except for two small patches of green with 5,000 USF fans and marching band. "We had to part the Red Sea somehow," said Michael Uglialoro, a USF accounting major. Uglialoro was among a group of hardcore USF fans in the end zone dubbed the Beefstuds. The current and former students covered themselves head to toe in green and gold paint and wore large-horned Viking helmets. As the Wolfpack approached toward their end zone in the second quarter, the Beefstuds screamed "defense" and "no way" while frenetically waving large yellow foam fingers. "We're hoping to get in their heads," said Brandon Faza, a 22-year-old medical school student credited with creating the 'Studs. It didn't work. State notched two touchdowns right in front of them during the second quarter -- the only scores of the game. "Someday we'll be the school that everyone talks about," Faza said after his school's inaugural bowl trip. N.C. State was playing its fifth bowl game in six seasons, which likely contributed to its more subdued attitude during the game. An exception was Kerry Killowitz. If you went to the game, you know him as the 6-foot guy in the red and white checkerboard dress, black wig and lipstick. Killowitz, a Charlotte talent agent, lost a bet on the recent Panthers-Cowboys game and had to skip around the stadium looking something like a giant Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz." "I've probably had a couple of hundred pictures taken of me -- and two marriage proposals," the married man said. Killowitz was a lot better looking than much of the play in the scoreless and sloppy second-half. But a win is a win. Shrugged N.C. State psychology major Amanda Wollard after the game: "It worked."