You may have been disappointed with the score on Saturday, but at least you didn't blow hundreds of dollars on fake tickets.
Karen Tanski and her daughter Kayla, a second-year UF nursing student, weren't so lucky.
After shopping around for a pair of tickets Saturday afternoon, they thought they had found the deal they were looking for when a man on West University Avenue was willing to let them go for $310. Others wanted $200 to $250 apiece.
But at the gate, their tickets didn't scan and they were turned over to University Police Department investigators, who told them they weren't the only ones who had been scammed.
A total of 78 fake tickets, some bought for $500, were handed over to the department Saturday, though it's likely many other people chose not to file reports, UPD Lt. Robert Wagner said.
Wagner said Saturday's ticket problem was the biggest he's seen in the last 18 years.
Tanksi and her daughter found out how prevalent the problem was when they insisted that officers follow them around to see if they could catch their crook in the act.
Though they didn't find the guy, they confronted another man selling similar tickets.
"I walk up to the man, and I say, 'How much you want for that ticket?' and he said, 'I want $200,' and I said, 'I bet you do,'" Karen Tanski said.
The man, James C. Parker, was arrested and charged with five counts of ticket fraud.
"The positive spin on the whole thing," Karen Tanski said, "is we saved somebody else from buying a fake."
And even though they had been ripped off, they were still able to go to the game. She said the ticket office was apparently holding extra tickets for people who had purchased fakes.
So they paid another $80 and watched the game from good seats, sitting next to others who had been in the same situation, Karen Tanski said.
Wagner said the increase in counterfeits Saturday may have been the result of a new ticket scanning system that makes catching fakes easier.
He said the problem has also worsened in recent years since street scalping was made legal.
It's still not allowed on UF property, though.
Wagner cautioned people against buying tickets from strangers on street corners and said many of the fake tickets had "Ticketmaster" printed on them, something real University Athletic Association tickets don't have.
He said UPD will increase its efforts to prevent ticket fraud in the future but declined to reveal specific tactics.
As for other game day offenses, UPD reported eight people were arrested and another 48 were ejected from Saturday's game.
By comparison, when UF played Tennessee in Gainesville two years ago, 37 people were arrested and another 52 were ejected.
None of those arrested during Saturday's game were students.
"I can't remember the last time we had no students arrested," Wagner said.
The game also saw the first two fans ejected for smoking. It was the third game in which smoking was banned.
