Florida Gators and Virginia Cavaliers fans blend together in this Orange Bowl matchup

Erin Scearce came to the 86th annual Orange Bowl torn between two loyalties.

Her brother Marco Ortiz is a 6-4, 232-pound redshirt freshman and longsnapper for the No. 9 Florida Gators.

But she is also an alumna of the Gators’ foe, the 24th-ranked Virginia Cavaliers.

So the University of Virginia grad arrived at Monday’s tailgate dressed in a “neutral” orange and blue striped tank top that could work for both teams.

“This is extra cool to me,” said Scearce, 32. “I’m disciplined down the middle. I can’t abandon my alma mater, but I can’t abandon my brother.”

Gators and Cavaliers — and their confusingly similar hues — all blended together inside and outside Hard Rock Stadium on Monday, where an announced crowd of 65,157 football fans watched Florida beat Virginia 36-28.

Even the weather came together to set the perfect backdrop as kickoff approached: a soft orange blaze across a clear, darkening blue sky.

The game united families like the Ortizes with split allegiances, lending another meaning to the “divided family” phenomenon.

Cousins Cristy Fimiani and Beth Alcalde were both in Charlottesville, Virginia, when they learned of the Orange Bowl matchup. Fimiani went to visit her 18-year-old son Vincent, a first-year engineering student at UVA, and Alcalde’s 13-year-old son was attending a baseball camp there.

Alcade and her four sisters are all Gators. Fimiani, an Auburn University alumna, not so much. She happily adopted the Cavaliers as her team Monday, despite violating SEC etiquette.

“Orange and blue are her natural colors,” Alcalde quipped. As an Auburn fan, she already had those colors in her closet.

Fimiani was optimistic about her new fandom. “I think Virginia is so glad to be playing a top team,” she said. “The experience they’re going to get [playing the Gators] it’s good.”

“As long as the Gators win,” Alcalde interjected.

Virginia fans Hugh and Debbie Riley holed up in the open trunk of their SUV, drinking Diet Coke and snacking on crackers.

The Rileys are used to being surrounded by Florida fans. The Williamsburg, Virginia, couple winters in Fort Lauderdale. It felt like they were one of the few Cavaliers’ fans to make the trek for the game.

“We’re very outnumbered,” Debbie Riley said.

Still, they couldn’t pass up coming to the biggest bowl game in UVA history.

“We’re just wondering at what point in time we have to leave,” Hugh Riley said. He noted, though, that football’s not their best sport.

“Of course, we play basketball in Virginia,” he said, referring to the 2019 men’s national champions.

But the Rileys would’ve been wise to stay ‘til the end. The Cavaliers fought hard, cutting the Gators down from their two-touchdown win prediction.

Sticking out in the orange and blue sea was a black jersey with garnet and gold trimmings: Santi Ocampo turned heads in his black Florida State University football jersey while partying with Gator fans — friends from his alma mater, Cypress Bay High School.

“Florida — Florida State University, the University of Miami and the University of Florida — runs in my bloodstream,” said Ocampo, a 21-year-old senior studying marketing and hospitality at FSU. “I’m here to say if you ain’t a Gator, you’re gator bait.”

Leisis Stevenson looked like she was attending a University of Miami home game in her orange Canes shirt and matching “The U” hat. But she and just one other member of her tailgating party of 16 — buzzing as they set up a dominoes table and put out bowls of Tostitos and Bacardi handles — came dressed in fan attire.

They’re just here for a good time — which wasn’t easy for ‘Canes fans this season.

“I don’t even know who’s playing,” said Stevenson, 44, explaining that her husband got the tickets because he is a sponsor. “I know the energy in there is gonna be a lot of fun and I’d like to feel that too.”

But perhaps no Orange Bowl fans came prepared to enjoy themselves the way Robin Aguilar and Jeff Hodges did. The pair have made attending bowl games something of a game itself. They attend three or four of the best bowl games every year. It’s a tradition that started five years ago after Aguilar and Hodges met at Foghorn’s, which is Hodges’ bar in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

They said they flew in Sunday after attending Saturday’s Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, reveling in Ohio State’s loss. Then after the Orange Bowl, they have a 9 a.m. flight out Tuesday to New Orleans for Wednesday’s Sugar Bowl.

And they always wear their own colors: orange and green for Aguilar, a UM alum, all red for Hodges, a University of Arkansas grad.

Does it ever get tiring? “No, it’s fun,” said Hodges. “All you do is tailgate and watch college football.”

This story was originally published December 30, 2019 at 8:37 PM.