Travis Hawkes, The Blue & Orange Store owner

Question: What has the response been to the blackout?

Answer: It’s been really good in two ways. One, sales have been great. It’s been kind of a throwback week for us as far as from the last couple years some of our biggest game weeks — high excitement. It’s been by far the best game week of the season. The other way it’s been good is the fans have seemed just really positive and really excited about it. There hasn’t been complaining.

Q: Who’s the big winner in this — Nike, the athletic department or the stores?

A: All of the above, and then also the players and the recruiting … and that’s why it’s so great. Everybody wins on this type of deal.

Q: How has this compared to sales for the Virginia Tech (2010) and Georgia (2011) games?

A: It’s been bigger than last year with the Georgia whiteout stuff. We’ll see how (Friday) and (Saturday) finish up. I’d say it will probably be a little less than the Virginia Tech (week), but we also kind of had lightning in a bottle with that whole situation with Kellen (Moore) and the expectations for the team and the first time rolling out a program like that.

Q: What will be the hot Christmas item?

A: Hopefully it’s going to be Orange Bowl T-shirts. We actually think that with what the demand is — the blackout is a good comparison to the Virginia Tech (merchandise) because it was that new helmet and the shirt that was really popular — I think a lot of this stuff is going to stay hot all the way through Christmas, as far as the black helmets and black shirts and black jerseys. There are a lot of people who are putting together a nice helmet collection and now they’ve got to add the black one.

Mike Reed, Bronco Shopsand Bookstore director

Question: What has the response been to the blackout?

Answer: It has been phenomenal. It has been crazy. All our seven stores have been off the charts with customers. The fan support and just the excitement they’re showing, it’s just been great.

Q: Were there concerns at all about going to a different color?

A: Some of us had, not doubts, but ‘OK, how are the fans going to respond to that?’ When they unveiled the jersey, we knew that it was going to be a great color scheme. Going off the fans’ normal colors is always kind of a risk, but I’ll tell you what, it’s blown away all my expectations.

Q: Have you run out of items?

A: We’ve run out of a few styles. The hottest one that we have is the Nike horse head, orange eye T-shirt. Probably one of the other hottest things is a black shirt with a silhouette of Coach Pete with his headset.

Q; Who’s the big winner — Nike, the athletic department or the stores?

A: On our end, with the university, it goes back to scholarships. Vendors are making money of course, with us buying the product, but it goes back to scholarships for us. … I would say the students.

Q: We’ve seen blue, orange, white, gray and black this season. What’s the next color?

A: I’m sure we’ll come up with something. I don’t know where to go from there.

Q: What will be the hot Christmas item?

A: We’ve got some new plush items for the kids, kind of like the Pillow Pets, different takes on that. Those are still strong sellers. We have Christmas ornaments, as we have in the past. This year we’ve done kind of an exclusive in the Bronco Shops — Christmas ornaments created with pieces of the blue turf in them.