With players’ numbers painted on their cheeks, and feathered boas, whistles and beads wrapped around their necks, a sea of students, known as the Staples Superfans, cheer at the top of their lungs from on top of bleachers.

Having a Superfans group may seem natural to Staples students. Starting in ninth grade, fans know the drill and are added to the Facebook group.

Some schools near Staples, though, are just starting to grow a strong student fan base and some aspire to one day have fans that outnumber and outshout Staples fans.

“Staples football crowd has me jealous. The #bombsquad will be like that before you know it,” Matt Gurman ’15 from Weston High School recently tweeted.

According to Weston football player Spencer Turkel ’15, Weston High School created the Bomb Squad this year. They followed the Staples Superfans practice of running the group through Facebook and Twitter, so that a group of fans will be at every game.

As a player on the field, Turkel said, “It’s definitely encouraging to look up and see the Bomb Squad cheering, [compared] to seeing empty football stands last year.”

Some schools’ fan groups might already be competition for Staples Superfans.

Allie Moore ’16, always decked out in Greenwich red at the games, said, “Greenwich has a mass of students who stand for the entire [football] game cheering with cowbells and noisemakers.”

Moore also said that the key to a great student section is that fans have to get progressively louder if the opposing team’s bleachers are also getting rowdy.

“It gets insanely loud [at our games]. I didn’t realize how loud the [football] game was [the other night] until I got home and my ears were ringing,” Moore said.

Although Moore may claim her school has the most spirit, Trumbull fans have been crowned “the most feared fans in the FCIAC;” at least that’s what they have written on their t-shirts, according to Trumbull student Dani McGillicuddy ’15.

“We are called the Black Hole. If you don’t wear black, you have to sit in the front row [of the bleachers]. During the games, a few seniors will go up and down the stairs and make sure everyone is yelling,” McGillicuddy said.

Even though these all sound like dedicated groups of fans, Griffin Thrush ’15, one of the admins of the Staples Superfans Facebook group, said there’s no competition.

“We love our teams – all of them. We’re not just devoted to football. We’re at both boys’ and girls’ soccer, girls’ volleyball, we’ve made an appearance at water polo and we’ll be at lacrosse and baseball games in the spring,” Thrush said. “There is no better fan base in the FCIAC, maybe even the state, than the Staples Superfans.”