Tips for a hassle-free college football game day

The logistics of visiting a college football town on game day are much trickier than going to a big city to see your favorite pro team. You’re not going to Manhattan. You’re going to Manhattan, Kansas.

While many college towns have disproportionately great culture and food, their quaint charm can be majorly inconvenient when out-of-town crowds test the limits of local infrastructure.

I should know: I spent the 2023 season road-tripping to as many college football games as I could. I made it to 62 games, passed through 43 states and put about 40,000 miles on a rental car odometer. I slept in Texarkana (I think Texas, but maybe Arkansas) on three separate occasions, got pulled over by the police officers four times and somehow got zero tickets. I went to games on every level of the sport from the SEC to Division III to the NAIA, and stormed the field at Duke, Wyoming, Oklahoma State, Bowling Green and Florida Atlantic.

As a veteran college football road-tripper, I’ve assembled some tips on how to watch your team play with minimum hassle.

Do everything early, especially booking a hotel

College towns are built to serve their college population and a small number of year-round residents. Then, on fall game days, 50,000 other people show up. You’re going to have a hard time getting a parking spot, cell service or the bartender’s attention. Plan to get every place you want to go early. If kickoff is 3:30 p.m., aim to get to the stadium at 2:30. Get to the tailgate before noon.

It’s cheaper to get a room at a luxury hotel in Paris than the third-worst hotel in an SEC town on a fall Saturday. Don’t believe me? In late August, Google says a room at the Motel 6 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (3.4 stars) will cost $876 for the November Saturday that LSU rolls into town. And that’s months ahead of time! If you’re booking week-of, you might see a comma in the price of a room with a roach problem. It’s a great example for any Econ 101 professors trying to explain supply, demand and elasticity to bored freshmen.

Staying in town is worth the splurge

If you decide to stay at a significantly cheaper hotel a half-hour down the interstate, it will put a serious damper on your game day experience. And that half-hour will probably be more like 90 minutes, factoring in game day traffic.

If you’re lucky, you have a friend with a guest bedroom in town. Everybody else is going to need to part with a lifetime of hotel chain reward points.

Drive instead of fly ...

College football is about the road trip, partly out of necessity. Most college towns don’t have international airports. In fact, some of the most famous game day destinations — like Mississippi and Texas A & M — aren’t even on the interstate.

The drive will give you a better understanding of the home team: Colleges are deeply rooted in their regions. As you get closer to town, you’ll learn why the team you’re visiting is called the Cornhuskers, Mountaineers or Cowboys. And you can’t beat the rush of seeing a 70,000-seat stadium on the horizon after a few hours of cornfields.

... Then try not to drive at all

Airport traffic. L.A. commutes. NYC midtown at rush hour. All of these pale in comparison to the true God of Gridlock, a college-football game in a town with limited public transportation.

Roads built for day-to-day residential use are bumper-to-bumper for hours before and after games. Parking is hell. The spots near the stadium are actually status symbols for big-time donors, and campus police officers spend 358 days a year dreaming about the Saturdays when out-of-state plates innocently scoot into the wrong lot. The oft-repeated mantra of the game day illegal parker — "they can’t tow all of us” — is generally correct, but try to avoid testing it.

Worst of all, game day driving prevents you from participating in a time-honored college football activity: pregame beers. If you can wake up within walking distance of the stadium on game day, the world’s your oyster.

You’re (probably) welcome at the tailgate

There’s no Yelp for tailgates. Most people who go through the trouble of prepping food and drinks for 50 people prepare for the prospect that 51 might show up. BYOB and chip in if you see a tip jar or Venmo QR code.

Of course, not every tailgate is for you: If you were born in a year that starts with the digit 1, you should probably skip the ones run by active college students.

Eat in the parking lot, not the stadium

We are living in the golden age of ridiculous concession items at pro sporting events. Not so much at college stadiums. If you order nachos, you will generally get a plate of plain circular tortilla chips and a small cup of rapidly cooling canned cheese.

The people who take pride in their food are probably out in the parking lot.

Don’t miss the Big Moments

I’ve seen a lot of exceptional players and a lot of spectacular touchdowns, but the things that gives me chills are stadium-wide Big Moments. Each college has its own: Maybe it’s a stadium-wide sing-along. Maybe it’s a live mascot on the loose, such as Auburn’s War Eagle taking flight before games. Some are before the start of the game, such as Virginia Tech’s "Enter Sandman” entrance, or Colorado letting Ralphie the Buffalo run loose; many are in between the third and fourth quarters, such as "Jump Around” at Wisconsin or "Callin’ Baton Rouge” at LSU. My personal favorite is West Virginia singing "Country Roads,” but they only do it if they win.

Ask around for the thing to watch, and plan your bathroom trips accordingly. You won’t regret missing a few drives in the third quarter, but you’ll never forget singing a song with your 100,000 new closest friends.

These Bulldogs and Gators don’t bite

I drove to a lot of college football games alone, but I’ve never felt alone when the clock ran out. College football people are extremely hospitable. The sport may have a reputation for fierce rivalries, but even in some of the biggest rivalries, you’ll see fans of both teams hanging out at the tailgate. (Maybe not after the game, depending on the result.)

After all, college football fandom is about pride. The people who show up week after week are eager to tell outsiders about why their school is special, how its traditions came to be, what you need to eat while you’re in town and, of course, why their rival school from across the state is morally, ethically and academically inferior.

If you lend a college football fan your ear for long enough for them to tell you why their school is so great, you’ll wind up with a friend for a few hours — and probably a few free drinks, too.