Clemson football fans are going to experience some changes in 2020
Things are going to look quite different when it comes to the way Clemson football fans operate during the 2020 season this fall.
While the expectation is that we’ll still get to see a limited number of Clemson football fans enter Death Valley this year for home games, there are going to be noticeable changes both inside and outside the stadium.
Perhaps the most discussed issue outside the stadium is the ability to tailgate.
The Clemson Insider reported earlier this week that Clemson is planning to allow fans to tailgate, but there will be guidelines to follow and monitoring will be happening.
TCI’s Will Vandervort reported that the plan currently is to only allow tailgating for those who have parking passes. Sources told Vandervort that IPTAY donors will receive individual game parking passes rather than the normal season passes.
In addition to limiting who can get into the parking lots, Vandervort reported that Clemson will also limit the time in which Tiger fans will be allowed to tailgate. He said that tailgating will likely be limited to a few hours before the game and that fans will be asked to not tailgate following the game.
"“The parking lots will not open up at eight o’clock in the morning for an 8 p.m., game,” a source told Vandervort. “It might open at three or four in the afternoon instead. Then they are going to want everyone to leave after the games and not tailgate afterwards.”"
Clemson football fans will be limited, but a ‘little’ is better than ‘none’
Anyone who has been a part of the Clemson family for any amount of time knows how seriously Tiger fans take tailgating.
Many tailgates are set up and begin more than 12 hours before a game starts and they don’t end until well into the night. That’s not even counting many who come into town on Friday night in an RV or camper and begin tailgating the night before a game, followed by a heavy morning and afternoon of tailgating.
There are thousands of Clemson football fans who gather in the area just to tailgate and they don’t even attend the games. That’s just the nature of College Football and this fan base. But that’s going to change this season.
Still, with Alabama announcing that it would ban tailgating for this season, this seems like a small victory for fans wanting some sort of normalcy in what will be the most un-normal season in the history of the program.