Prior to this season, I have seen the Gamecocks play in every stadium in the SEC East. My friends and I referred to it as a Masters in SEC football. Now I am working on my Doctorate in SEC football by visiting every SEC football stadium. It is a multi-year project, and I had only been to Alabama and Auburn from the West entering this season. This past weekend the wife and I went to Mississippi State. Here’s what we found.
There aren’t many hotels in Starkville, so when we started looking last December, there weren’t many, if any rooms nearby. We decided to stay in Tuscaloosa. We’d been there before, and it is only an hour and fifteen mintues away. If you’re going, it’s not a bad option especially when Alabama has an away game.
We left early in the morning and took 82 the whole way there. There was virtually no traffic, so it was a nice drive. In fact, as we approached Starkville about 8 am, there was no traffic. We drove through campus and right up to Davis-Wade Stadium. They close some of the roads, but that hadn’t happend yet. We passed by the stadium and parked in a field next to some dorms on the eastern part of campus.
There were some Mississippi State fans tailgating nearby, and they couldn’t have been nicer. They came over, and we talked about the game. They were concerned about the possibility of a Gamecock blow out. I couldn’t tell if they were genuinely concerned or just hedging their bets about the game. We tailgated for awhile and then headed over to the stadium about 10:30.
The walk through campus was nice. It was exactly what you would expect it took look like. Most of the buildings are brick, and there are large open green spaces that are well manicured. It was walking through campus that we started to see the crowds begin to gather and began to hear the cowbells. They were ringing intermittently, but not annoyingly.
On our way to the stadium we stopped by The Junction. I wasn’t even aware of the existence of the Junction until I did some research about game day at Mississippi State. The Junction is the area just south of the Stadium where many of the Bulldog loyalists tailgate. It isn’t a traditional tailgate with cars backed up adjacent to one another. It is more like a large grouping of tents, tables, chairs and TVs. They have a nice set up, and I recommend any road trippers stop by there on your way into the stadium.
We found our way to our seats in the Gamecock section. The gates were easy to get through and hassle free. The visitors section is actually located in two separate areas. Both areas are at the end of the sideline sections next to the video board. (The video board is huge and beautiful by the way.)
The cow bells are the defining part of the Mississippi State experience. Apparently, they’ve been ringing them forever there, but recently they’ve come under some scrutiny because of the SEC’s prohibition against artificial noisemakers. A compromise was worked out to allow the Bulldogs to keep their cow bells. The operative phrase around the stadium is ‘ring responsibly’. The fans are allowed to ring the bells after scores and at breaks, but they are not supposed to during other parts of the game. The administration tries to control this with several announcements during the game, but it is only marginally effective.
Compliance with the ring responsibly agreement is sporadic at times. Based on nothing more scientific than my own eyes and ears, I would say that 60 to 70 % of the crowd ring their bells when and only when they are allowed to. The other 30 to 40 % observe the rules when they want to and disregard them when they want to. On a Gamecock third down in the first quarter, there are only a few cow bells being rung. However, when the Gamecocks are driving for the winning score in the fourth quarter, almost half of the stadium is using the bell to make extra noise.
The cow bells add noise to the stadium, but the lay out of the stadium allows so much noise to escape that it never gets as loud as some of the more enclosed stadiums in the conference. It’s a welcoming environment with welcoming fans. We didn’t experience or see anything that could be construed as unwelcoming the whole time we were there.
After the game, traffic was a breeze. We hit two slow downs briefly, but the traffic management was excellent, and we were quickly on our way back East. If Starkville were closer to Columbia, this would be a trip I’d make again, but the distance is such a deterrent that it might be awhile before we’re back. (Of course it will be awhile before we are scheduled to play there again, so maybe we’ll be there then.)
Our next road game is Tennessee in two weeks, and we plan to be there in person, so there will be another Road Trip Review then.
