Will Oklahoma football allow tailgating before Sooners games or not?
Oklahoma football has a big decision to make soon regarding tailgating for 2020. After updating their ticket policy and announcing a 25 percent capacity for games this fall, now the question is whether those fans can tailgate.
While Bedlam Series rival Oklahoma State has put an end to tailgating ahead of this college football season, the University of Oklahoma hasn’t made a firm decision on what they’re going to do about the always popular pre-game festivities. Will Oklahoma follow Oklahoma State’s lead and ban tailgating ahead of this season or will the Sooners soldier on and still allow it this fall?
“Tailgating, although it’s managed by campus and those plans haven’t been finalized quite yet, that’s something that is being talked about now in more detail,” said Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione Friday morning over a Zoom call.
It’ll be so weird if Oklahoma football can’t tailgate this upcoming season.
Even though Oklahoma State is one of the better football programs in the Big 12, it’s not Oklahoma in terms of national relevance. While there are years when the Cowboys are better than the Sooners on the gridiron, it’s been established the Big 12 is at its best when Oklahoma and the Texas Longhorns are at their apices as football programs. Obviously, tailgating is a big thing here.
The state of Oklahoma does not have a professional football team, although most Oklahomans end root for the Dallas Cowboys on NFL Sundays, given the relative proximity from Oklahoma City to Dallas. However, not being able to tailgate takes away such an important fabric of Oklahoma football culture. It would be sad if it’s not allowed to happen this year, but it’s understandable.
Castiglione will help Oklahoma come to the best decision possible when it comes to if tailgating will be allowed to happen in Norman. While it can’t happen up in Stillwater until 2021, it hasn’t been ruled out entirely on the Oklahoma campus just yet. Look for Castiglione to be a major, major leader in the college football landscape for so many reasons this season.
Not only is he the athletic director at Oklahoma, one of a handful of teams certainly capable of getting to and winning the College Football Playoff, but he is one of the 13 members on this year’s College Football Playoff Selection Committee. As long as the Big 12 plans to play, he’ll likely be a major advocate for there being a postseason tournament this holiday season. Keep an eye on that.
While tailgating may not happen this year in Norman, we can’t rule it out entirely just yet.
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