Masks will be must in, around Kyle Field
AD Bjork outlines some new procedures to prevent COVID-19 spread for potential upcoming 10-game season
COLLEGE STATION — Three months ago, Texas A&M chancellor John Sharp uttered three words meant more as a command than a challenge to his 11 university presidents in the A&M system: “Make it happen.”
The directive referred to getting students back on campus starting this month and making sure they have football to watch beginning in September during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the athletic director at A&M’s main campus in College Station, Ross Bjork, has plugged away at a plan for fans to attend games at Kyle Field, and he’s adamant — as of early August — 55,000 will be able to do so this fall.
So what will the Aggies’ football home look like when A&M plays one of its five scheduled home games? An optimistic Bjork offered a peek at the plans this past week.
“We’re fortunate, we have the best stadium in college football,” Bjork said of cavernous Kyle Field. “We have plenty of space.”
Kyle Field’s listed capacity is nearly 103,000 fans, but Bjork said the stadium can house around 110,000 fans, hence the 55,000 he expects for the opener. The SEC has opted to only play league games in 2020 and is in the process of hammering out 10game schedules expected to be announced in the coming week.
Per Gov. Greg Abbott’s latest order, stadiums in the state can be at 50 percent capacity, and the SEC has pushed back its start date for football games to Sept. 26. For openers in late September or perhaps early October, Bjork said fans will need to wear masks when approaching Kyle Field and keep them on once inside.
“The face covering is going to be a requirement to enter the stadium, and walking around the stadium,” he said. “We’ll have ushers and a lot of other people reinforcing that message, and we’ll do a lot of things on the videoboard to reinforce that.”
Bjork said even before the initial stroll to the gate, fans will need to be aware the environment surrounding the stadium will look nothing like it has the past few years in what’s been a budding tailgating scene.
“The one thing that is (really) tricky is tailgating,” Bjork said. “What happens pregame and trying to figure out how all that works, and we’ve (also) got a governor’s order related to that. There can’t be any gatherings, unless approved by the mayor or the county judge, of 10 or more (people).
“So we have to go through that process, and that’s being mapped out right now as well.”
A&M will try and use the latest technology, too, to make attending a game in 2020 as contact-free as possible.
“We will have touchless entry, so we will not have to take someone’s ticket from them, we’ll have a scanner that scans their ticket,” Bjork said. “We’ll spread out the entry gates as best we can so we’re not clogging gates, and we’ll have signage to make sure people don’t line up close by … as they enter the stadium. There will also be exiting pathways people will have to take.
“In terms of restrooms, we’re trying to make it as touchless as possible with the doors and entry, while still protecting privacy. A lot of hand sanitizing stations will be a part of it.”
As for sodas, water, beer and grub?
“There will be cashless concessions, through a new ‘point-ofsale’ system,” Bjork explained. “There will be Plexiglas between the worker and the customer. A lot of things like that are being installed and implemented.”
Is it all for naught based on the pandemic? Bjork doesn’t know — he just knows he needs to have the Aggies’ home stadium primed for a handful of scenarios, based in part on the chancellor’s enthusiastic edict.
“I went to a walk-through (on Thursday) with our football team, and you could see those guys are energized,” Bjork said. “That’s what we need. We need excitement, and we need to be excited that we have college sports returning. We (also) know we still have work to do.”
The Aggies are scheduled to officially start camp Friday, but that date likely will be pushed back because of the three-week delay to the start of the season via the SEC. A&M is scheduled to start its third year under coach Jimbo Fisher on Sept. 26 against Arkansas, but Bjork said that could change as the conference shuffles the schedules by adding two league foes for each of the 14 programs.
The Arkansas game likely will be moved from AT&T Stadium in Arlington to Kyle Field as well, with the Aggies serving as the home team this season. The old Southwest Conference foes then would play in Fayetteville, Ark., in 2021 before finishing out the AT&T Stadium contract from 2022-24.