UK football during a pandemic: No lines, no ‘marching’ band, no problems

There were no lines for the restrooms, not even the women’s. That alone should tell you quite a lot about attending Kentucky’s first home football game under COVID-19 restrictions.

It was like putting a high school football crowd into an NFL stadium, except instead of sitting tightly behind the benches, fans were spread throughout the cavernous venue.

We didn’t know what to expect from this experiment in pandemic crowd control. Going in, you couldn’t help but feel like a canary in the coal mines. Not to be overly dramatic, but were we taking our lives in our hands, considering we were at higher risk for COVID due to our age (let’s just say we filed for Social Security this year) and other factors?

To be on the safe side, we brought along hand sanitizer, plastic gloves and disinfectant wipes; we used only the latter.

As it turned out, everyone seemed to obey the rules, minus a few physical distancing infractions. Going to Kroger Field didn’t seem any more dangerous than going to Kroger.

Here’s how it played out:

Arriving at the stadium

We left the house about 90 minutes before kickoff. It took about 15 minutes to drive from our home near downtown into a Red Lot parking space just steps from one of the gates. (A parking pass comes with your tickets this season.) There was no line at the gate, and we quickly cleared the bag and health checks (we took our temperatures before leaving home and read the screening questions in advance). We entered the stadium to find virtually empty concourses, lots of closed concession stands and almost as many masked venue staff as fans.

Our seats were on the upper concourse along the south side of the east end zone; we shared the row only with a Chair of Honor, one of four in the stadium that are left empty to recognize the military and their sacrifices.

The 51 rows in front of us seemed to be designated for parties for two; most of those seats were empty.

During the game

UK did a great job of assigning physically distant seating, which took care of Bruce’s pet peeve at football games: having to stand up to see the action on the field because everyone in front of him is on their feet.

The row of screens along the upper bowl, which usually lists scores from other games, told the crowd instead to keep their masks on, maintain physical distance and stay in their assigned seats. There seemed to be very few violations of those or any of the other rules.

Stadium personnel were everywhere. One of them stopped to ask us how we were doing, and another volunteered to take our picture when she saw how hopeless we are at selfies.

The bathrooms were completely empty at times; even at halftime you could walk in and find plenty of empty stalls.

The only lines we saw, long or otherwise, were at the concessions during halftime, probably because many of the stands were closed. That was one of the two instances when fans pushed the limits of physical distancing.

Neither the band nor the cheerleaders ever took the field; instead, they performed from the stands, though without the usual theatrics. Even UK’s own Everett McCorvey, who sang the national anthem, did so from the upper level of the stadium

Lineup cards and programs? No. Hot dog hawkers? None. Halftime show? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Still, it sounded and felt like a college football game, but with the volume set at 4 rather than 10.

Leaving the stadium

Most of the fans, it seemed, stayed until the end of the game. As they left their seats, the distance between people on the steps got much shorter than 6 feet, but everyone spread out again when they hit the concourses and exit ramps.

By the time we made it to ground level, the concourses were close to empty again. And because there had been fewer fans, resulting in less trash, the stadium seemed almost ready to host this week’s game against Mississippi State.

Getting out of the parking lot, which wasn’t full to begin with, took only a few minutes.

The takeaway

The UK staff prepared well for this unprecedented undertaking. Although many things were glaringly different, you could almost forget about the pandemic and just take joy in spending a clear autumn afternoon at a football game, even if your team lost 42-41 in overtime.

Bruce Engel and Mary Sondergard retired in 2016 after working a combined 72 years in the Herald-Leader newsroom. Readers with long memories might remember them and their two children as the Herald-Leader family that wrote about their fan experience at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Next game

Mississippi State at Kentucky

7:30 p.m. Saturday (SEC Network)