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What makes Iowa State tailgating great?

Clones33

Clones33

Member
Jan 15, 2009
562
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Ankeny, IA
I'm not sure if any of you have heard of the author Jonah Keri (@jonahkeri), but he asked this on twitter this afternoon:

"Crowdsourcing: Most UNDERRATED 1) college football stadium 2) college football tailgate ...you've ever attended? (ie not LSU, Michigan etc)"

I responded with Iowa State for the tailgate and he sent me an email asking for more details. Specifically his email said this:

"I've got more obscure ones on the list, but willing to consider Iowa St. Email me with more details, please?"

To make sure I didn't miss anything, I thought I'd come to you guys to help fill Jonah in.

I have no idea what he is going to do with this information. If he plans on soming to a tailgate or writing a book. Either way, could be a fun game.
 
The massive amount of area for tailgating and its close proximity to the stadium. Its basically tents, cars, busses, and people as far as the eye can see. It doesn't matter how bad the football team is and who we are playing, there are always packed tailgate lots. Huge concrete donor lots right next to the stadium and huge public grass lots right next to those.
 
The huge, amount of relatively cheap parking around the stadium. (Send an arial shot of gameday if you can find it), and the fact that we manage to have this huge amount of tailgating despite an almost complete lack of actual winning.

The extended hours we have compared to a lot of other places that only start a couple hours before. Tailgating gets going for a lot of the lots at 7am, and at least several hours before in almost all of the rest.
 
WIAQHBHWYVNNSGF.20090526125954.jpg
 
Not to mention some of the epic tailgating rigs you see. Old busses, trucks, RV's, ambulances, fire trucks, etc. Partner that with thousands of people, great food, wide variety of food selection, a lot of beer and alcohol, nice people who share with others, 100,000 people, all packed into 1 square mile and you have one of the best tailgating scenes in the midwest.
 
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definitely include the picture and mention that it doesn't even show all of the parking/tailgating areas. I know of people who tailgate all the way over by forker.
 
I've never been to a place that has as centralized of tailgating as we do. It really makes it special....it seems like one giant party, as opposed to a bunch of various groups.

I don't know if such a statistic could exist, but I'd bet a lot of money that our tailgate quality to win ratio is amazing. Even further, our tailgate quality to high dollar donor ratio would be even better. We don't have as much to work with, but we make it great anyway.
 
The ability to go from parent, alumni lots for good food and tasty beer to the student lots with plenty of tailgating games, loud music and school spirit. Not to mention the women dressed up and excessive amounts of beer. Every school I have been to can't even come to close tailgating the proximity that ISU does it. I went to University of Wisconsin last year and even though they party hard - the tailgating is scattered and cops will give you a public intox for being even remotely close to the sidewalk. On top of that Wisconsin did not have party (tailgate buses), which I found to be really strange. The same thing with Nebraska - their tailgating is mostly just organized house parties, they have no lots.
 
ISU donor lots 3 hours before kickoff:

gameday_parkinglot.jpg


Most schools' donor lots 3 hours before kickoff:

Baylorlot1.jpg


ISU public lots 3 hours before kickoff:

100002.bmp


Most schools' public lots 3 hours before kickoff:

parking_garage.jpg
 
I've sent him a link to this thread, so feel free to make your pitch in here. Also, he is now asking:

"Any particular foods of note? Just tons of hot dogs and burgers? Any regional specialties?"
 
1. you are right next to the stadium, all the way around it!
2. people tailgate through every season.. by that i mean you get Summer Heat, Fall weather, Snow, Rain...
3. people tailgate from sunup to sundown right in stadium parking lot.
4. you have an outstanding, beautfiul campus around you... you also have reigman gardens, and open fields.
5. college football is our only game. people in this state love college football!
6. name another school with the same lack of success that continuely has the tailgate numbers ISU has! :)

7. the students or anyone else for that matter are not spread out about town... everyone of us is right there in a few mile radius. makes it one HUGE PARTY.
 
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