College sports pregame studio shows on campus often build off fan energy, and are a major attraction for many fans. But there are sometimes challenges around fans getting prime position for those shows, and those can be exacerbated by weather events that alter normal procedures.
That’s what happened with ESPN’s College GameDay men’s basketball show at Auburn University’s Neville Arena Saturday. That show was on campus (for the first time this season) ahead of Bruce Pearl and the No. 1 Tigers’ night game (7:30 p.m. local) against the No. 6 Tennessee Volunteers. But the university prohibited fans from camping out overnight in advance due to extreme temperatures.
Fans still started showing up around 3 a.m., though. And they were funneled into a giant holding pen around 6 a.m., but then allowed to run to line up for both GameDay access and a wristband for the evening’s game half an hour later, three and a half hours before GameDay went on the air and half an hour before the arena doors opened. As Grayson Weir broke down at BroBible, that contributed to a massive rush and injuries. Here are some videos of that rush:
The stampede at Auburn this morning for Gameday / entry to the Tennessee game.
Seeing posted online: Multiple injured and some taken to the hospital.
There has to be a better way. #SEC pic.twitter.com/gTDvVwgAh7
— The SEC Logo (@SEC_Logo) January 25, 2025
A disaster at the hands of Auburn leadership.
Sending prayers for a swift and full recovery for all those who were violently injured in the name of propping up Auburn Basketball for College GameDay. pic.twitter.com/mDCE8Ee7H6
— Andy (@rowtydepawl76) January 25, 2025
The line for The Jungle is open! #WarEagle pic.twitter.com/W6ugxxLX6v
— E2C Network: The Auburn Experience (@E2C_Network) January 25, 2025
AL.com’s Peter Rauterkaus interviewed some students who were present for that, who discussed the injuries and the chaos.
“Once the gate opened to funnel all of us into the small gate opening, it was just a huge cattle stampede,” said Cooper Smith, an Auburn senior who was in line at the time. “People were falling down and getting hurt all over the place. There was no sign of organization at all.”
Logan Smith, another Auburn senior, said he got to Neville Arena at 3 a.m., but people “stampeded forward” once the line officially opened at 6:30 a.m.
Smith said he saw people on the ground “screaming and crying in pain in fear” while the stampede was happening.
“I ended up being towards the front of the line to nearly the very back just because I refused to just step over these injured students like everyone else was doing,” Smith said.
He added that there have been smaller “mob instances” to get into the arena in the past, but “nothing to this extent.”
“They were not prepared for this in any way,” Logan Smith added. “Not enough security and the worst job I’ve ever seen of maintaining a crowd. Whoever was in charge of this needs to be held accountable. The University needs to be held accountable.”
Auburn provided a statement to AL.com, giving their side of this and saying there were only “a few minor injuries.” Here’s the key part of that:
For a brief moment upon line opening, a group of students rushed around the side of security, working personnel and students who had staged near the barricade entry. Those students began jumping barricades to gain entry which impacted the students trying to enter the barricades in an orderly fashion.
…On site medical staff reported a few minor injuries which were addressed locally by EMS. Auburn is reviewing feedback and video footage from the line to develop plans for future games to ensure student safety.”
But those injuries did include stitches for at least one student:
#FearTheJungle … 🫥 pic.twitter.com/Zzs7ngD5Tv
— Patrick Bingham (@PatrickABingham) January 25, 2025
Potentially dangerous fan rushes certainly happen, and at levels far beyond college. There was a frightening one at the Copa América final last summer, which had Fox’s Stu Holden anxious about his family’s safety. And these have happened in many other circumstances as well. But with that said, they are a known thing that security authorities should prepare for.
Of course, Auburn did cite the weather here in their statement. They said “Extreme weather conditions during the course of the week forced Auburn to make the difficult decision to disallow the traditional premier match-up camp out which occurs in Jungle Village, and allows students to line up gradually over a period of time.” But it’s quite unclear why they couldn’t come up with a gradual lineup procedure for the fans who did show up early rather than permitting this all-at-once rush.
In the end, it’s somewhat remarkable this didn’t lead to even more severe injuries. Those comments from students to Rauterkaus illustrate just how frightening this was for many on the ground. And this should be a wake-up call to universities that host studio shows and high-profile games like this; there absolutely is going to be a ton of demand for being at the show and/or the game, and it’s necessary to have a significant security presence around that. (We’ve also seen that on different fronts, such as a fan yelling homophobic slurs at Jason Kelce about his brother Travis after a football College GameDay broadcast, which eventually led to Kelce smashing the fan’s phone.)
Yes, the unusual weather (part of wider extreme weather across the Gulf Coast this week) may have altered plans and made this more challenging than normal. But there was still a need for a better plan than what the university came up with. We’ll see if that feedback and video review leads to changes in the future.