Shortly after the UGA Athletic Association announced its plans for its plans for ticketing and stadium capacity Wednesday morning for the 2020 football season, Bulldog athletic director Greg McGarity and senior deputy athletic director Josh Brooks met with reporters via Zoom to explain some of the details and how fans will ultimately be affected.

As to the oft-asked question of on-campus tailgating, McGarity said the university is taking a wait-and-see approach.

With the first home game not until Oct. 3 against Auburn, there’s still time before a decision must be made.

“Well, we outline in our note to our donors that we’ll make that decision a little bit later,” McGarity said. “I know Alabama has already come out and said no tailgating— Arkansas has, as well— but we’re going to wait and see. We do not have to make that decision right now but certainly as we near the first game, we will make those decisions about tailgating. We will just wait and make that decision a little bit later.”

The school is also taking a wait-and-see approach on to a pair of other time-honored traditions at Sanford Stadium: the Dawg Walk and the Redcoat Marching Band.

With social distancing set to be implemented through the stadium, McGarity admits the Dawg Walk in its traditional sense might be difficult.

“We don’t know yet. To practice social distancing, that is not conducive to the Dawg Walk, as we know it today,” he said. “It’s really the only way our team can get into the stadium now, so I’m sure that will be modified in some degree. We just haven’t zeroed in on those plans for when we start in October.”

Plans for the Redcoat band and Bulldog cheerleaders are also uncertain.

“That has yet to be determined how the bands,” McGarity said. “I know the Medical Advisory task force is providing some guidance to the athletic directors, as we move forward. That has yet to be determined as far as how band and cheerleaders would function this year.”

However, some areas are cut and dried.

That includes the use of a mask. Although fans must wear a mask when entering the stadium and walking around the concourse, once at their seats, they will not be required.

“According to the SEC information, when you enter and move around the stadium, but if you can maintain six feet of social distancing within the stadium you do not have to wear the mask,” Brooks said. “We still have to work with local and campus officials if any of that changes on campus but as we laid out the plans, you can maintain that social distancing so we anticipate as you move to your seat you can take the mask off. But as you move about, you have to put your mask back on.”

When asked if the would be difficult to enforce, Brook acknowledged that might be difficult but believes most fans will adhere to the request.

“That’s going to be hard, but we’ve got great staff that we work with and people have been great so far, so we anticipate the Bulldog Nation being good about that,” he said.

Of course, there were plenty of questions regarding tickets.

With everyone being affected by cuts, McGarity revealed that the total student ticket allotment will be cut from 16,000 to 3,000.

“It was important to us early on that we maintain the student section, and [the student] footprint was not affected,” Brooks said. “We actually increased the students’ footprint slightly, because if you look at some of their sections in the past, like sections 307 and 144, [those] were half students, half donors. Those are now all students.”

Ultimately, approximately upwards of 25 percent (23,000 fans) of Sanford Stadium’s 92,746-seat Sanford Stadium will be allowed in per game, though McGarity acknowledged should the pandemic take a positive turn that numbers could be increased.

“I do, but that’s unless things change, and if the pandemic goes in a different direction,” he said. “But right now, we are confident that in our plan we are about where our peers are in the conference. Some schools have not announced, but in all of our calls, we’re all in the same ballpark there.”

Other items of interest:

• In regards to pumped in crowd noise, McGarity said that is an area the league’s 14 athletic directors will discuss in an upcoming meeting.

“I think that’s one of the next things we’ll talk about as athletic directors, is maybe mirror what Major League Baseball is doing,” he said. “We don’t know what the NFL is going to do, but look at the NHL, maybe mirror some of those opportunities to try and create a little more atmosphere.”

• Tickets will not be sold to visiting fans for any school, although each institution will receive 500 tickets to make available to visiting parents and staff.

“That was perhaps one of the quickest decisions we made as a group to limit that because of the number of people traveling,” McGarity said. “We basically wanted to make sure that we could maximize the opportunity for our home fans because we knew we would be at a low capacity level so we wanted to make sure our fans, our students, our faculty staff would be maximized and with the ability to travel minimized anyway for fans attending games. That was a quick 14-0 vote to make that application for the year.

• On whether there is a date in December where schools must decide whether football is played or not.

“We have AD meetings almost every day now, on Zoom. We learn different things every day. I don’t think there is a drop-dead date—we don’t have one designated is, ‘We have to make a decision by this day,’ because we don’t have to right now,” McGarity said. “But I just think we look at the information daily and listen to what our other peer institutions are doing, as well as the Big 12 and the ACC, the AAC and everybody else that is playing, and so to keep tabs on everyone else. I just think it is too early to put a drop-dead date. I think it would have to be the week of the game at the latest, but we will just wait and see what develops daily.”

• Suite capacity will be cut in half. For example, if a suite holds 16 people, that number would be reduced to eight.

Brooks explained that safety measures will be a huge part of what takes place.

“We’re going to have hand sanitizer stations everywhere across the stadium. All our staff will be really masked-up, all the concession workers will have face-shields, masks, gloves. That is important to think about all those things and follow all the CDC guidelines as you talk about concessions, restrooms, ingress, egress,” he said. “We are going to be deep-cleaning. There are going to be a custodian assigned to every single restroom that will be constantly wiping down touch points. We are going to disinfect all the restrooms the day of the game, all common areas. I feel really good about the plan.”