Despite fears of long lines and ID cards being rejected at the gates, many students said they had no problem getting into Saturday’s home football game.

Students began showing up to enter Sanford Stadium around 4 p.m. – three hours before the scheduled 7 p.m. kickoff, and about an hour before the gates opened.

“Most of the time [the event staff] are pretty cool,” said Matt Alvarez, a senior from Duluth, who usually shows up early to sit near the band. “But this year – with the general admission – we just don’t know.”

Alvarez said he and his friends were a little worried about getting the seats they wanted, since the lower level of the student section is now first-come first-serve.

“Getting into the student section was crazy last year, without the general admission, but it’s going to be even more nuts [this year],” Alvarez said.

By about 4:15 p.m. a group of 25 to 30 students were outside Gate 1, and 15 minutes later the event staff split the group into six student lines. Some students were accompanied by friends carrying paper tickets, who were told they had to enter through a different gate.

By 4:45 p.m., around the time the Dog Walk was taking place at the Tate Student Center, the area beneath the Tate bridge was full of students ready to get in the stadium. They joined in with the cheers from the Dog Walk, but no one left their place in line.

The gates opened at 5 p.m. to a crowd of cheering students ready to make their way to the general admission seating section.

Phil Marette, a senior from Peachtree City, was among the many who arrived at one of the three student gates – Gate 1, Gate 3 and Gate 4A – to ensure he got a prime spot for the home opener.

“It’s ridiculous. I don’t know if I could do this for every game,” Marette said. “But, I mean, if you don’t get here early, you get the crappy seats. I didn’t think I’d have to be doing this my senior year.”

Greg Wilson, a junior from Marietta, who arrived at the stadium about an hour before kickoff, said he was able to “walk right up” to the gate.

“It was real quick,” he said. “I think it was faster than last year.”

Several students said it took their cards multiple swipes before they would register.

Daniel Thames, a senior from Newnan, was nervous when his ID failed the first time it was scanned at the gate. The gate attendant told him not to panic, scanned it again, and that time it worked.

Sam Jose, a senior from Alpharetta, had to scan her ID three times before she could enter the stadium.

“I should probably get a new card,” she said. “Because when I go to Ramsey, it doesn’t always work the first time I scan it.”

At 5:45 p.m. the entrance to Gate 4A was relatively empty, with the exception of nine police officers stationed just inside the gate. Event staffers with bullhorns directed students inside to receive their wrist bands, allowing them entrance into the lower level student sections.

“The line to get into the game didn’t seem much longer [than last year],” said Cameron Bagley, a junior from Atlanta. “But the fraternity section [on the upper level] definitely seemed a lot more crowded than usual. It could be difficult to try and find a wrist band for the [student] section for every game.”

By 6 p.m. many of the wristbands had been handed out, and the lower level sections, with the exception of the end zone, were nearly full.

Students filled section 109 first, then personnel told students to move to rows 110 through 114. Event staff at the sections didn’t force students to put on wrist bands, but most seemed cooperative and didn’t try to sneak anyone in.

When they wanted to sit with friends and were prevented from going to “filled sections,” though, they just walked sideways through the stands.

Some students in the end zone section – rows 138 to 143 – were sitting before event staffers began handing out that section’s purple wristbands. When the staff began to hand them out, it was up to the students already in the section to show their IDs to get a wrist band.

Some said they didn’t know they were supposed to get a wrist band, but once they saw several students doing so, they followed suit.

After kickoff, several students said they still had to wait in line for about five minutes before entering the stadium.

And some students even resorted to bribery and attempts to out run the gate officials as ways of getting into the game.

Although many students said they had no problems getting into the stadium and they enjoyed sitting in sections where the aisles are no longer packed, several said there are still issues that need to be addressed.

Wilson said he thinks the Athletic Association still needs to tackle the issue of the ticket donation bank. He said Saturday’s game worked well in terms of getting students into the game and getting them seated, but he’d still like to see the issue of returning student money for donated tickets addressed.

“It doesn’t really make a lot of sense that you can’t sell your ticket if you can’t go to the game,” said Seth McWhorter, a senior from Athens, echoing Wilson’s sentiment. “It takes a pretty moral person to make the effort to donate a ticket that they already purchased.”

- Contributing: Leah Bishop, Carolyn Crist, Mimi Ensley, Diana Perez