What would social distancing look like on game days at Ole Miss?

If football is played in the fall, game days will likely be quite a different experience from the mental and physical challenge we’ve always known. Instead of thousands of people cramming into the Grove to sweat, drink, eat, sweat, socialize, sweat, drink, and YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHO I JUST SAW, there will be at least half as many people sweating, drinking, eating, sweating, socializing, sweating, drinking, and YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHO I JUST SAW.

Likewise, the crowd in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium will be thinned to the point it triggers memories of non-conference games under Ed Orgeron. Hopefully, the difference will be Ole Miss doesn’t need fourth-quarter touchdowns to hold off national powers like Northwestern State and The Citadel.

Of course, that brings up questions about how Ole Miss will decide who is allowed in the Grove and who gets tickets to the games. The top 20,000-30,000 donors? A lottery system? The largest fashion competition ever created? A Hunger Games-style battle royal that takes place at the secret hunting camp outside of Pontotoc where we take croots to give them sex, drugs, and rock & roll?

While I have no answers, I can assure you that I am very happy not to be the one making those decisions. No matter what the administration decides, people are GONNA BE MAAAAAAAAAAAAD.

Assuming these decisions limit crowd sizes, what might the Grove look like with fans scattered throughout? What might a quarter-full or half-full stadium look and feel like?

To find out, we take a peek into the future through the magic of our photo generator.

As we would on a regular Saturday, we begin by enjoying the sights and sounds of campus prior to the game. From the looks of things, at least arriving on campus would be pretty much the same.

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Inside the stadium, social distancing is a bigger challenge due to the confined space. While not ideal, it does allow those fans fortunate enough to get a ticket to breathe a little, rather than the tradition of “we can definitely fit 35 people on this bleacher with 30 marked seats.”

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