STILLWATER, Okla. (KFOR) — Cowboy fans are getting excited in Stillwater before the new football season kicks off this weekend. The Oklahoma State campus is already showing signs of game day fever! 

The Cowboys don’t play for another 24 hours, but on Friday morning, several fans got to campus early to save the best tailgating spots.  

“It’s become a really good tradition of ours over the last decade and a half,” said Jesse Martin, senior associate athletic director at OSU. 

Fans were able to secure them at noon and then it was time to start getting ready for the first football game of the season! 

It’s a tradition known on campus as “tail-waiting.” 

“This fan base is second to none and when you hear about the Cowboy way, the Cowboy culture, it’s not just with our teams, it’s also with our fans,” said Martin.  

“We really, really love to tailgate and so our joke is that we tailgate and sometimes there’s a football game,” said John Stobbe, OSU tailgater. 

OSU fan John Stobbe said he got to campus around 8 a.m. on Friday. He adds his tailgating tradition dates back to 1996.  

“This is our spot, so everybody knows where we are. We just want to be in our same spot every time… I don’t think it’s the best, but it’s ours,” said Stobbe. 

Other fans said they got the best spot right in front of the stadium. They were the first ones to get there on Friday morning and have been claiming the same spot for years now. 

“We’re close to the stadium so people can walk out and stuff and then we’re also from people’s eye view so whenever you walk by you see our tailgate,” said Ryan Holder, OSU tailgater.  

School officials are expecting another wave of fans to grab spots on Friday night and then again on Saturday morning. 

“We have areas open to the general public. We have areas that if you want to pay for your tailgate and do a different route of tailgating, you can do that. So, we try to have a big cross section for everybody,” said Martin.  

If you’re looking to grill, school officials ask that you don’t do it under any trees. 

“A lot of people don’t know we have a tree campus and that means we have a certain number of registered trees so we do encourage people to not put the grills under the trees because it can damage them,” said Martin.  

On Saturday night, the stadium will be full! 

OSU will take on Central Arkansas. 

“Go Pokes! Go Pokes!” said Stobbe. 

If you have questions on what you need to know for tailgating this weekend, you can click here for more information.