North Carolina State University (NCSU or NC State) is located in North Carolina’s Capital city of Raleigh. With NCSU being in the capital city, tailgating takes advantage of the State Fairgrounds and the home of the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes for its backdrop. Like most ACC schools, NC State’s fans take a southern approach to their pregame festivities.
With any tailgate, the most important item to mark off first on your check list, is what to eat! With Raleigh being in North Carolina, it should be no surprise that pork is king!
There were plenty of red and black grills cooking up a wide assortment of pork. The most common were pork ribs!
The coolest grill of the day belonged to this Texas fan who fashioned a space shuttle shaped grill.
No, NC State wasn’t playing Texas, this fan no longer lived in Austin, but is still a college football tailgating fan, so he decided to Tailgate at NC State.
There was also BBQ done in a slow cooker! Whether BBQ was cooked over a grill or a slowcooker, there was plenty of slaw to accompany it.
This tailgating group started their gameday off with Turkey Meatballs that has been simmering all night in a hearty tomato sauce. Served on toothpicks, these were a perfect gameday appetizer.
The grill wasn’t just for large portions of pork. This tailgate had bacon wrapped stuffed jalapenos as an appetizer and a hot 3 bean salad as a side.
As I was talking to one tailgating group, I heard a blast and the sound of shattering glass! This is not a typical tailgating sound, so I had to go check it out. Here is a tailgating safety lesson for you. DO NOT put a glass dish on top of an open flame burner. IT WILL EXPLODE! Luckily no one was injured. The only casualty was a spicy buffalo chicken dip.
Seeing a Frogmore Stew or Seafood boil at a tailgate is always an exciting site. Cooking a pot full of seafood, sausage, corn, and potatoes is a great way to quickly and efficiently serve a large tailgating crowd. I was especially excited to see this tailgating group showcasing these…
Blue crabs caught right off the NC coast! This tailgater was from Emerald Isle, NC, and caught the crabs himself.
After allowing the contents of the boil to cook, it was time to serve!
Once spread out on the table, tailgaters were ready to dive in!
When dressing for a NC State game, it is important to choose your colors correctly.
If cheering for State, you must be wearing either white, red, black, or some combination of the three.
This is the south, so there is always the decision of formal or casual. For guys this can the choice between the T shirt and jersey or the button down and tie.
For the ladies, you will see no shortage of gameday dresses and dress tops. Whatever you decide to wear, make sure that it is white, red, or black, and you will be fine!
Tailgating at NC State takes advantage of both the lots around the RBC Center and Carter-Finely Stadium
and the NC State Fairgrounds.
The majority of these lots are pass holder lots, and will require a pass to enter on gameday. The lots around Carter-Finely and the RBC Center all have numbered spaces where you are assigned a space based upon your donor ranking.
The fair ground lots are all grass or gravel and have no shortage of great tailgaters in them! Here you will find a primarily younger and student crowd.
This group of students decided that the easiest way to get their gameday furniture to their tailgate was by renting a moving fan! When you have a lot to bring with you on gameday, you do what you have to do.
It is hard to find a negative when it comes to any college football tailgate. When you combine the passion of college sports with a beautiful fall Saturday, and spend it cooking and drinking with your friends, you can’t go wrong! The only negative to NC State Tailgating is the restriction on how long you are allowed to tailgate.
During the 2004-05 season a horrific tragedy occurred in on of the NC State tailgating lot. Because of this, the School has limited tailgating time to 5 hours before kickoff. I was at a 3:30 pm game so the lots didn’t open until 10:30am.
5 hours isn’t that long to tailgate with, so State fans where lined up waiting for the lots to open. After talking with many State fans about the restrictions, I can see that it has had a definite negative impact of the tailgating environment. 5 hours of tailgating severely limits what you are able to cook and how many meals you can cook! But, I am not the one who make the rules, so I and the rest of NC State tailgaters have to live by them. Considering I was only able to be there for 5 hours, it was fall break from school, and a non ACC opponent was on the schedule, I was very impressed with what I saw while in Raleigh!
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