Mobile emptied out a little bit the Saturday before Christmas as busloads of University of South Alabama fans made the trip north to Montgomery, turning out in force for the Jaguars’ first bowl game appearance in program history.
The Jaguars met the Bowling Green Falcons at Cramton Stadium in the inaugural Camellia Bowl on Dec. 20, and the crowd that traveled from Mobile made its presence felt. Fans packed alumni tents wearing South Alabama red, working through plates of barbecue while buses rolled in from the Port City throughout the morning.
Longtime alumni described the turnout as one of the largest traveling crowds they had seen from the young program, drawing comparisons to the record-setting crowd that showed up when USA played Mississippi State. Several graduates said they were struck by how many people made the roughly 170-mile trip so close to the holidays, with buses filled well before kickoff and fans cheering together the whole way north.
Current students, freshly finished with fall semester finals, joined the celebration with a large tailgate near the stadium, treating the game as a milestone moment for a football program that only began play in 2009. University leadership echoed that sentiment on the sidelines, thanking Camellia Bowl organizers for the welcome Montgomery gave the visiting Mobile contingent and calling the experience especially meaningful for current students who had followed the program from its earliest seasons.
One of the students involved in the original 2009 push to bring football to the University of South Alabama said the atmosphere inside the stadium lived up to years of anticipation, praising Montgomery’s hospitality in hosting the first-year bowl game. Fans in the stands and on the concourse alike described the night as a proud moment for a program still in its infancy compared to longtime Southeastern programs.
Attendance for the game was announced at just over 20,000 in a stadium with a 25,000-seat capacity, and organizers said South Alabama’s full ticket allotment sold out ahead of kickoff. For many of the Mobile-area fans who made the trip, the sellout crowd underscored how quickly the six-year-old program has built a following back home.
The bowl trip capped a milestone season for South Alabama football and gave Mobile-area fans a rare shared experience just days before Christmas, with many describing the trip north as a fitting way to close out the program’s most successful year yet.