Thousands of Florida Gator fans were in town for Texas A&M’s first game as members of the Southeastern Conference.

“When you have 90 thousand people coming in to see an Aggie football game, it always brings a high level of excitement for the community,” said College Station Fire Chief R.B. Alley.

Texas A&M officials say more than 8,000 Florida Gator fans were in Aggieland for the first game of the season. There were also more cars parked on campus and more Rvs in town.

“This game was a good example of that. Kind of gave us an idea of what to expect with larger crowds,” said Chief Alley.

Joining the Southeastern Conference definitely means more fans, but officials say the public safety concerns are still the same.

“A lot more of the same,” said Chief Alley. “We did have to relocate some resources, some fire apparatus, over to the west campus to protect some vehicles that were parked over there during the game.”

More fans, means more tailgates. Chief Alley says S-E-C tailgaters are a little different.

“They really come prepared to watch the game. And not necessarily be inside the stadium. We did have a large number of people outside the stadium,” said Chief Alley.

Public safety officials expect even more fans to come to future home games.