The Iowa State-Iowa football game showed a high spike in citations compared to other games.

The Cy-Hawk game is one of the most popular games of the football season in Iowa, with the long lasting rivalry for the Cy-Hawk trophy bringing in a large crowd every year. Visitors from all around the state make sure to get the game’s ticket as soon as they see it, as they feel it is one of the most important games to see. 

As students, families and community members from Ames and Iowa City gathered this year, law enforcement also gathered help from around the state.

“The Iowa-Iowa State Game is usually the busiest game of the season for us, so we do typically see a spike in numbers,” said Anthony Greiter, community outreach specialist for Iowa State University Police Department. “We have more officers working and we bring officers really in around the state.” 

Iowa State University Police Department tweeted their final game day statistics, which included 52 citations in total — one citation being issued for the unlawful use of a license and 51 of them being for possession of alcohol under the legal age. 

Final game day stats:
– 52 citations
– 31 arrests
– 10 arrests above .20 BAC
– 148 first aid calls pic.twitter.com/ysoe5dxYEe

— Iowa State University Police Department (@ISUPD) Sept. 15, 2019

“The numbers are bound to be a little bit higher; I think one of the things that really impacted [the statistics for] game day yesterday was the length of the day,” Greiter said. “So the lots opened extremely early — at 5 a.m., which is 10 hours before kick-off, four hours earlier than we would normally open the parking lot and then in addition to that, the game was extended by what — maybe three hours because of weather.” 

In comparison, the Iowa State versus University of Northern Iowa home football game had a result of 39 citations, with two of them issued for unlawful use of license and 37 citations issued for possession of alcohol under the legal age. 

Final game day stats:
– 39 citations
– 8 arrests
– 0 arrests above .20 BAC
– 79 first aid calls pic.twitter.com/7t6BxWdeOb

— Iowa State University Police Department (@ISUPD) Sept. 1, 2019

Greiter said the Iowa State University Police Department readjusted the layout of the officers distributed around Ames to accommodate the Iowa State versus University of Iowa game.

The Ames Police Department, Story County Sheriff and Jail departments, Nevada Police Department and Marshalltown Police departments as well as other departments were also contacted to help manage the game day safety. 

“Our goal is safety, and so that is our focus all the time,” Greiter said. “When we are out writing possession of alcohol under the legal age citations, people think that we do that for a number of reasons.” 

The partnership with the other police departments is for all home football games. For the citations, Greiter said people may have a different idea on why the officers issued them. 

“Some people speculate that we are making money off of it, which is false. Some people speculate that we think it’s a lot of fun — which is false,” Greiter said. “Some people think that we are doing it just to ruin the day or ruin the fun or ruin the party and that’s false […] The reason that we do it is because we recognize that if we have an impact early on in the day or early on in the drinking we oftentimes reduce the risk that follows from excessive drinking.”