For TCU students, nationally televised games are a good reason to set the early morning alarm clock an extra day of the week.

Since TCU’s final regular game of the season against Oklahoma University started at 11 a.m., die-hard TCU fans lined up outside of Amon G. Carter Stadium as early as three hours before the game to secure front row seats when the gates opened at 9 a.m.

Sophomore Lauren Hart said her group of purple supporters tries to get in to the stadium every week as soon as the gates open.

“Standing in the front row, you really feel the atmosphere of the crowd,” Hart said.

Hart, who has yet to miss a TCU home football game, said she was in the stadium at 9 a.m. for the Sept. 22 matchup against the University of Virginia as well. Both games had 11 a.m. kickoffs and were broadcasted nationally.

Some TCU students have to sit front row at home games. Senior Cody Coke said she has to sit front row due to her 5-foot-4-inch stature.

For others, rituals and superstitions are reasons to enter the stadium first. Junior Brian Rockwell said his group attempts to sit front row near the band every home game.

“In the Mountain West, we could show up 45 minutes before the game and get front row seats,” Rockwell said. “Now, since we are in the Big 12 and the student section fills up early, we line up 10 minutes before the gates open.”

Matt Moon and Janice Rutherford raised some eyebrows with their mixed apparel when they entered the stadium an hour before kickoff. Now attending graduate school at TCU for nurse anesthesia, Moon and Rutherford graduated from Oklahoma University in 2007.

“We are used to entering stadiums early,” Moon said in his Sooners t-shirt and TCU hat. “You have to get in early to sit in the student section.”

“Even though it’s smaller, it feels like the atmosphere at a big school game,” Rutherford said with a red foam finger in one hand and purple sunglasses in the other.

Rutherford also said TCU definitely belongs in the Big 12 and compares the environment on game day to that of an Oklahoma home game.

Despite the early start to the University of Virginia game, the official game attendance figure released was 46,330, according to GoFrogs.com. The Oklahoma University contest is the third game this season TCU has played at 11 a.m.

Game times for the 2013 season have yet to be announced.