BATON ROUGE -- LSU and Southern football each have their 2026 home openers this Saturday. Each with a new high-profile head coach leading a new era, hundreds of thousands are expected to be in Baton Rouge on Saturday.

With that many people, traffic is expected.

"We have a ton of officers that are going to be on the north end of the city; we have a ton of officers that are going to be on the south end of the city," Baton Rouge Police Public Information Officer L'Jean McKneely said.

Officers are asking that people get to each campus early, especially for LSU.

Last year, LSU implemented roadblocks and parking permit checkpoints at streets like Highland Road and Dalrymple several hours before the game. Fans without an on-campus parking pass were redirected to other streets in order to find parking.

LSU told WBRZ it would be the same this year, with roadblocks going up three hours before kickoff.

Contraflow for LSU will begin during the game to make getting off campus go much quicker.

"The end of the third quarter on to an hour or two, maybe even three after the game. Just know that the roads in that particular area and the neighborhoods surrounding the stadium and the campuses could possibly be closed," McKneely said.

In contraflow, certain roads will become one-way roads with both sides of the street going in the same direction.

"For LSU, River Road, Nicholson, Highland Road, we're gonna use all the inner streets in the immediate area and have them exit the campus," McKneely said.

Contraflow will also be in effect at Southern.

"It's Mills Avenue, and it's Harding Boulevard. We normally shut down a part of Scenic, so we're gonna use Old Scenic, Mills and Harding; just know that those lanes of travel will be one way," McKneely said.

You can find information about parking locations and road closures on LSU's website.

Another part of gameday is, of course, tickets. For LSU students, there have been changes made to student ticket policy. All student tickets for football will be non-transferable.

LSU says that "students who are unable to attend a home game may return their ticket during a designated return window each game week. Upon successful return, a refund equal to the face value of that game will be issued."

It added that "returned tickets will be made available for purchase to eligible students who do not currently hold a student season football ticket. Allocation priority will be determined in accordance with the student priority point ranking system."

However, many students told WBRZ they are unhappy with the change.

"I don't see why they shouldn't be transferable, in my opinion. You can't go to the game because you're sick with the flu; you can't even give it to your roommate who doesn't have a ticket. I feel that's a little bit stupid," LSU student Sara Callarotti said.

"I really feel like the football games need to be free [for students]. If we can go to volleyball, softball, all that other stuff for free, we should be able to go to football for free," LSU student Tamia Downs added.