The University of Alabama is preparing to welcome thousands of fans to Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday for the beginning of the 2024 Alabama football season in Tuscaloosa.

Motorists are encouraged to plan ahead and leave early for games this season, said Ken Colvert of the Alabama Department of Transportation's West Central Region.

More: How Tuscaloosa restaurants prepare for game day crowds

"The biggest mistake that we see is not leaving early enough," Colvert said Tuesday at a news conference outside the stadium on the UA campus.

"I would encourage everyone to leave early ... plan ahead (and) be patient. There's going to be a lot of people in town. They just need to be patient and travel in and follow all the signage as necessary," he said.

People can expect sunny skies and temperatures in the upper 80s for Saturday's game, according to James Spann, the chief meteorologist for ABC 33/40 in Birmingham. The Crimson Tide will play Western Kentucky at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Kickoff will be at 6 p.m. with ESPN televising the game.

This season also marks the debut season for Kalen DeBoer as Alabama new head football coach. In addition to a new coach, Nick Frenz, UA associate director of event management, said fans can expect a few changes to game-day operations this season.

The biggest change fans can expect this season is the Walk of Champions, when fans can cheer the Alabama players and coaching staff as they get off the team bus and head into the stadium for the game. This season, the Walk of Champions will be about two and a half hours before kickoff, which is a little earlier than in years past under now-retired coach Nick Saban.

That means the Walk of Champions will be at 3:30 p.m. this Saturday. Frenz said this change was made because of DeBoer's preference.

"Well, it's just new coaching regime. He wanted to come over at a different time, and so I think he wanted to get here earlier than what they had in the past. So that's why we're doing it two and a half hours, and that'll be the way it is during the during the season," Frenz said.

Frenz said the other major change that UA fans need to be aware of is several campus construction projects that will affect the availability of parking spaces.

"We do have some construction projects that are occurring on campus that are eliminating some parking that we've had in the past. One of those is over at Coleman Coliseum. We're losing about 350 to 400 parking spaces in that parking lot, that will not only affect football season, but it will affect basketball and gymnastics season. So, we're having to navigate those challenges," Frenz said.

More: As the Tide turns: A look back at the transition from Saban to DeBoer

"And then there's a new building going up by the nursing school on the east side of campus that's taking out approximately 500 parking spots that we had for the general public. So, we're, we're experimenting with other locations for the bigger games to try and add some of that parking back in other places," he said.

Other game-day operations will run similar to last year as far as security, parking and road closures Frenz said. UA has a website, uagameday.com, with all that information and more. Fans can also use the website to download the UA Gameday app directly onto their smartphones.

Fans can also tune into UA Info Radio at 92.5 FM for additional information and updates.

ALDOT has several road projects in the works, but none of those should affect game-day traffic, Colvert said.

"We do have several projects that are ongoing, but there should be no lane closures for any of those projects on any game-day weekend, everything should flow as normal," he said.

Colvert said motorists can use the ALDOT traffic app to stay up to date on road closures and other information. Visit algotraffic.com or download the ALGO Traffic app onto your smartphone for free at the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

A week after the home opener, UA will face South Florida on Sept. 7 when Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium will be dedicated to honor Nick and Terry Saban. The UA-USF game will kick off at 6 p.m.

Here's the rest of UA's home schedule:

• Sept. 28: Georgia

• Oct. 12: South Carolina

• Oct. 26: Missouri (Homecoming)

• Nov. 16: Mercer

• Nov. 30: Auburn

Reach Jasmine Hollie at JHollie@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: What's new for the 2024 Alabama football game-day experience