A number of high-profile, alcohol-related deaths this fall have universities nationwide cleaning up existing programs and executing new efforts to curb binge drinking.

MSU officials say the tailgating reform regulations issued this October are a direct response to binge drinking on campus.

The guidelines restricted drinking games, which are directly linked to excessive drinking, MSU spokesman Terry Denbow said.

"Health officials told us we were going to have a fatality by the end of the season if nothing was done," Denbow said.

Although no one has died from alcohol-related causes at MSU this fall, students nationwide are playing deadly games with bottles of booze.

In September, Colorado State University student Samantha Spady finished as many as 40 drinks before she was found dead at a fraternity house.

Blake Hammontree, a University of Oklahoma student, died with a blood-alcohol content of more than five times the legal limit.

At least five other alcohol-related deaths at colleges in Arkansas and Colorado also have been reported this fall.

And MSU has seen its share of student deaths by alcohol.

In 1998, parks and recreation junior Bradley McCue died from alcohol poisoning on his 21st birthday. McCue had consumed 24 shots of liquor in about two hours.

Ingham County Medical Director Dr. Dean Sienko said alcohol abuse is an issue at MSU.

"It's a serious problem at Michigan State, as it is in many American campuses," Sienko said, adding that on MSU football Saturdays, doctors have described emergency rooms that wreaked of alcohol. "Alcohol misuse and abuse is the major problem on college campuses."

But Marie Hansen, campus liaison for an alcohol-focused group called Prevention Network, said since 1985, Spartans have been consuming less.

Hansen was a former director of Student Life at MSU until 2000. She said a survey done in 1985 showed 60 percent of students claimed to have gone binge drinking at least once a week. But in the same survey in 1999, 44 percent of students said they binge drank at least once every two weeks.

Although binge drinking during weekdays has declined, Hansen said weekend drinking is on an upswing.

In response to CSU student Spady's death, the university established a task force to look into different prevention efforts.

CSU was regarded nationally as a leader in substance abuse prevention, which is why Spady's death was so shocking, CSU spokesman Brad Bohlander said.

"We see this happening as an eye opener," Bohlander said. "Even though we're doing a lot of great things, we need to do more."

A task force was started by the University of Wisconsin after the school started its fall semester with two alcohol-fueled riots. The university also stopped serving alcohol at its football stadium, University of Wisconsin spokesman John Lucas said.

But Hansen said that although weekday binge drinking has declined during the last few years, drinking on football Saturdays has increased.

"Nationwide, football Saturdays are more out of control than they've ever been," she said.

Sienko said because tailgating on Saturdays created an environment conducive to binge drinking, university officials needed to do something.

Although Andrew Bell, ASMSU's Student Assembly chairperson for external affairs, acknowledged that tailgating needed to be made safer at MSU, he said the new regulations have gone too far.

"Administrators took a few incidences and used them as the norm to regulate tailgating," Bell said. "It's not the majority of students doing this. Most of us are responsible drinkers."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Jaclyn Roeschke can be reached roeschk1@msu.edu.