Georgia's Home Crowd Under Fire Before Saturday's Matchup
Athens, Georgia will be the epicenter of college football this weekend. ESPN’s College GameDay will be in town, as well as SEC Network’s SEC Nation and Marty & McGee. Sanford Stadium will be on full display for the entire nation when CBS broadcast kicks off its broadcast of No. 3 Georgia and the No. 1 ranked Tennessee Volunteers. All of the attention garnered by this matchup has stirred up a question which is making the rounds across all forms of media:
Is Sanford Stadium a tough place to play?
Former Tennessee quarterback Eric Ainge took to Twitter to downplay the noise generated by Georgia’s home crowd. “Playing between the hedges is overrated. Not that loud and definitely not intimidating. It’s nothing like playing in Neyland. Vols will be just fine in Athens!”
On Barstool’s Unnecessary Roughness podcast, co-host Kayce Smith, formerly a reporter for Fox Sports, ESPN, and NBC, said she doesn’t believe Sanford holds a place among the elite home atmospheres in the sport.
“I’m not taking anything away from Sanford Stadium. I’m not taking anything away from home atmospheres in any major conference, especially a top-four game like this. However, I’ve been to plenty of games at Georgia. Not of this caliber, I get that. Georgia’s home crowd will definitely play a [factor], it always does in college football. It doesn’t scare me for Hendon Hooker to walk in there and [have] him all of a sudden fall apart because it’s loud in there.” said Smith.
“I’m not putting as much weight into that home-field advantage in Athens, at 3:30, as I feel like a lot of people are. I think this offense for Tennessee is so good, and so well oiled as a machine right now, that even if they struggle and have a couple three-and-outs because it’s loud in there, it’s not going to affect them for the entire game.”
“If you sat me down… and you said ‘Name teams and power five schools that have massive advantages [in terms of home field advantage] Georgia probably wouldn’t be on my top-20 list.”
As we’ve mentioned before, this is the biggest home game in Georgia’s history. Sanford has shown up before, just look at KJ Jefferson’s first quarter in Athens last year, but people in the know have a feeling this one is going to be even louder. A hotel manager in Athens (who asked to remain anonymous) believes this atmosphere will surpass even the one generated for the Fighting Irish back in 2019.
“We sold out for this weekend last Sunday. That didn’t even happen for Notre Dame.”
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