Hawkeyes Preparing for Beaver Stadium

The sound system inside Iowa’s indoor practice facility has been tested this week.

The Hawkeyes are going to No. 7 Penn State on Saturday night, playing in a stadium that holds almost 107,000 fans. It’s going to be the Nittany Lions’ ‘Whiteout’ game, which is only going to add to the cacophony.

So, this week in practice, the Hawkeyes have been running plays with crowd noise piped in.

“It’s pretty loud,” wide receiver Seth Anderson said. “Obnoxious. But we have to do it to be ready for the game.”

Asked to describe how loud it got, Anderson said, “I thought the speakers were going to blow out today.”

The first Big Ten road challenge of the season for the Hawkeyes will come in a stadium where it is one of the toughest for visiting teams to play.

There’s simulated crowd noise, and then there’s actual crowd noise.

“We’re just trying to get acclimated to it,” defensive tackle Logan Lee said.

Throw in the ‘Whiteout,’ and it could be some kind of night.

“I heard it’s an amazing experience,” Lee said. “People who have been there said how awesome it is.”

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz, who grew up in Pennsylvania, knows how loud it can get there, and he saw that with the Hawkeyes in 2009. They were down 10-0 at the end of the first quarter before rallying for a 21-10 win.

That comeback, Ferentz said, is why a team has to maintain its patience in a game like this.

“We're looking up, the place is going crazy,” Ferentz said of that 2009 game. “But the rest of the story there it's a 60-minute game. And when you're playing a team that's as talented as these guys are, and as good as they are, well-coached as they are, there's going to be some lows, too, during. Hopefully we create some highs but there's going to be some lows. And you have to keep playing. And if you're fortunate you can make it a 60-minute game. That's the whole idea.”

Penn State has won its first three games by an average of 32 points, so the Nittany Lions, Ferentz said, aren’t going to be easily challenged.

“First thing first is make it close, and you have to try to figure out how to make it go in the fourth quarter,” he said. “But to play in a raucous environment, it's good to be the home team for sure.”

Anderson, who transferred from Charleston Southern in the offseason, said this will be the biggest crowd he’s faced.

Asked what kind of crowds he saw at the FCS school, Anderson said, “Typical? Like 10,000, 15,000. I’m pretty used to big crowds, but not anything crazy.”

If anything, the players said on Tuesday, they’ve already been tested once in a loud environment this season, having won in front of a hostile Jack Trice Stadium crowd at Iowa State two weeks ago.

But there’s a difference in noise from 61,500 fans of a rival to 107,000 fans of a conference powerhouse.

“It’s just another game, to be honest,” Anderson said.

Running back Leshon Williams had the best solution.

“I’ve heard it’s loud, there’s a lot of people,” he said. “But at the end of the day, the better we play, the less noise we hear.”