Utah Preparing For Game Day Changes
Like every other team in the Pac-12, Utah is going to have to adjust to the eeriness that's sure to accompany game days moving forward..
The typical 45,000-plus fans in attendance at Rice Eccles Stadium will be reduced to none when Utah kicks off with Arizona on Nov. 7 in nine days. According to Pac-12 guidelines, no fans will be in attendance — but potentially will there be a smattering of friends and family (if local health officials deem it alright).
Rice Eccles Stadium — Salt Lake City, UT
This is a tough — but must happen — pill to swallow for the Utes. The program has consistently sold out on game days and enjoy one of the best home scenarios in the nation. Numerous times has head coach Kyle Whittingham and players spoken about the advantage they have when playing at home due to their raucous and supportive fans.
To help combat the difference in noise at the stadium, head coach Kyle Whittingham says his staff have been utilizing piped in crowd noise throughout the practices and scrimmages of fall camp.
“Well, we’ve already begun practicing with the ambient noise,” said Whittingham. “The crowd level and the decibel level that is supposed to be at. We’ve already had that going on at both of the scrimmages. I think it’s 70 decibels for just normal times and you can raise it to 90 if something exciting happens. We practice with that, now it’s going to be different no matter how you cut it with nobody in the stands, or very few people in the stands will be a different deal. Players seem to get on autopilot and hit a groove you’re on the field and you’re playing, you don’t really notice very often the surroundings. Our stadium is awesome. We feel we have some of the best fans in the country and certainly does give your players a boost emotionally particularly on big downs and when things are going on that are exciting but players for the most part are locked in a zone and oblivious to what’s going on around them.”
The noise factor is just one obstacle the Utes will have to adjust too.
Once the season was cancelled on August 11, Utah's athletic department moved forward with its Ken Garff Performance Zone construction project in the south endzone.
The new performance zone will house locker rooms for both the Utes and the visiting teams, official locker rooms, sports medicine facilities and multiple other spaces that will be specifically dedicated to the game-day personnel for a smoother day of production.
The additional seating will allow Rice Eccles to go from a capacity of 45,087 to 51,444, both of which will feature premium and non-premium seating. The Performance Zone will also include suite, loge box, ledge and club seating, as well as the Field Level Club, Stadium Club and a Rooftop Terrace.
This will bring in new revenue for the athletic department as a whole, which will be beneficial to all sports in the Utah community.
But with it currently under construction, it means that there are no locker rooms currently at Rice Eccles. This is a whole other obstacle for the Utes, as they'll no longer be able to go through their typical pregame routines, which means getting to the stadium 2-3 hours prior to kickoff and moseying around on the field prior to warmups.
Utah will now get dressed at the practice facilities and be bussed over to the stadium. They'll then walk out onto the field to begin their pregame warmups about 50 minutes prior to kickoff.
For halftime and with no locker room to retreat too, Whittingham said they have a plan moving forward and will test it out over the coming week.
While not a massive change, Whittingham noted that coaches and players are creatures of habit. So developing this new routine into habit will be a big deal moving forward, and something the Utes will be working on over the next week and a half prior to Nov. 7.
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