I would just like to ask a question to those who have been Georgia fans for awhile, and have ventured into the Tanyard Creek valley a time or two: has the crowd support at Sanford stadium always been this bad, or is it a recent phenomenon?
It would seem that for a stadium that holds 93,000 fans within its confines, it is not nearly as loud, or intimidating for opposing players to play in as you would think. Just last week, my very passionate, and knowledgeable girlfriend mentioned to me that she could hear Ole Miss's QB change play calls on the line, and in the 1st quarter no less. If SHE could hear the Quarterback snap call, then I know that center was having no trouble discerning what the QB is saying. This is overall disconcerting, since the point of homefield advantage is to make it more difficult for the opposition than it is for the hometeam, with noise being a central factor of said advantage (something my amazing better half could grasp). I'm not trying to blame one group (the alumni, the students, or fair weather fans form Atlanta) for the lack of noise, but I would simply like to know what gives? I know we have a giant hole on the western side of the stadium, but Clemson has a similar empty space in their own stadium, and they are consistently one of the louder, and more intimidating places to play (not that it matters when your program consistently puts out 7-5 teams). It would also seem that the stadium fills up only after the first half of the 1st quarter and that the focus is more on alcohol, as opposed to the actual football game as this excerpt from Overheard in Athens would attest to.
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* (Before the start of the Western Carolina game)
* Drunk girl 1: Damnit! I forgot the flask!
* Drunk girl 2: What do you want to do? We can't get back in if we leave.
* Drunk girl 1: No point in staying. Let's just go.
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Let a young man, who screams himself hoarse at every football game (you can all listen in on my Sunday school lectures to hear if you can discern anything from my raspy lesson on Transubstantiation and the Eucharist), know why Sanford stadium can't be mentioned along with Tiger, Ben-Griffith, and Neyland as the most intimidating places to play in the SEC?
Ultimately, though, what do y'all think we do to improve our stadium's noise factor (better intro music, schedule tougher opponents, more night games, etc.), or is this a hopeless fight?
