Home Field Advantage
September 23, 2010 10:41 AM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – LSU prides itself on having one of the most hostile venues in college football. The Tigers have won 28 straight non-conference games at Tiger Stadium dating back to a 13-10 loss to Alabama-Birmingham in 2000, and overall under seventh-year coach Les Miles, LSU is 30-6 at home.
LSU prefers to play all of its home games at night, so there will be 93,000-plus screaming fans with plenty of time that day to get greased up before Saturday’s 9 p.m. ET kickoff.
History is not on West Virginia's side, the Mountaineers having lost all 13 times they have played before more than 80,000 fans on the road. The largest crowd West Virginia has managed to win in front of was 75,008 at ninth-ranked Oklahoma to begin the 1982 season.
The Mountaineers have a couple of coaches familiar with Tiger Stadium, including wide receivers coach Lonnie Galloway, who was an assistant at Appalachian State when it lost to the sixth-rated Tigers 24-0.
“That’s a nice place,” he said. “When I was at App State we played down there in 2005. It will be 93,000 Baton Rouge, wide-open fans and as a player, you go and look for that. If you can overcome the whole stadium effect and pay attention to what you’re doing … because at the end of the day it’s loud here. Watch Maryland, what did they have four false starts? Just pay attention to your keys and you go out and play ball.”
Offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen has coached in hostile environments when he was at Wake Forest, listing Clemson and Florida State as two difficult places to play. In reality, though, crowd noise isn’t that much of an issue with the coaches.
“As a coach, you’re in a box, you’re on the sidelines and you’re kind of zoned in,” he said. “I never really made too much of it and as a kid certainly pregame and the day before, you kind of look around and say, ‘hey, that’s pretty cool’ or ‘wow, that’s pretty neat’ but when you are playing and you’ve got someone across from you ready to knock the dog out of you all of that stuff kind of goes away. I don’t know other than in between plays before the ball is snapped and the crowd noise gets a little high, whether you are playing in a parking lot or in Death Valley it’s that much different.”
Still, this week the coaching staff has piped in music in the indoor facility and worked on communicating non-verbally - something they do anyway since West Virginia is a shot-gun team and the quarterback is not always under center.
“We went to a silent deal at Marshall,” said Mullen. “It was actually pretty loud with that bowl that they have. It was a record crowd and a fevered pitch and really good game so we already had to do some of that already.”
Galloway said his biggest concern is that his receivers watch the ball if they can’t hear the cadence.
“If you can’t hear him watch the ball,” said Galloway. “We will have a few things in place if it is that loud.”
Mullen understands the value of having a great home field advantage. Last week it certainly benefitted West Virginia against Maryland.
“No question I think home field advantage is big,” Mullen said. “Certainly home field advantage here at Mountaineer Field is big. What are we, 15-1 in our time here? And the one was an overtime deal. Our crowd here is phenomenal. They are awesome and they certainly made a big difference during last Saturday’s game, and I think they will feel the same way down there. I think how you approach your football team and how you deliver that statement, I think you can buffer that a little bit.”
The fact that sophomore quarterback Geno Smith has already been in some difficult situations is certainly helpful. Smith was thrown to the wolves last year as a true freshman at Auburn when starting quarterback Jarrett Brown was injured in the second half. Smith was also a second-half replacement at last year’s Gator Bowl in Coach Bobby Bowden’s final college football game before a record crowd of mostly Florida State supporters in Jacksonville.
And two weeks ago, Smith led two length-of-the-field drives at Marshall over the remaining 8:28 of the game to deliver a 24-21 overtime victory. The crowd wasn’t nearly as big as what West Virginia will face on Saturday, but the way the stadium there is configured and the pure emotion of the game, it was a hostile venue to contend with nonetheless.
All of those cumulative experiences count for something.
“At Auburn is a pretty tough place to get your feet wet and get started,” Mullen noted. “More importantly, these first three games he’s been in some tough situations, even at Marshall, and certainly this weekend when we jumped out early and then had to grind a little bit. Just the cumulative reps he has gotten this year has helped him as much, if not more, than that Auburn game last year.”
LSU prefers to play all of its home games at night, so there will be 93,000-plus screaming fans with plenty of time that day to get greased up before Saturday’s 9 p.m. ET kickoff.
History is not on West Virginia's side, the Mountaineers having lost all 13 times they have played before more than 80,000 fans on the road. The largest crowd West Virginia has managed to win in front of was 75,008 at ninth-ranked Oklahoma to begin the 1982 season.
The Mountaineers have a couple of coaches familiar with Tiger Stadium, including wide receivers coach Lonnie Galloway, who was an assistant at Appalachian State when it lost to the sixth-rated Tigers 24-0.
“That’s a nice place,” he said. “When I was at App State we played down there in 2005. It will be 93,000 Baton Rouge, wide-open fans and as a player, you go and look for that. If you can overcome the whole stadium effect and pay attention to what you’re doing … because at the end of the day it’s loud here. Watch Maryland, what did they have four false starts? Just pay attention to your keys and you go out and play ball.”
Offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen has coached in hostile environments when he was at Wake Forest, listing Clemson and Florida State as two difficult places to play. In reality, though, crowd noise isn’t that much of an issue with the coaches.
“As a coach, you’re in a box, you’re on the sidelines and you’re kind of zoned in,” he said. “I never really made too much of it and as a kid certainly pregame and the day before, you kind of look around and say, ‘hey, that’s pretty cool’ or ‘wow, that’s pretty neat’ but when you are playing and you’ve got someone across from you ready to knock the dog out of you all of that stuff kind of goes away. I don’t know other than in between plays before the ball is snapped and the crowd noise gets a little high, whether you are playing in a parking lot or in Death Valley it’s that much different.”
Still, this week the coaching staff has piped in music in the indoor facility and worked on communicating non-verbally - something they do anyway since West Virginia is a shot-gun team and the quarterback is not always under center.
“We went to a silent deal at Marshall,” said Mullen. “It was actually pretty loud with that bowl that they have. It was a record crowd and a fevered pitch and really good game so we already had to do some of that already.”
Galloway said his biggest concern is that his receivers watch the ball if they can’t hear the cadence.
“If you can’t hear him watch the ball,” said Galloway. “We will have a few things in place if it is that loud.”
Mullen understands the value of having a great home field advantage. Last week it certainly benefitted West Virginia against Maryland.
“No question I think home field advantage is big,” Mullen said. “Certainly home field advantage here at Mountaineer Field is big. What are we, 15-1 in our time here? And the one was an overtime deal. Our crowd here is phenomenal. They are awesome and they certainly made a big difference during last Saturday’s game, and I think they will feel the same way down there. I think how you approach your football team and how you deliver that statement, I think you can buffer that a little bit.”
The fact that sophomore quarterback Geno Smith has already been in some difficult situations is certainly helpful. Smith was thrown to the wolves last year as a true freshman at Auburn when starting quarterback Jarrett Brown was injured in the second half. Smith was also a second-half replacement at last year’s Gator Bowl in Coach Bobby Bowden’s final college football game before a record crowd of mostly Florida State supporters in Jacksonville.
And two weeks ago, Smith led two length-of-the-field drives at Marshall over the remaining 8:28 of the game to deliver a 24-21 overtime victory. The crowd wasn’t nearly as big as what West Virginia will face on Saturday, but the way the stadium there is configured and the pure emotion of the game, it was a hostile venue to contend with nonetheless.
All of those cumulative experiences count for something.
“At Auburn is a pretty tough place to get your feet wet and get started,” Mullen noted. “More importantly, these first three games he’s been in some tough situations, even at Marshall, and certainly this weekend when we jumped out early and then had to grind a little bit. Just the cumulative reps he has gotten this year has helped him as much, if not more, than that Auburn game last year.”
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