Bulldog fans bring the noise
Kirby Smart has been the head coach of Georgia for six years and part of the program longer than that.
He’d never heard Sanford Stadium as loud as it was during Saturday’s huge game against Tennessee, which was won by the Bulldogs 27-13.
“What an incredible environment. I don't know that I've ever (heard it that loud),” Smart said. “I texted my wife, I've not seen our fans leave the stadium like that, even when it rained. You know, (sports information director Claude Felton) made a mention that the at start of the second half, there wasn't an empty seat in the house other than the ones they purchased. Our fans were elite today. We asked them to be. They responded, and they get the second-place vote (in the College Football Playoff poll).
Smart wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Other longtime Georgia attendees mentioned the same. Not only was the decibel level according to the scoreboard an ear-splitting 132.6 decibels in the final four-plus minutes; the noise created so much trouble for Tennessee’s offense, that the Vols were called for false-start illegal procedure calls.
“It was amazing. Coach Smart challenged Dawg Nation and they responded, they over-succeeded,” defensive tackle Nazir Stackhouse said. “It got to a point my body was shaking when I was on the field. It was a moment I’ll never forget.”
Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel acknowledged the noise proved to be a huge problem for his offense.
“I didn’t think, all in all, we handled the noise very well. That’s false starts, being in sync, communicating up front,” Heupel said. “At the end of the day, (the crowd noise) hurt us certainly early in the football game and, at times, throughout the course of it.”
Wide receiver Jalin Hyatt, who caught six passes for 63 yards, said the receivers were unable to hear many of the calls.
"The crowd noise was effective. Sometimes we could not hear the snap or the play call from (Hendon) Hooker,” Hyatt said. “I give credit to the fans. That would probably be the biggest thing that got us today."
Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett smiled when asked about the Bulldog crowd.
“Good Lord, they were loud,” Bennett said. “That was awesome. It helped so much, it helped us ride the momentum wave and hurt them because they couldn’t communicate as well.”
For that, Smart was certainly grateful.
"I always tell people: when you can't hear, it's deafening. Like, what's more deafening than deafening? The decibel thing, I don't understand that. No way it's accurate,” Smart said. Tennessee was loud, Arkansas was loud, and Notre Dame was loud. It was loud. Loud is loud. So, there's a point where you cannot hear. I'm also proud of fans, because I don't know if our stadium is exactly built vertically for just crazy crowd noise, but they were impactful tonight."
