Since everyone else has weighed in on Tennessee allegedly pumping in artificial crowd noise during the Vols’ victory over Alabama, let’s let Tennessee center Cooper Mays weigh in on the environment in Neyland Stadium on Saturday.
What did Mays think of the assertions that Neyland couldn’t have just been organically loud, that the Vols somehow piped in extra noise to distract the Crimson Tide?
“I think that’s probably the ultimate compliment that you can have as a fan base and as a stadium,” Mays said. “For an environment in general, definitely the best compliment you could get for for that. I mean, if people are saying you’re pumping in crowd noise, it’s obviously alarmingly loud. I mean, if you think something’s fake, then that means it’s just excellent and great at that point.”
Alabama’s play-by-play commentator and former Crimson Tide quarterback A.J. McCarron both asserted that UT official had artificial noise pumped into the stadium in the Vols 24-17 win over the Crimson Tide on Saturday. Tennessee officials steadfastly denied that was the case in a release earlier this week.
Neyland Stadium was, indeed excellent and great as a home field advantage for the Vols. The Crimson Tide was called for a season-high 15 penalties against the Vols, including three false starts, and certainly seemed to get frustrated by the constant roar that could be heard on Shields-Watkins Field.
“It can be super problematic,” Mays said on The Vol Report. “I think it changed the game truly. I played in places where it’s really, really loud, not really like Neyland…on a consistent basis. Never like that consistently, but big time crowds like that. When you’re on the road, it changes the way you operate.
“You’re going to go into the week and everybody’s going to ask you about stuff. I’m sure if you’re another team, you’re going to give the media answer. ‘Hey, we got to operate, communicate. It shouldn’t really affect us.’
“That’s what everybody’s going to say because that’s what you’re going to say naturally. But at the end of the day, I mean, if somebody was sitting in here blaring a speaker during our podcast, it’s going to significantly mess things up.”
Fair point. It’s pretty hard to focus on being great – or even good – at your job if there’s constant noise to distract you.
“If you just went to your cubicle at work and you were working by yourself and you didn’t need to talk to anybody,” Mays said. “Imagine somebody just stood over the top of you with a speaker and just blared music in your ear all day.
“You just wouldn’t be as productive. You wouldn’t be nearly as good at communicating or getting your point across to anybody or anything. Stuff like that really, truly affects the game.”
Mays said the noise is another variable that has to be considered and dealt with for opposing teams headed into Neyland Stadium. In some ways, it’s just like life for the always pensive Mays.
“Football is no different,” he said. “If you have blaring noise every time, it’s going to change the way you approach things.”
And the way football games can be played, won and lost.
