As anyone who has played sports competitively knows, emotion can often times swing a close game in your or your opponent's favor... but there is a limit to the amount of change it can bring. The crowd can be a very positive factor for many players... those players who feed off of their emotions and use that to take their game to the next level. It can also be a negative factor for those same players who might be having a bad game and the boos (or even worse, the silence) can just add another weight to a sinking ship. The other way that crowd noise can play a role in the outcome of a game is simple based on noise level interfering with communcation. This is why many teams who play at LSU or at the Superdome practice with crowd noise pumped in on large speakers. Their players have to learn to operate under these unfamiliar conditions. If crowd noise causes a player to miss an audible or one or two false starts... well, we all know that the little mistakes can cost a team a W.
yes, The noise helps. Player Interviews from both our team and opposing teams, say that their bodies actually vibrate on the field as if a train were passing near. And backed up in your own endzone near the student section - forget about it! For an opposing QB trying to manage the huddle or hurry up, read the defense, read the sidelines, change a play, its absolutely ridiculous!
"Does the noise in Tiiger Stadium really help win games? Is having a snowball fight with Randy Johnson a bad idea?"
As has been pointed out by every response, yes the crowd and the noise do play in our favor. The Tigers and their fans bring a different level when in TS, especially at nite. If you want to get a perspective on why Tiger fans are so confident in our team when in TS, think about a fan that is 5-10 yrs old, they have only seen the Tigers lose a handfull, in some cases never, games at home. If they are young enough and have only been to nite games they may have never seen them lose. Also, with some of the students it is the same thing, if they have only been real fans since they started attending LSU. This is one of the reasons that Tigers fans are so, "matter of fact" when it comes to their confidence in the Tigers winning in TS. A loss is almost a system shock, because it just doesn't happen.:geaux:
It ain't just the crowd, its the architecture. The crowd is very close to the field in Tiger Stadium, no track and not much grass beyond the sideline area. And the fully-enclosed oval lower bowl in Tiger Stadium is huge. Stadiums with no end-zone stands or afterthought endzone stands with gaps in the corners just can't compare. The loud crowd reverberates in Tiger Stadium an it is very loud on the field. The addition of the upper decks raising the crowd from 68,000 to 93,000 did not make the stadium appreciably louder.The noise alone affects all teams because they can't hear audibles. The intimidation factor is real, too. Florida is the only crowd in the country that comes anywhere close to the rowdiness of the Tiger Stadium crowd. One of Nick's favorite stories is the Georgia game in 2003, a tight contest and the crowd was rocking. Late in the 4th quarter Georgia has a breakaway run for a go-ahead TD. It was exactly the kind of heartbreaker play that silences the crowd and takes the starch out of a team. Instead the Tiger Stadium crowd started chanting LSU LSU LSU really loudly all through the TV-time out and everything until LSU received the kickoff. You could see the Tiger team getting pumped up and the Georgia team on the sidelines that just scored was just looking at the grandstands . . . and they were not smiling. LSU went on to win the game on a Matt Mauck pass, but they won it because the crowd refused to let the Georgia TD take them out of the game and neither did the team.
Vegas gives about -3.5 points to a home team on average. So whenever we win by 3 or less it's partially because of the fans.
The amazing thing about the 2003 game with the Dawgs was that it was an afternoon game on CBS. But you were right about the noise and energy. That's about as loud and raucous as I've heard Tiger Stadium for an afternoon game.
