Welcome to the White Out
Examining the best college football environments of all time based on size, sound, sight and specialty traditions
Believe it or not the 2021 college football season, three games in, is a quarter of the way through the year. By comparison, many teams did not begin the 2020 season until this time last year with the SEC beginning September 26th, the Big Ten on October 24th, and the Pac-12 on November 7th!
And the season was played in its’ entirety with basically no fans.
To say that this college football season has already been more action-packed, upset-laden and drama-filled through the first three weeks would be an understatement. There are FCS and other unranked schools pulling off massive upsets and rivalries have been rekindled.
Most important of all is that the fans are back to helped created these frenzied environments and breathe life into college football, which we covered in our earlier newsletter here.
Could you imagine to have the time and resources to run the Week 1 fan experience gauntlet of the Bounce House for Boise State-UCF on Thursday, being in Blacksburg for Enter Sandman between No. 10 UNC-Virginia Tech on Friday, Jumping Around in Madison Saturday afternoon for top 20 Penn State-Wisconsin before racing off to Charlotte for top five Georgia-Clemson, and then experiencing overtime for FSU-Notre Dame on Sunday and finishing in Atlanta for a CFB encore between Ole Miss-Louisville?
Though perhaps, there is no better place to start in examining the best CFB environments than with Happy Valley’s White Out.
A crucial point must be made here: a White Out is the best kind of ‘color out’ game; it is followed closely by the blackout. Color outs (neon, royal blue, red, etc) potentially work better for basketball games, but it is dependent on seat location and venue size.
Quite simply, nothing beats a White Out. Period.
The Penn State Nittany Lions hosted the Auburn Tigers last week in one of their ‘White Out’ games that has become a college football staple. College Gameday was there for the Big Ten-SEC showdown, sensors were placed around the stadium to monitor seismic movement and the best part was that the game delivered on every level.
The 28-20 Penn State victory moved their all-time White Out record to 9-8. It began in 2004 against No. 9 Purdue and they have had memorable games against Michigan and Ohio State since the inception of the tradition.
“A driving rain. A top two opponent. One hundred thousand people. I’ll never forget my first Penn State White Out game,” college football enthusiast Will Mannon told me about his experience at the 2016 Penn State-Ohio State White Out.
You know the one. A comeback punctuated with a game-winning blocked field goal returned for a touchdown to secure the upset and later throw the Playoff debate off the rails.
Mannon recounted what transpired after that play:
“The place exploded. Feeling the energy in Beaver Stadium that night made me feel alive like few other moments in my life. It is the best atmosphere in college football.”
Which got me thinking: is Penn State truly the best venue in college football and is the White Out the best tradition?
Answering this question presents the same challenge of untangling a series of webs as complicated as selecting the four Playoff teams at the end of each season. I tried to facilitate a few different categories to determine the best college football environment: size, sound, sight and specialty.
Size, sound and sight are all exactly how they sound. How big is the stadium, how loud does it get and what is the backdrop? Specialty, on the other hand, is the signature tradition that just makes the environment a special place to be apart of.
Size
There are some behemoth stadiums in college football with several boasting over 100,000 seat capacity. The largest capacity ever for a college football game was when Bristol Motor Speedway hosted 156,990 spectators for the September 10, 2016 game between Tennessee and Virginia Tech.
Here are the top 10 largest venues (check out the full top 25 here):
Michigan - 107,601
Penn State - 106,572
Ohio State - 102,780
Texas A&M - 102,733
Tennessee - 102,455
LSU - 102,321
Alabama - 101,821
Texas - 95,594
Georgia - 92,746
UCLA - 91,136
I have attended games at half of these venues (Michigan, A&M, ‘Bama , Texas and UGA), but can attest that a large crowd does not guarantee a deafening sound.
Sound
Though reasons may vary on why some stadiums do not get as loud, the main one seems to be architectural if the stadium is open and therefore cannot hold in the sound.
Here are four of the loudest, and therefore toughest, stadiums to play in (many are on this list here):
Texas A&M
Oregon
Iowa
LSU
College Station is the loudest stadium I have ever been at for a game, and tops the list for me. I chose to highlight these four based on the common responses of people I spoke with, experience and this video of former players saying which places were toughest to play.
It may surprise many that the Ducks, with a capacity of a mere 60,000, is one of the loudest stadiums on this list. But it gets loud in there, as Mannon can testify to:
“Autzen is deafening; 60,000 sounds like 100,000. It’s one continuous bowl and they yell the whole time.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum of noise will be the visual appeal of stadiums that usually belong to smaller programs in hard to get to places.
Sight
With college football seeping into every nook and cranny of this great nation, there is ample opportunity to find the most picturesque spots to take in a college football game.
Here are some of the most beautiful:
Baylor
UCLA
Colorado
UTEP
California
Arizona State
Oregon
BYU
Utah
Army
Appalachian State
Washington
Boise State
If your stadium has a mountain backdrop or sits on the water, then chances are you will have one of the best seats in the house come Saturday.
Speciality Tradition
Tradition is what separates college football from the professional ranks. However, not all traditions significantly enhance the gameday experience equally.
Here are a top six that enhance the fan experience:
Wisconsin - Jump Around
VT - Enter Sandman
Penn State - White Out
Mississippi State - Cowbells
Iowa - Children’s Hospital Wave
Army-Navy - March in
The Bulldogs getting a sound boost from the cowbells does seem like performance enhancement. The first three are much more organic methods to get the adrenaline pumping.
Just how electric was Blacksburg that first Friday night? We caught up with Alex Anderson, the Hokies’ Director of Digital & Database Strategies, to help paint a picture for us:
“It was indescribable. After everything we went through for the past year and a half, the fans were out in full force. From start to finish they were as locked in as [coach Justin] Fuente was. Hands down the best Sandman I’ve been a part of. The excitement and energy was surreal.”
All six of these traditions are inclusive of every fan who enters the stadium, and the final two it does not even matter what team you are pulling for or if you are even a football fan.
So which is the best environment to take in a game? It really depends on what you want. Do you want it to be big and loud? Get to College State, State College or Baton Rouge.
Do you want a really cool collegiate experience? Travel to Madison, WI, or Blacksburg, VA.
Or would you rather take in the scenery before, during and after the game to add to the ambiance? Then get to Seattle and El Paso and Pasadena.
Enjoy this college football weekend; until next time!