In 2001, The Sporting News named Neyland Stadium the best venue to watch a college football game. It was difficult to argue against it. The Vols were four years removed from a national championship, they had the largest stadium in the South, and they had lost only four games there in eight years. Neyland was loud, intimidating, and seemingly always victorious. "Rocky Top" pummeled opposing fans ears as the Vols pummeled their teams. No one, other than Spurrier, wanted to play in Knoxville.Pray that Sanford Stadium is never similarly honored. Since that designation, Neyland has evidently become less intimidating. Since 2001, Tennessee has lost twelve games in Knoxville, a stat that would have been inconceivable at the beginning of 2001. Neyland wasn't even mentioned in Bruce Feldman's latest ranking of the scariest places to play. We hadn't beaten the Vols once in the 90's, but Richt is now vying for his fourth straight win in Knoxville. So what happened?
I think a stadium becomes intimidating not because of what it is, but rather because of who you have to face there. A good team makes their home stadium a lot more frightening. In the 1990's, LSU's Tiger Stadium wasn't intimidating because their teams were terrible. Now, beating LSU in Baton Rouge, especially at night, seems impossible. It isn't because of 92,000 tipsy Cajuns who overindulge and throw debris at the team bus, although that is scary. It's frightening because Glenn Dorsey or Craig Steltz might disassemble your favorite player, requiring a NTSB team to come out and figure our what happened. Neyland isn't as scary now because John Henderson isn't there to make you think UT had captured Bigfoot and somehow got it into school there. Neyland isn't the impenetrable orange fortress of the Tennessee River anymore because the Big Orange hasn't been as good recently. A great team makes the venue, not the other way around.
Neyland does still deserve a couple of accolades. It is still home to the largest concentration of orange track suits on the planet. Why do Vol fans so adore orange track suits? Is it because Phil wears one to, uh, conceal things?
Also, Vol fans have the best reactions to the opposition's big plays. Shock! Horror! OMG!
Quinton
