Tigers to crank up the volume

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Tigers to crank up the volume in practice to prepare for big road crowd

ByMark Murphy

4 minutes

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AUBURN, Alabama–When the Auburn football team returns to the practice field on Tuesday, Coach Bryan Harsin said it will be time to pump up the volume as his Tigers prepare for their first road game of the season. On Saturday night at Penn State, 106,572 fans are expected to be in Beaver Stadium to check out the SEC vs. Big Ten matchup.

Harsin said there are a variety of ways to prepare for crowd noise. “It is interesting when you get on a new staff, everybody has done things differently and so I have actually kind of enjoyed hearing different ways people have prepared for noise.

“Ultimately, we have a speaker system and all of that,” Auburn’s first-year head coach noted. “I don’t think we are going to get it exactly like it is going to be on game night. We will crank the music up with the sound, the crowd noise, whatever it is we have to use to make it very loud.”

Saturday’s game will be Auburn’s first trip to Penn State and just the third game ever vs. the Nittany Lions. The series is 1-1 with both matchups played in bowl games.

“I think ultimately, part of playing on the road in front of a crowd noise, you do have crowd noise, you do need to deal with that, but it is all of the other things, too,” Harsin said. "You are not going to have the rest of the team. We travel 80 guys. That might even be better for us at the end of the day–maybe more focused because there’s less distractions on the side.”

Saturday's matchup, which is scheduled for TV coverage on ABC beginning at 6:30 p.m. CDT, is Penn State’s “Whiteout Game,” which normally is the loudest home environment of the season for the Nittany Lions.

“We have to do a great job of identifying what is happening and know that the other 10 guys around you are going to do their job,” Harsin said. “That is a big part of preparation knowing the other guys around you are going to do their job because there may not be an opportunity to communicate. Our defense has had to deal with that at home the last two games where our crowd has been loud and making it difficult on the offense.”

Auburn’s head coach added, “If we do it right, it shouldn’t be too much of a factor for us.” He also said he believes it is important to take a positive attitude into a college football road test like this one with the 22nd-ranked Tigers facing No. 10 Penn State. Both teams will bring a 2-0 record into the contest and Auburn's coach said he is going to tell the Tigers to "embrace" the challenge.

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“Enjoy the opportunity to play in somebody else’s house and you go in there and play good football,” Harsin said. “To me it is more really about the mindset you take into the week.”

On the subject of crowd noise, Harsin praised the energy the Auburn student section has brought to Jordan-Hare Stadium in his first two games as head coach of the Tigers, but he also has a request to turn down volume when Auburn has the football and is calling signals at the line of scrimmage. The noise led to a delay of game penalty on the Tigers in the red zone on Saturday vs. Alabama State. "We probably need to make sure we calm that down a little bit," he said.