Embrace it

[aubiefifty 17,488]

Auburn ‘embracing’ frenzied environment awaiting team at Penn State

By Tom Green | tgreen@al.com

5-6 minutes

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The speakers on Auburn’s practice fields are turned to 11 this week.

No, this isn’t Spinal Tap; it’s Penn State week, and Bryan Harsin and his staff are doing their best to simulate the raucous and frenzied environment that awaits No. 22 Auburn (2-0) when it travels to Beaver Stadium on Saturday for a top-25 clash with No. 10 Penn State (2-0). It’s the Nittany Lions’ annual White Out game, which is typically reserved for their toughest home opponent of the season, and Penn State fans have been anticipating the matchup for some time — with chants of “we want Auburn” emanating through the air late in the team’s win against Ball State last weekend.

“As far as the environment goes, we know it’s going to be loud,” Auburn linebacker and team captain Chandler Wooten said. “We try to simulate it the best that we can, but until you’re there, you don’t really know what it’s like. So, guys are understanding that and embracing that and accepting that challenge.”

Wooten is right. Auburn can’t fully replicate the atmosphere that awaits it this weekend in State College, Penn. It can crank up the volume in practice throughout the week. It can try to throw an array of distractions at players, particularly on offense, where the noise will be more of a factor in the team’s execution Saturday night.

Until Auburn arrives at Beaver Stadium, though, it won’t fully know the environment that it’s walking into—but it won’t be a completely unfamiliar experience for most on the team. Yes, the reputation of Penn State’s crowd for its White Out games precedes it, and while Auburn has never played a game in Happy Valley, the team has dealt with its share of hostile road environments in recent years.

“The loud environment — I’ve been in a lot of environments before,” Auburn center Nick Brahms said. “Obviously, I haven’t been to Penn State, so maybe it’s different. I’ve been to Georgia, Alabama in those big games and stuff. I feel like I’m prepared, and I feel like the team’s prepared.”

Of course, those games at Alabama and Georgia last season were different, with limited attendance throughout the country, so players like Tank Bigsby — a freshman in 2020 — won’t have that kind of prior exposure to lean on. But go back another season, to 2019, when Auburn experienced two of the rowdiest road environments in the country: at The Swamp in Florida and in LSU’s Death Valley.

Both of those teams were ranked in the top-10 when Auburn visited that season, with Florida sixth in the nation and eventual-national champion LSU ranked first. The Swamp held 90,584 that afternoon, while Death Valley 102,160 fans in attendance. Auburn lost those games, but both were close contests throughout. More importantly, they provided many of the now-veteran players on Auburn’s roster with valuable experiences dealing with daunting road environments — including then-freshman quarterback Bo Nix.

“We understand what it is; obviously we play in the SEC, so we’ve been in a lot of cool stadiums, a lot of loud places,” Wooten said. “At the end of the day, it comes down to doing your job…. It presents energy and stuff like that and a great homefield advantage, but at the end of the day, we’re going out there to play football. So, we’ve got to prepare well this week and go out there and play our best football come Saturday.”

The environment will most affect Auburn’s offense, and communication — with an emphasis on the nonverbal variety — will be key for the Tigers as they try to pull the upset and snap a nine-game road losing streak against ranked teams that began in 2014.

“We can’t let the external environment control what we do on offense, especially,” Brahms said. “We know it’s going to be loud. So, we’re going to prepare for it, and we’re going to be ready. We’re planning to succeed.”

The thought of heading into a stadium packed to the gills with 106,572 boisterous fans, in primetime no less, may seem intimidating to some. Auburn’s players, though, seem eager to experience the environment, with many this week saying they believe the team will feed off that energy on the road.

“Embrace it,” Harsin said. “Be a guy that embraces that. Enjoy the opportunity to play in somebody else’s house and to go in there and play good football. So, to me, it’s more really about the mindset that you take into the week and what you have as you look forward to playing on the road somewhere else. It really starts upstairs, and it’s already begun.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.

[3rdgeneration 6,474]

Good article! I like the mindset.