Ducks Attack Message Board Forum

Apparently Kyle Whittingham believes the Autzen crowd could be unimportant. From the Salt Lake Tribune...

Despite the attention Utah has given crowd noise in practice, Whittingham believes it could be a non-factor if handled correctly.

"Ultimately, players are the factor and that is something, once the game starts, as a player you block out the noise," he said. "It sounds strange, but once you are on the field and playing the game, you are oblivious to the crowd."

http://blogs.sltrib.com/utes/2009/09/ti ... tebook.htm

Well it's true. I know it was only high school and not that loud, but when you're on the field, you don't hear anything. For me it was the ultimate focus.

You can certainly game AROUND sound, but to pretend its a complete non-issue is naive. I believe Michigan committed the same error on their trip out here.

Noise plays a role when trying to call audibles, plays at the line of scrimmage, it takes away the QBs ability to use longer snapcounts, and sometimes can even force teams to go on silent counts, which can be devastating. Also, with lots of noise qbs can have issues hearing the playcalls in their helmets, and players can miss important details in huddles. All this is a long way of saying that noise CAN cause lots of confusion on the field...

Whats more, the thing about these limitations and changes that teams are forced to make, if mistakes start to happen, they snowball and get worse and worse. Hopefully our crowd will make some of these possibilities a reality.

Go Ducks! One game at a time!