We (really do) determine when you hear the snap count
Actually, you’ll be lucky if you get to hear the whistle as the opposing team in Beaver Stadium. Penn State’s director of communications and branding for Penn State football Guido D’Elia has teamed up with graduate student Andrew Barnard in the latest salvo for home field superiority.
“Somebody mentioned what a great acoustics lab we have, and I said: ‘Well, all right then. We’ll put it to use,’ ” D’Elia said.
Considering the accolades already bestowed upon the 110,000+ fans that pack Beaver Stadium, further increasing decibel levels would solidify Penn State’s reign among college football’s best home field environments. An ESPN survey of coaches in 2007 awarded Penn State the highest marks of any collegiate stadium for noise beating out often cited Tiger Stadium (LSU) and Auzten Stadium (Oregon) for the honor.
For the longest time, much of this best/most hostile/loudest argument have been opinion based, biased and simply water cooler chatter. But now, Penn State actually has the figures and scientific data to back up a distinction many already assumed to be true.
Both D’Elia and Barnard teamed up during the 2007-2008 season to record actual crowd noise using 11 sound meters placed strategically around the field.
The results were as expected. On offense, the Nittany Lions enjoyed the advantage of 75 decibels, as loud as a car radio playing at a reasonable level.
But on defense, the crowd roared at 110 decibels.
Decibel levels are a measurement that expresses the magnitude relative to specified or implied reference level. Since it expresses a ratio of two quantities with the same unit, it is a dimensionless unit. A decibel is one tenth of a bel, a seldom-used unit.
That means the 110 decibels recorded on defense is 50 times as loud as when Penn State was on offense. It’s like having a conversation standing adjacent to a giant speaker in a rock concert for opposing quarterbacks making on-field adjustments.
Though the results provides for bragging rights, the measurements were initially recorded to further improve one of the most hostile venues in college football. This brings us to the controversial decision to relocate the student section during this offseason.
Sound measurements made during 3 home games during the 2007-08 season revealed that the student section spanning from the middle of the southern end zone to the 30-yard line produced the most noise within the stadium. The noise from the remaining sideline seats currently occupied by juniors and seniors simply did not match up. In fact, much of the student section that occupies these sideline seats contributed very little to overall sound, much of it simply weakened before it hit the field.
What D’Elia and Bernard did find surprising was that this “closer-is-better” effect that spanned much of the current student section is reversed behind the end zone thanks to Beaver Stadium’s upper deck which juts out towards the field at the end zone. Noise from the higher seats in the end zone is actually more amplified than that from the lower seats. The upper deck that overhangs the end zones actually amplifies noise from the higher seats much like a megaphone projecting all of the amplified sound directly at the field.
Now fast forward to the new football seating arrangements. Penn State has moved 20,000 student section seats originally located along the sidelines directly into the southern end zone in 2011. Barnard’s computer models have predicted this move will decrease the noise along the east side of the field (well yea! you just removed 20,000 screaming students from that side) but amplify the west side of the Beaver Stadium by almost 50 percent. An increase that dramatic would cut a quarterback’s voice on the field by another 6 inches which could result in greater false starts and penalty opportunities. Teams would only be able to hear their quarterback’s voice from a foot and a half away.
“We will own that end zone,” said D’Elia. “The students’ voices will have an unobstructed view of the entire field, and when another team is down in that end, we’ll be able to maintain that home field advantage.”
There are many who use a single sound meter reading during 1 specific game as justification of some acoustics superiority, but this study conducted at Penn State spanned an entire season, 3 home games and multiple empty stadium analysis. This represents the most comprehensive crowd noise study done in a college football stadium by any program to date. And Penn State is eager to utilize this new data to it’s advantage. Not only will Beaver Stadium amplify it’s already deafening student section, it has employed the use of its recordings during practice to prepare for the noise they will hear face at opposing stadiums. Clearly confident that nothing they will hear at any opposing venue will be worse than our own fans.
“Everyone wants to say that they have the loudest fans, everyone wants that badge of honor,” said Barnard. “Any big stadium is going to claim that they’re the loudest, but Penn State is only one with data to back that up.”
Science and sports, at its very best.