Former Florida HC Dan Mullen offers warning to Tennessee ahead of Vols' trip to the Swamp
Former Florida Gators head coach Dan Mullen joined The Matt Barrie Show this week and he offered a warning to the Tennessee Vols ahead of their trip to the Swamp on Saturday night. Mullen, who is often complimentary of the Vols, suggested that Tennessee could have some issues with crowd noise in Gainesville. And he […]
Former Florida Gators head coach Dan Mullen joined The Matt Barrie Show this week and he offered a warning to the Tennessee Vols ahead of their trip to the Swamp on Saturday night.
Mullen, who is often complimentary of the Vols, suggested that Tennessee could have some issues with crowd noise in Gainesville.
And he warned that the crowd noise could cause things to "swirl out of control".
"The biggest challenge you have in the SEC [is] road games in the SEC," said Mullen. "The Swamp is one of the hardest environments you're going to play in. But that's going to happen week in and out in the Southeastern Conference."
"The crowd noise, all the things that go on, that affect you — you might say it's just the noise and it's hard to communicate, it's not that," continued Mullen. "It's going to feel like 90,000 people are falling on top of you. It's a very intimidating feeling."
"As momentum starts to slip at any time, it swirls out of control when the crowd gets into a frenzy."
Tennessee certainly didn't handle crowd noise well at times last season — especially in Athens against Georgia — but the Vols feel like they learned a lesson during their loss to the Bulldogs last fall in a rowdy Sanford Stadium.
"We struggled to communicate (in Athens)," said Vols tight end Jacob Warren earlier this week to Dave Hooker of Off the Hook Sports. "After that, we understand what it feels like to be in that environment."
Even with the lessons learned from last season's loss at Georgia, it's still going to be a tough environment for Tennessee on Saturday night in the Swamp. And Mullen, who certainly wasn't taking a shot at the Vols, is absolutely right — the crowd can help things "swirl out of control" if Tennessee doesn't handle the noise well.
We'll see how it goes for the Vols on Saturday night — there's no way to know right now how Tennessee will handle a stadium full of rowdy Gators fans. But they'll have to find a way to handle the noise if they're going to get their first win in Gainesville since 2003.
Anyway, here's Dan Mullen singing Rocky Top.
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Featured image via Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
