NJDuck Moderator No. 1 Share Posted May 15 Joel Klatt: Oregon’s Autzen Stadium among CFB’s Top 5 toughest places to play There just aren’t many environments in sports better than a college football powerhouse’s home stadium on a nice fall Saturday night, with tens of thousands in raucous support of their programs. On the Joel Klatt Show this week, the Fox Sports analyst was asked by a listener to lay out his top five toughest places to win in all of college football —- a question that’s nearly impossible to answer given how many legendary stadiums with diehard fans exist across the country. But Klatt did his best to provide an accurate top five. Take a look below at his ranking of the hardest home fields to win at in college football: Joel Klatt ranks top five toughest places to play in college football - On3 WWW.ON3.COM On the Joel Klatt Show, the Fox Sports analyst was asked by a listener to lay out his top five toughest places to win in college football Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Fischer Administrator No. 2 Share Posted May 15 And we play in a "White-Out" in 2025... I'd like to get a FishDuck group to go! 1 1 1 Mr. FishDuck Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJDuck Author Moderator No. 3 Share Posted May 15 On 5/15/2024 at 11:16 AM, Charles Fischer said: And we play in a "White-Out" in 2025... I'd like to get a FishDuck group to go! I know we are excited to attend the game! It will be about a 3 hour drive for us. You can count my wife and I in the group. Great to stay in the same hotel and having tickets in the Oregon section together. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Joseph No. 4 Share Posted May 15 NJ, would that be a hotel in Philly or Pittsburgh? I imagine it is extremely difficult to find lodging near the stadium and if found, I imagine it would not be cheap. With the game likely to be played after dark, maybe we should all meet in NJ and drive up the day of the game? Whiteouts work for almost every team not named Michigan or Ohio State. Penn State misses its nemesis Michigan in 2024 and 2025. The Nittany Lions play at W VA OOC in 2024. In 2025 the OOC opponents are the Nevada Wold Pack, FIU Panthers, and the Villanova Wildcats. This cupcake smorgasbord continues in the regular season with Michigan off the schedule in 2024 and 2025. Extrapolating preseason ranked teams in 2024 into 2025, Penn State in 2025 has two top 25 games, at Ohio State and versus Oregon. The rest of the conference schedule is filled out with games vs. Iowa in Iowa City, not an easy out, at Michigan State, Rutgers, UCLA, with Indiana, Nebraska, and Northwestern at home. So indeed, in 2025, Oregon will be a Whiteout game. It looks like the conference is trying to make up for the season PSU defeated Ohio State and won the conference but Ohio State went to the BCS, and all of those other 10-2 seasons, that PSU was not 4-team playoff-worthy. Ohio State in 2024 and Penn State, kind of in 2024 and definitely in 2025, have 'playoff here we come' designed schedules. In 2025 the Ducks miss both Ohio State and Michigan but do play unless Rob switches the game to playing Wazzu in Pullman, possibly defending B12 champ Oklahoma State at home. Super-sized conference schedules will vary widely in difficulty from one season to the next. The game at Penn State will be awesome and it will also be nice in 2025 to welcome SC to Autzen. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solar No. 5 Share Posted May 15 (edited) This list isn't that great. Too focused on blue bloods although somehow we snuck in there. I think Utah with the elevation and the fans is a crazy tough road environment and what about Texas Tech, and UF swamp? The interesting thing is it wouldn't be too hard to do a statistical analysis of how a teams fared at each venue relative to their point totals. I'm sure the Vegas professionals have that. It would be interesting to see. I'd be willing to guess our home field advantage is more like 4-5 points instead of the typical 3. Edited May 15 by Solar Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake Moderator No. 6 Share Posted May 15 I think teams have to be good on this list to consistently bring in sellout crowds that will make a lot of noise. The Autzen crowd has been measured as high as 127 decibels on the field. Anything sustained over 120 decibels will damage hearing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Joseph No. 7 Share Posted May 15 https://athlonsports.com/college-football/fans-fueding-joel-klatt-top-college-football-atmosphere-lsu-oregon-penn-state-clemson-alabama You cannot please all of the people all of the time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJDuck Author Moderator No. 8 Share Posted May 15 On 5/15/2024 at 2:18 PM, Jon Joseph said: NJ, would that be a hotel in Philly or Pittsburgh? I imagine it is extremely difficult to find lodging near the stadium and if found, I imagine it would not be cheap. With the game likely to be played after dark, maybe we should all meet in NJ and drive up the day of the game? Yes, it will be near impossible to get a hotel in College Station for any Penn State games. We should look into a hotel as far out as we can (a year, year and half in advance) to see if we could reserve. I think that is as far in advance as you can get. Very difficult due to it's in rural area. You need to consider airports. Newark, Philadelphia, and Harrisburg airports are your best bets. Harrisburg is the closest city with an international airport and a population of around 60,000. It takes around 1hour and minutes, which is 88 miles from Beaver Stadium. forgot to mention, Pittsburg is about 137 miles, 2 hours and 21 minutes which is the other option as you mentioned which you can fly into. A shorter distance than Philadelphia and NJ. Philadelphia is over 3 hours from the stadium. Lancaster does have an airport and lots of hotels and is 1 hour and 59 minutes away. Again, I am 3 hours away. If you are thinking flying in to NJ, Newark Airport would be the one. There are closer towns like Lewiston (35 minutes away, 31 miles), but not sure what hotels, if vacancies are available. You almost want a hotel as close as possible due to how late the game might end and especially if anyone wanting to get together to go out somewhere. Just some other thoughts. There are a lot small towns all around College Station, we all could possibly get a hotel. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
criticalduck No. 9 Share Posted May 15 I am in for traveling to all the venues for our new conference as long as it's not in November... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
