The dynamics of the college football road night game: Real or imagined?

ATHENS, Ga. – Aaron Murray and his teammates never liked waiting in their hotel room for hours before heading to the stadium. That was the worst. Then they would get there, kickoff would be approaching, the sky was dark and the lights were on. That atmosphere was something else.

“We could feel the difference in the night games from the fans,” said Murray, Georgia’s starting quarterback from 2010-2013. “Just the energy, the excitement, how drunk they were, probably the more lively they would be in the stadium.”

Murray has never lost a home game that started under the lights, a domination that hasn’t stopped: Georgia is 20-0 in prime-time games at home since 2010, with last night’s loss at Sanford Stadium coming Nov. 21 Kentucky. 2009.

That’s a big reason for hope for No. 12 Georgia on Saturday as it hosts No. 7 Tennessee in a win-or-else matchup for the Bulldogs’ College Football Playoff hopes. As good as Josh Heupel has been as Tennessee’s coach, he is just 7-8 in road games, including 2-4 the past two seasons. The Vols’ only loss this season, at Arkansas, came in a night game.

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But is hosting a night game a real benefit, or anecdotal? It depends on who you ask.

Lane Kiffin was adamant a few weeks ago that playing an evening game at home was beneficial when the Ole Miss coach complained that there were no evening home games in SEC play while LSU got two.

“I think it’s been proven over time — both in the NFL and in college — that playing at night in an electric atmosphere is a home-field advantage and tough when you have to do that as an opponent,” Kiffin said. “That has been proven for a long time.”

Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss team has no SEC games scheduled on home night this season. (Petre Thomas / Image)

Ole Miss overcame just a 3:30 PM ET kickoff to beat Georgia last Saturday. And the coach he beat in that game, Kirby Smart, is skeptical that evening kickoffs make that much of a difference, saying the afternoon games were some of the best atmospheres he’s had in Georgia. That includes a win over Tennessee two years ago that started at 3:30 p.m

“I just think a home game in the SEC in general is hell for the road team. I think it’s really hard, man,” Smart said.

But not always. Alabama entered Death Valley overnight and routed LSU. While Smart’s own Georgia team lost at Alabama and earned a one-point victory at Kentucky, it won comfortably in Texas under the lights.

In the Smart era, Georgia has lost four home games, and three started at noon: Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech in 2016 and South Carolina in 2019. The other was at 3:30 p.m. against Tennessee in 2016, a game the Vols won on a buckshot . Mary.

In Murray’s case, he compares the atmosphere in his two South Carolina games: the 2010 game was at noon, while the 2012 game was at night. Georgia lost both and the atmosphere for the visitors was scary in both cases, but in 2012 it was even worse.

“You went to a more fun energy (in 2010) to say, ‘Oh my God, this place is on top of us and swarming us alive’ type of vibe,” Murray said. “As an opponent, if you go in somewhere at night, you also feel the energy more. I don’t know what it is. It’s a completely different feeling. It’s louder.”

There is data to support the night game effect. But some data offers nuance.

TruMedia looked at the last 10 SEC games that started at 6 p.m. or later, and only those in which the home team, ranked or unranked, played a visitor ranked in the AP poll. The goal was to try to measure the night game effect in larger games. The results show that, compared to all other matches involving a visiting ranked team, the home team fared better on the evening, both in terms of winning the match and covering the point spread.

Moreover, the home team did better in the evening when the home team was the underdog than in other matches.

Interestingly, TruMedia found a different story in matches where the home team was favored over a visiting team in the rankings. The home teams did worse in those night games.

Digging deeper, in games that were closer than expected (meaning the home favorite didn’t cover the spread) those teams went straight 3-8, compared to 11-9 in non-night games of the same type (home team was favored above a ranked visitor). The lesson? Perhaps the home favorite gets involved in exciting matches in big atmospheres, or the visiting team that is able to keep him close to the road is better at finishing the match.

That’s the concern for Georgia, which has a whopping 10-point lead this week in a fluid stretch that leaves Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava’s status uncertain.

One theory about visiting teams’ struggles focuses on crowd noise affecting the offense’s ability to communicate and make changes at the line of scrimmage. But Murray pointed out that wouldn’t apply as much to Tennessee, which plays at a fast pace and doesn’t make many checks at the line.

And as much as Murray respects Georgia fans, he thinks the team’s undefeated record since 2009 has more to do with normal home dynamics and having the better team than anything special about Sanford Stadium. The reason: the acoustics. The stadium is in a more open, spread out environment, compared to some other SEC stadiums.

“The atmosphere is great. It’s going to be loud, it’s going to be hard,” Murray said. “But we’re not Knoxville, where a hundred thousand people are locked up and coming at you. It’s not Baton Rouge. Those stadiums are built to keep the noise in, and that’s hell. Georgia will be loud, it will be hard, but it will never be that kind of place because of the way it was built.”

Still, Murray saw Georgia fans going one step further this week. Smart called them out for not having enough crowd noise after the Auburn game. They have only played three home games and they were not big games. This one is different.

That’s why it’s at night.

“An evening match indicates that it is a match for the elite, that it is a very important match. Everyone puts more into it,” Murray said. “We can all say that we prepare the same way every week, of course the coaches and the players speak. But I think we all know – and I think the fans do too – that you know when “College GameDay” is on your campus, and it’s a night game, and it’s a big game.

“So I think everyone is taking it a little more seriously, everyone is preparing a little more, everyone is bringing a little more juice. That’s everyone: players, coaches, fans, the whole lot.”

Photo: Todd Kirkland/Getty Images