Lane Kiffin's Return to Jordan-Hare Comes With a Familiar Warning
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LSU football is set for a road trip to Auburn, where head coach Lane Kiffin knows the challenge that awaits his team at Jordan-Hare Stadium. The Tigers will be walking into one of the more recognizable environments in the SEC, a place where the home crowd and the atmosphere have built a reputation of their own.
Kiffin knows that environment well from his time coaching at Alabama, where he served as offensive coordinator from 2014-16 and faced Auburn as part of the Iron Bowl rivalry. Ahead of LSU's trip, Kiffin described Jordan-Hare as a "really electric place" and a "magical place," while acknowledging that his team will have to prepare for a loud environment.
For LSU, the challenge will be more than preparing for Auburn's players. The Tigers will also have to handle the pressure that comes with playing in front of a crowd, which can make communication and execution more difficult for a visiting team.
Jordan-Hare Stadium has built its reputation
Jordan-Hare Stadium has been the home of Auburn football since 1939 and has a capacity as just over 88,000. The stadium is also one of the largest on-campus football venues in the country, with Auburn selling more than 75,000 season tickets in each of the last 18 years.
Those numbers help explain what makes a road game at Auburn different. When the stadium fills up on a Saturday, visiting teams have to find ways to communicate through the noise while staying focused on the game.
For an offense, that can mean making sure everyone is lined up correctly, getting the play call communicated and avoiding unnecessary penalties. A false start or a delay in getting the play off can put a team behind the chains, and those mistakes can become even more costly in a close game.
The atmosphere is not something a team can completely recreate during practice, either. Players can prepare for the noise, but they still have to execute when the crowd is at its loudest and the pressure is at its highest.
That is part of what Kiffin was referring to when he discussed the challenge of playing at Jordan-Hare. The LSU coach has been there before, and he understands that his team will have to be ready for an environment where Auburn has the home-field advantage.
Kiffin knows what awaits LSU
Kiffin's experience in the SEC gives him a better understanding of what comes with playing at Auburn.
That experience matters because road games in the SEC can present challenges beyond what a team sees on film. A visiting team can prepare for an opponent's offensive scheme and defensive personnel throughout the week, but it still has to be ready for the atmosphere on game day.
For LSU, communication will be especially important. If the Tigers struggle to settle in on Saturday, it will only get more difficult as the game goes on.
Kiffin's comments aren't an excuse that the atmosphere could potentially decide the outcome; they just showed an understanding of the challenge LSU will face when it travels to the Plains.
Jordan-Hare has been home to Auburn football for nearly nine decades, and its reputation has grown through generations of games and memorable moments. For visiting teams, that history adds to the challenge of walking into a stadium where the home crowd expects to make a difference.
Kiffin has already experienced that environment during his time in the SEC. Now, as LSU's head coach, he will have to prepare his team for the same challenge, with the Tigers set to face Auburn in a stadium their coach has described as both electric and magical.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/lsu as Lane Kiffin's Return to Jordan-Hare Comes With a Familiar Warning.
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