Michigan Football: 4 Ways to Make Michigan Stadium a Tougher Place to Play

Michigan Football is one of the most storied programs in college football.

Michigan Stadium has hosted Michigan Football since 1927, and it is the largest stadium in college football.

Michigan Stadium has played host to outdoor hockey games, sellout record football crowds, and held convocations for the university itself; it has been around the block as far as stadiums go.

As far as football games are concerned, Michigan Stadium was once a hard place to win if you were not wearing the Maize and Blue.

After the Rich Rodriguez era, the same cannot be said.

In fact, despite Michigan Stadium's impressive all-time .740 winning percentage, Michigan's home winning percentage over the last three seasons has been just .500.

Not very impressive to say the least.

Michigan Stadium can no longer rely on sheer prestige of past victories to keep their pride afloat, and Michigan's winning percentage at home has dropped like a rock over the past three seasons.

There is new hope among Michigan fans with new head coach and "Michigan man" Brady Hoke coming in to replace Rodriguez.

But that hope will only take the team so far.

What Michigan needs, as far as I am concerned, is a rejuvenated stadium atmosphere to aid in the football team's quest to return to the top of the football world.

This article will attempt to explain the four ways in which a new stadium atmosphere can make Michigan Stadium a tougher place to play in for visiting teams.

1. Get Rid of Season Tickets

So, before I start on a hate rant about season tickets, let me give you the facts.

Aside from the student section, the Michigan crowd that faithfully comes to games every football Saturday is just too quiet.

This wouldn't be a problem if this was a golf match, but because this is football.

The problem is, people are too content to sit there and watch the game.

To put it bluntly, to be successful as a home crowd, one has to disrupt the opposing team's offense and defense by being loud.

In Michigan's case, we are privileged to have the biggest stadium in college football at almost 110,000 people, and most of them don't even care enough to make enough noise to be disruptive.

Getting rid of season tickets would ensure a lower number of people attending the game without a real reason to do so.

I have nothing against people being at a football game if they are willing to make a little bit of noise.

Fans who make no noise at all (when asked to do so) is unacceptable.

There are about 12,000 people on the waiting list, and I am sure that every one of them would make more noise at a Michigan game is they were given season tickets instead of the people who currently have them.

2. More Maize Outs/Blue Outs

Classic way to bring fans together.

Maize or Blue out the opposition.

There's plenty of home rivalry games this year, mainly Notre Dame and Ohio State.

Maizing out or Blueing out the games would be a perfect way to bring fans together for an even more dominating look for visiting players coming out of the tunnel.

Nothing gives the shivers like walking out of a stadium seeing every fan with the exact same look, wearing the exact same shirt yelling out you.

3. More Night Games

Anyone who has ever played high school football or the luxury of college/pro football will know what I am talking about here.

There's just something magical about playing under the lights that makes the atmosphere so much better.

Michigan has yet to play a night game in the Big House, but that will change Sept. 10th against Notre Dame.

Playing a night game means the fans have had to wait around all day for the game to start, meaning they are fully awake (and possibly intoxicated), agitated from the waiting and ready to go.

They will be louder than a bunch of college students waking up in the morning a couple hours before the game is to begin.

Again with the noise, it makes it so much harder on opposing teams, especially with inexperienced players early in the season.

4. Use the Marching Band Sparingly, Use the Drum Line More

Usually, people get more fired up with "canned music" than they do with marching band music.

Nothing against the 435-member Michigan marching band, but they don't have much to offer when it comes to making the stadium a louder, more difficult atmosphere to play in for the visitors.

Pre-game, halftime and post-game shows are all good, but when a team is trying to fire up a crowd for a third or fourth down defensively, there's nothing like a good pump-up song to fire you up.

Examples of this include Penn State and Penn State again.

If Penn State can do it, Michigan can give them a run for their money.

The Rundown

If there is such a strong fan base at Michigan, it would seem that it should be easier to increase the fan volume in Michigan Stadium.

After all, fan is supposedly short for fanatic.

Maybe some of Michigan's fans are just too old to appreciate the fact that loud noise has quite a substantial impact on the game today.

Whatever it is, Michigan's 110,000 should be loud and proud, not quiet and lame.

The Washington Huskies have the loudest recorded stadium noise at over 130 decibels.

Husky Stadium has 72,500 seats, Michigan Stadium has almost 110,000.

What gives?

Maybe the new stadium renovations will help sound reverberate more. Who knows, we will find out this season.