Georgia shuts up Tennessee fans who downplayed Sanford Stadium atmosphere

The idea of Sanford Stadium not having an intimidating atmosphere got shut down almost immediately as Georgia shut down the Tennessee offense.

One of the narratives ahead of the Georgia vs. Tennessee games involved crowd noise. We’d all seen how the crowd at Neyland Stadium disrupted Alabama when the Vols pulled off their huge win.

Some high-profile Tennessee fans, including former quarterback Erik Ainge, straight up dogged the ability of Sanford Stadium to produce the same kind of atmosphere.

Ainge started a firestorm when he tweeted, “Playing between the hedges is overrated. Not that loud and definitely not intimidating. It’s nothing like playing in Neyland. Vols will be just fine in Athens!”

Georgia fans definitely took that personally because Athens was absolutely hopping on Saturday and the crowd noise had a clear effect on the Volunteers, who had five false starts less than halfway through the second quarter.

https://twitter.com/ESPNCFB/status/1588993533373222912

The Bulldogs had a whole lot to say about Tennessee underestimating their crowd.

Georgia had a 21-6 advantage with six minutes remaining in the first half. Stetson Bennett had some fun with Tennessee fans by mocking them for leaking his phone number with his celebration after scoring the opening touchdown of the game. He went on to throw two touchdown passes as the Bulldogs built a commanding lead.

Meanwhile, the Vols offense finally looked like it met its match. They had to settle for two field goals on their best drives of the first half and were lucky the refs were apparently blind to a safety.

Regardless of the ultimate result, Sanford Stadium proved it can be as raucous as any other venue in the SEC. The start of the game also proved that trash talk can come back to haunt you pretty quickly.