Loudest College Football Stadiums

Decibel levels, championships and our own ears have proven these to be the loudest college football stadiums of all time.

There’s a good argument to be made that there is no sports fan, in any capacity, who can make themselves louder than a rabid college football fan in the throes of a Saturday spent cheering on their favorite school.

It’s also probably not a coincidence that, over the years, the teams with the loudest fans have also been some of the most successful teams. While that doesn’t always translate to national championships, it does reflect well on the dedication of those screaming fans and their loyalty.

Judging by either decibel level readings or what we’ve seen (and heard) with our own eyes, these are the loudest college football stadiums of all time.

20. Sanford Stadium

John Amis / AP Photo

College: University of Georgia

Location: Athens, Georgia

Opened: 1929

Capacity: 92,746

Bottom Line: Sanford Stadium

John Amis / AP Photo

The University of Georgia’s Sanford Stadium is one of the more classic college football stadiums. You will know you’re in football nirvana at Sanford Stadium when you watch a game “between the hedges” — referring to the famous privet hedges, which have surrounded the field since the stadium opened in 1929.

Georgia games are electric, for sure, but the two-time defending national champions haven’t given their fans much to get really worked up about for almost four years. The Bulldogs haven’t lost a home game since a double-overtime defeat against South Carolina on Oct. 12, 2019.

19. Folsom Field

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College: University of Colorado

Location: Boulder, Colorado

Opened: 1924

Capacity: 54,972

Bottom Line: Folsom Field

David Zalubowski / AP Photo

The smallest stadium (capacity-wise) to make this list is now a hot ticket with head coach Deion Sanders leading the Colorado Buffaloes and big-time players like cornerback Travis Hunter on the field.

Colorado has a loyal fan base that hasn’t been given much to cheer about in recent years. But it’s not too much of a stretch to remember the program’s heyday of the late 1980s and early 1990s when Folsom Field used to be absolutely rocking. And props to the people at CU for going from the dreaded AstroTurf back to natural grass in the late 1990s.

What a time to be in Boulder.

18. Jordan-Hare Stadium

Fans rush the field at Jordan-Hare Stadium

Skip Martin / AP Photo

College: Auburn University

Location: Auburn, Alabama

Opened: 1939

Capacity: 87,451

Bottom Line: Jordan-Hare Stadium

Dave Martin / AP Photo

There’s not much aesthetically pleasing about Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium. Doesn’t matter. When you see a home game at Auburn, you’re not really going to care what the stadium looks like because of how great the gameday atmosphere is and what it’s like when you get into the stadium itself.

Jordan-Hare is interesting because we have empirical data on exactly how loud it can get in here and point to a specific date and time it happened. In this case, it’s the final play of the Iron Bowl on Nov. 30, 2013, against the University of Alabama. It’s more commonly known as “Kick Six.”

17. Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium

Oklahoma's Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium

Sue Ogrocki / AP Photo

College: University of Oklahoma

Location: Norman, Oklahoma

Opened: 1923

Capacity: 80,126

Bottom Line: Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium

Sue Ogrocki / AP Photo

Oklahoma’s Gaylord Family Stadium lost a little bit of its panache when it closed its south end as part of a $160 million renovation project in 2016. But what it lost in its unique look it gained back in extra seating and sheer crowd noise.

If you want to know what the Sooners truly mean to their fans and how popular they became, we just need to look back to the opening of the stadium in 1923, when the seating consisted of a 500-seat bleacher set. Two years later, the team’s popularity had grown to the point they added 16,000 seats on the west side.

16. Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium

Texas fans at Darrell K. Royal-Memorial Stadium

Michael Thomas / AP Photo

College: University of Texas

Location: Austin, Texas

Opened: 1924

Capacity: 100,119

Bottom Line: Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium

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Few stadiums can reach their high-end potential like Darrell K. Royal when the Texas Longhorns are in a close game — or an important game. The problem is those types of moments have been few and far between in the last decade.

But now that they have the 2023 No. 1 overall recruit, quarterback Arch Manning, on the field, watch out now.

15. Kinnick Stadium

Fans wave to the Iowa Children's Hospital

Charlie Neibergall / AP Photo

College: University of Iowa

Location: Iowa City, Iowa

Opened: 1929

Capacity: 69,250

Bottom Line: Kinnick Stadium

Charlie Neibergall / AP Photo

One of the smaller stadiums on this list, you can’t really match the tradition at Kinnick Stadium during University of Iowa games when the entire stadium collectively waves toward the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital following the first quarter.

Opened in 2017, the hospital sits over the east side of the stadium and gives the children and their families a clear view of the games — and the fans showing them love.

How great is this tradition? Even the refs and opposing teams participate.

14. Lincoln Memorial Stadium

AP Photo

College: University of Nebraska

Location: Lincoln, Nebraska

Opened: 1923

Capacity: 85,458

Bottom Line: Lincoln Memorial Stadium

Nati Harnik / AP Photo

There is no more loyal fan base in the entire country than the University of Nebraska. Fans have continued to fill up the 85,000-seat Memorial Stadium despite not having a true contender for a national title in 20 years and abandoning all of their main rivalries when they joined the Big Ten in 2012.

Nebraska’s fans have established a record we can count among the most unbreakable in sports. They’ve sold out an NCAA-record of about 400 consecutive home games dating back to 1962.

13. Ohio Stadium

Ohio State fans rush the field at Ohio Stadium

Mark Duncan / AP Photo

College: Ohio State University

Location: Columbus, Ohio

Opened: 1922

Capacity: 102,780

Bottom Line: Ohio Stadium

Ohio State running back Curtis Samuel in Ohio Stadium

Jay LaPrete / AP Photo

You won’t hear Ohio State’s home stadium, Ohio Stadium, called by its given name too much. To anyone who actually knows college football it’s “The Horseshoe,” or “The Shoe,” because of its unique structure.

Ohio State is unusual as a powerhouse program because they haven’t had to go through many down periods in the last 50 years. And it’s been over 20 years since they didn’t enter every season as a national title contender — which leads to some pretty loud home crowds.

12. Camp Randall Stadium

Morry Gash / AP Photo

College: University of Wisconsin

Location: Madison, Wisconsin

Opened: 1917

Capacity: 80,321

Bottom Line: Camp Randall Stadium

Morry Gash / AP Photo

Opened in 1917, Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium is one of the oldest venues in college football. It threatens to come apart at its crickety old bones every time the Badgers enter the fourth quarter of a home game and play “Jump Around” by House of Pain, which has been a tradition during games since the late 1990s.

There aren’t many cooler places to see a game than at Camp Randall Stadium. The place has undergone seven renovations/expansions in its more than 100-year existence, with the last coming in 2004.

11. Doak Campbell Stadium

Phil Sears / AP Photo

College: Florida State University

Location: Tallahassee, Florida

Opened: 1950

Capacity: 79,560

Bottom Line: Doak Campbell Stadium

FSU beats Florida in 2022 in Tallahassee

Phil Sears / AP Photo

It had been a while since Florida State’s Doak Campbell Stadium really got to put its full, earth-shattering noise capability on display. But we got a taste of it in the 2022 regular season — in particular with a 45-38 home win over Florida on Nov. 25.

Things are only going to get louder in Tallahassee. The Seminoles went 10-3 in 2022 for their first 10-win season since 2016 and capped things with a bowl win over Oklahoma.

10. Michigan Stadium

Tony Ding / AP Photo

College: University of Michigan

Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan

Opened: 1927

Capacity: 107,601

Bottom Line: Michigan Stadium

Tony Ding / AP Photo

Visitors to Michigan Stadium are usually rendered speechless the first time they’re in the presence of the University of Michigan’s home stadium — the largest stadium in the Western Hemisphere and the third-largest stadium in the entire world.

So, why isn’t Michigan, at its staggering capacity, the loudest stadium on the list? The snarky thing would be to blame it on a bourgeoisie crowd that feels like it’s above acting a damn fool on Saturdays in the fall. But we would rather place the blame on the fact that the Wolverines just went almost an entire decade without beating rival Ohio State. Luckily, they finally beat them in November 2023 before winning the national championship.

9. Ben Hill Griffin Stadium

Gary McCullough / AP Photo

College: University of Florida

Location: Gainesville, Florida

Opened: 1930

Capacity: 88,548

Bottom Line: Ben Hill Griffin Stadium

Phelan M. Ebenhack / AP Photo

Modern college football fans got a small taste of what it was like in the 1990s and late 2000s when the University of Florida was one of the nation’s dominant teams and when Ben Hill Griffin Stadium absolutely came off its hinges during a win over No. 7 Utah in the 2022 season opener.

It’s kind of a shame the program has fallen on such hard times in recent years — they’re on their fourth head coach in the last decade and have yet to even sniff a College Football Playoff game since the CFP’s inception in 2014. That said, Florida fans are incredibly loyal — think of them as the south’s version of Nebraska fans.

8. Kyle Field

Sam Craft / AP Photo

College: Texas A&M University

Location: College Station, Texas

Opened: 1927

Capacity: 102,733

Bottom Line: Kyle Field

David J. Phillip / AP Photo

Kyle Field has been home to some of the more memorable regular-season college football games of the last few decades, and there are few places in college football that give the home team more of an advantage.

Need further proof? Texas A&M went 55-4-1 at Kyle Field in the 1990s, including a streak of 31 consecutive wins from 1990 to 1995 followed by 22 consecutive wins from 1996 to 2000. The only thing missing has been championships — the Aggies won just one conference title in 15 years in the Big 12 and haven’t won a conference title since joining the SEC in 2012.

7. Beaver Stadium

Gene J. Puskar / AP Photo

College: Penn State University

Location: University Park, Pennsylvania

Opened: 1960

Capacity: 106,572

Bottom Line: Beaver Stadium

Barry Reeger / AP Photo

The official seating capacity of Penn State makes it the second-largest stadium in the Western Hemisphere and the fourth-largest stadium in the entire world. We can think of very few environments more intimidating than when the home crowd at Beaver Stadium turns the stadium into a “White Out” — can you imagine being the opposing team on one of those days?

One of the newer stadiums on this list, Beaver Stadium has undergone eight major renovations in the last 60 years, including six expansions that have doubled its capacity since it first opened.

6. Lane Stadium

Steve Helber / AP Photo

College: Virginia Tech

Location: Blacksburg, Virginia

Opened: 1965

Capacity: 65,632

Bottom Line: Lane Stadium

Don Petersen / AP Photo

There aren’t many experiences in college football — or all of sports for that matter — that can equate to what happens when “Enter Sandman” by Metallica begins to play and the Virginia Tech football team enters Lane Stadium.

For 32 years from 1982 to 2014, Lane Stadium also had the highest elevation for a college football stadium in the U.S., but the thing we love about it the most is that the Hokies still play on natural grass. It’s a wonderful mix of Bermudagrass and Perennial Ryegrass, and if we owned a time machine, we’d be tempted to go back to 1999 and watch Michael Vick play there in his prime.

5. Autzen Stadium

Don Ryan / AP Photo

College: University of Oregon

Location: Eugene, Oregon

Opened: 1966

Capacity: 60,000

Bottom Line: Autzen Stadium

Andy Nelson / AP Phooto

At a babyfaced 66 years old, the University of Oregon’s Autzen Stadium is the newest stadium to make the list, beating Virginia Tech’s Lane Stadium by just one year — it’s also the smallest to make the list.

The hometown Ducks got a major amplification in the noise department when it increased its capacity by almost 20,000 in the early 2000s. Since then, Oregon fans have had plenty to cheer about — they’ve won six Pac-10 or Pac-12 Conference titles since the expansion was completed in 2002 and played in the national championship twice in that stretch.

4. Tiger Stadium

Bill Haber / AP Photo

College: Louisiana State University

Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Opened: 1924

Capacity: 102,321

Bottom Line: Tiger Stadium

Gerald Herbert / AP Photo

LSU opened with humble beginnings — it only seated 12,000 when the Tigers played their first game here in 1924. That’s a world away from where Tiger Stadium is today, busting at the seams with approximately 102,000 fans on any given sweaty Saturday in the South.

All we ask is that you make a stop at Fred’s either before or after the game and thank us later. And grab some crawfish while you’re at it.

3. Death Valley (Clemson Memorial Stadium)

Mike Stewart / AP Photo

College: Clemson University

Location: Clemson, South Carolina

Opened: 1942

Capacity: 82,500

Bottom Line: Death Valley (Clemson Memorial Stadium)

Richard Shiro / AP Photo

Do us a favor, and don’t call it Memorial Stadium or Clemson Memorial Stadium — it’s Death Valley. Of all the entrances we’ve come to love in college football, we can’t think of one more electric than when the Clemson football team comes “Running Down the Hill” — cringeworthy coach participation aside. It’s a tradition announcer Brent Musburger once called “the most exciting 25 seconds in sports.”

One of the things we love most about Death Valley is that its capacity is still kept at a relatively humble 82,500 — nothing to turn your nose up at but not in the league of some of the bigger college football stadiums. This goes to show that it’s not the size of the stadium that matters most … it’s the fans that fill it up.

2. Neyland Stadium

Wade Payne / AP Photo

College: University of Tennessee

Location: Knoxville, Tennessee

Opened: 1921

Capacity: 101,915

Bottom Line: Neyland Stadium

Wade Payne / AP Photo

The sheer might of the University of Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium was on display in what will likely go down as the marquee game of the 2022 college football regular season — the first win by the Vols over the University of Alabama in 15 years.

Unique because of its white-and-orange checkered seating — a sight to behold on live television — Neyland Stadium is still among the Top 10 largest stadiums in the world, but it’s not as big as it used to be. The stadium was downsized from a max capacity of 104,079 to its current capacity of 101,915 before the 2022 season.

1 . Husky Stadium

AP Photo

College: University of Washington

Location: Seattle, Washington

Opened: 1920

Capacity: 70,083

Bottom Line: Husky Stadium

Elaine Thompson / AP Photo

There is a very concrete reason that the University of Washington’s Husky Stadium tops our list. That reason boils down to one day, Sept. 19, 1992, when Husky fans registered a staggering 133.6 decibels during a game against Nebraska — the highest decibel level ever recorded at a college football game.

While it’s been some time since Washington was in its full glory as a football program, it’s worth pointing out that the stadium’s construction plays a large part in its ability to generate noise. The majority of the seating is built up along the sidelines and not in the end zones and, as is typical in the Pacific Northwest, it’s covered by metal roofs that serve as a way to amplify the sound.

Available Now: The Stadium Talk Podcast

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The Stadium Talk Podcast, “Season One: High School Football in America” is hosted by Stadium Talk senior writer Tony Adame and is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts from.

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