Pound for Pound: Home

Published 10:30 am Tuesday, July 23, 2024

There’s a Twitter account called College Football Campus Tour (@cfbcampustour) conducting an interesting experiment right now.

The account has created a March Madness-style bracket with matchups between Power 4 college football stadiums, and users can vote on which they think is best to move on to the next round. Each poll post also includes pictures of the two stadiums that are squaring off. It’s a fun exercise to observe as we all try to bridge this last month or so until the 2024 season begins.

I’ve been participating, trying to be objective as possible though I know fanbases are rallying to pump up their own stadiums’ numbers. I’m a little guilty as well. I voted for Georgia’s Sanford Stadium in the opening round against Colorado’s Folsom Field. The Bulldogs had no shot against the Buffaloes though when one of the Folsom photos showed the foothills of the Rocky Mountains looming in the background. Colorado won handily with 58% of the vote.

One thing I’ve noticed about the stadiums that have advanced into the Sweet 16 round is that those with natural beauty – mountain ranges (BYU and Colorado) and water sources (Tennessee and Washington) – nearby have an edge. All of my real estate friends are nodding in approval as they read that: location, location, location.

Symmetry seems to be another helper.

Nearby natural beauty and symmetry – two things not found at or around Sanford Stadium. Nestled in the dead center of campus, the home of the Dawgs doesn’t stand in some great opening. It’s crowded on pretty much every side by trees and academic buildings that make it where you could be two city blocks away and have no idea the venue is even there. And the uppermost 600 level along the visitor’s sideline takes symmetry out of the equation.

But let’s talk about what Sanford Stadium does have. Chinese privet hedges, for one thing. These plants lining the field have become so iconic that most everyone within the realm of college football knows what “Between the Hedges” means. In recent years, a trip there often means you’re leaving town with a loss as Georgia has not lost a home game since the 2019 season. Those fortunate enough to pull off the improbable like to mark the occasion by grabbing a hedge trimming on their way out. We don’t like those people.

Something else Sanford Stadium has is an actual creek, Tanyard Creek, running underneath the playing surface now known as Dooley Field. Here’s the story on that. Sanford Field, the team’s home field in the early 20th century, was not large enough to accommodate the crowd for the in-state matchup against rival Georgia Tech, forcing UGA to go to Atlanta for a few consecutive years. The Georgia athletic department got fed up in 1927 when UGA’s undefeated team went to Tech and lost 12-0. Some Georgia folks were saying Tech watered its field all night prior to the game in order to slow down UGA’s running backs.

Dr. Steadman Sanford, for whom the field and later stadium were named, raised funds to build a stadium near Sanford Field. The site was chosen because Tanyard Creek created a natural valley, making it easy to construct stands on the rising sides of the hills. The creek was enclosed in a concrete culvert, basically a box tunnel, with the playing field placed on top.

On Oct. 12, 1929, over 30,000 paid $3 per ticket to watch Georgia defeat Yale 15-0 in Sanford Stadium’s dedication game.

Now Sanford Stadium is approaching a century as one of college football’s foremost cathedrals, housing one of the top programs in the country. It’s a place where over 90,000 fans gather on home Saturdays (and one Friday this year) in the fall. It’s where back-row Baptists are temporarily converted into front-row fanatics.

And it’s a place I cannot wait to be inside once again.