By this point, Kirby Smart has probably gotten used to the environment at Neyland Stadium, but despite that, he knows that every two years there will be players that haven't experienced it before.
It's tough, it's loud and, with over 100,000 people dressed in orange, it can be distracting for a group of young players or a quarterback that's made just a small handful of starts.
Georgia Head Coach Kirby Smart says that Neyland Stadium is one of the toughest places to play in College Football:
— FOX Sports Knoxville (@FOXSportsKnox) September 10, 2025
“One of the toughest places to play in all College Football… It’ll be loud as it ever is. It always is one of the loudest in the SEC, for sure,” said Smart when… pic.twitter.com/6vL7ua8Sv0
Smart expanded further on his comments in his Tuesday press conference, specifically talking about the difficulties of navigating a game plan with crowd noise in mind.
"Loud affects your offense. It affects your ability to communicate. And Neyland's one of the loudest. You have to be smart and when you game plan maybe you can't do quite as much as you could do at home," Smart said. "You just have to be smart about what you ask guys to communicate and say, because it can be frustrating. Loud is loud. At some point it's deafening. But they've got an extremely loud environment, and we've got to push through it."
Every game is a big game in the SEC
Smart understands the magnitude of Saturday's game — it's a top-15 matchup, it's the first SEC conference game, and it's against a rival. But he doesn't want the game to mean more than it does, because there is a long season ahead and a lot more roadblocks on the schedule.
"There's going to be big games after this one," Smart said. "There was last year. Welcome to the SEC, where it seems like every team is ranked and every team's got a ranked opponent every week."
The coach, however, knows that for some Bulldog fans there's no bigger game on the schedule than Tennessee. He tries to balance that understanding with the reality that the schedule is challenging and there are other rivalries that mean just as much to other portions of the fanbase.
"It's an area in Georgia, geographically, that it's obviously the most important primary opponent we play. Now you talk to somebody in South Georgia or West Georgia, and they might not feel the same way," Smart said. "It's a historic rivalry because it's been so many years, played over time, and it's a lot of big games. There's not a lot more I can say than that. All those border wars are big-time rivalries."