He wasn’t having it.
Tennessee beat Alabama for the second straight time in Knoxville over the weekend, and Alabama radio broadcaster Chris Stewart raised some questions during the game about the crowd noise at Neyland Stadium.
“Second-and-16 is not what you’re looking for,” Stewart said early in the game. “Especially with the crowd noise being what it is here. You got 100,000+ and they also pipe in crowd noise, as well.”
A Tennessee spokesman denied the allegation, and Tennessee AD also shot down the claim on X.
Stewart clarified his comments today — kind of. He said he didn’t use the correct phrase during the broadcast, but doubled down that Tennessee ‘amplifies’ their crowd noise using speakers that are down on the field and behind the Alabama bench.
Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel was asked about the situation today during his weekly press conference.
“I had not heard that,” Heupel said of the claims on Wednesday. “Neyland doesn’t need anything fake piped into the stadium for that to be the loudest place in America. Hopefully our fans take that personally, enjoy this bye week and come back and be louder than ever next time we’re at home.”
Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe acknowledged the environment after the loss.
“We do got to acknowledge that it was a great crowd that we just played in front of,” Milroe said after the game. “One of the greatest crowds in the country. So it’s on us to control our controllables, understand our assignment, understand our snap count and understand what we need to do so that we can move forward when playing games like this.”
Tennessee has won 17 of their last 18 home games at Neyland. They have Kentucky, Mississippi State and UTEP to end the year at home. Road games at Georgia and Vanderbilt will round out the schedule.