Josh Heupel discusses 'big test' of playing in Death Valley

An 11 a.m. start local time may spare Tennessee from the absolute worst of the noise and hostility when they play LSU at Tiger Stadium — Death Valley — on Saturday. Even still, Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel is making certain his team will be prepped for the noise.

From blaring noise in practice to ensuring the offense gets comfortable with hand signals, Heupel and his staff are making sure the Vols are ready and can keep their up-tempo offense clicking.

“Crowd noise, music,” Heupel said of the practice noise regimen, “it’s right behind the offense. Quarterbacks get a chance to understand what it’s like to communicate, your five guys up front, and that’s a big part of it. But they’ve typically handled it well. But it’ll be a great environment.”

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This isn’t the first or last time Tennessee turns to pumping noise into practice — plenty of other road environments can dictate your modes of communication on offense.

Heupel acknowledge they’ll have to be extra sharp in a traditionally raucous atmosphere.

“Crowd noise is a part of it any time you go on the road. But, you know we practice the crowd noise to force the communications that’s going to be needed throughout the course of game day, too,” Heupel said. “So, typically we’ve handled it pretty well, but that’ll be a big part of the game, though, being able to handle the noise there.”

Heupel has been to Death Valley in the past as a coach and he knows the level of strain it can put on a team to communicate correctly amid the din.

“So, preparation’s been good. 11-on-11, when you get between the white lines, you gotta go compete really hard for 60 minutes. They’re a good football team. They’re athletic. And it’ll be a big test for our football team, but that our players and staff, we’re truly excited about and feel like we’ve prepared in a good way up until this point,” Heupel said. “Gotta finish it tomorrow and be ready to go compete on Saturday.”