How Texas A&M football vs. Notre Dame could be decided by raucous 12th Man crowd
A lot has been made of the fact that Texas A&M football has all of their big games at home in Kyle this year. With a schedule that includes four preseason ranked opponents, it’s a big deal to host them all in friendly territory, starting with this opener against Notre Dame.
An A&M fanbase hungry for this new era of football to begin and anxious to see what should be a much-improved team take the field will be packing out the stadium on Saturday for the weekend’s biggest game. I think most Aggies are anticipating well north of 100K fans in the stands for this opener.
This could be a significant disadvantage for Notre Dame, for obvious reasons. Tough environments like Kyle Field will always be a challenge for visitors, but with the advent of in-helmet communications rather than signs, a new quarterback, and a new offense—and offensive line—this could spell trouble for the Irish in more ways than one.
As it turns out, the track record for the Domers in front of huge crowds doesn’t bode well, either. On TexAgs Live (newly rebranded from TexAgs Radio) today, Luke Evangelist revealed this eye-opening statistic: since 2006, the Irish are winless in ten road games in front of crowds larger than 90K. In front of crowds bigger than 100K, the Irish are 0 for 8.
That’s potentially huge for this Aggie squad. As I said, Kyle is virtually a lock to be packed to the gills. With a listed capacity just over 102K, I think the actual number will well exceed that mark—this will be an absolutely gigantic crowd.
While this is no guarantee of victory, it certainly should give Notre Dame fans pause. The environment that this team is walking into is no joke, and I think it will make a significant impact on this game.