Former quarterback Chris Turner escaped Death Valley with a 20-17 win in 2008, but that success hasn’t stopped the Terps from preparing for the venue this week.
The cheering, whistling and screaming of an invisible crowd pierced the air at the Terrapin football team’s practice field yesterday, the grating sound refusing to leave the Terps for almost the entirety of their two-hour practice session.
The Terps know they need the noise. What they face this weekend, after all, will be far worse.
Inside Clemson’s Memorial Stadium on Saturday, they’ll take the field before an orange crush of about 80,000 screeching fans in a venue that is popularly known as “Death Valley.”
Piped-in noise is one thing. Playing at the Tigers’ den in a crucial ACC contest is another.
“We’ve been handling it better,” coach Ralph Friedgen said of the noise. “We’ll see how we handle it when the real crowd noise comes.”
The second-loudest outdoor sporting event ever recorded took place in Death Valley in 2005, when Clemson hosted Miami. The noise inside the stadium then reached 126 decibels — louder than standing next to a jackhammer and just a bit quieter than having a vuvuzela blown straight into your ear.
Given the game’s noon start time and relatively unappetizing matchup — Clemson has lost three straight games, and the Terps hardly rank as a big-time rival — Death Valley likely won’t be as deafening Saturday. But it’s still a world away from the hospitality of Byrd Stadium.
“If you’ve every been to Clemson, it’s just an unbelievable atmosphere,” Friedgen said. “It’s going to be very, very loud, and that’s something that you have to deal with. You have to keep your poise. You have to keep your confidence.”
A road trip to Clemson might be just the antidote the Terps need for their road maladies. The team has lost nine straight road games, with its last win coming more than two years ago, on Sept. 27, 2008. That victory came at Death Valley.
Wide receiver Torrey Smith remembered walking onto the field there before hitting what felt like a wall of sound.
“All I remember is that I was a redshirt freshman, and I was nervous,” Smith said. “It was so loud.”
Smith later scored the first touchdown of his career, helping the Terps earn a comeback 20-17 victory that silenced the Clemson crowd.
Since then, the Terps have been unable to do the same. In their one road game this season, at Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown, W.Va., a raucous West Virginia crowd set the tone from the start in a decisive 31-17 loss.
In front of more than 60,000 blue-and-gold-clad fans, the Terps struggled to handle the crowd noise, especially early. On their first possession, the Terps had four penalties that moved them back to their own 3-yard line in one three-and-out series.
But the handful of Terps who remember the team’s last road win said their experience at West Virginia can only partially prepare them for what’s in store down south.
“West Virginia’s hostile, but Clemson’s the loudest stadium I’ve ever played in,” Smith said. “We’ve got to communicate well and be confident, just go out there and focus on the 11 people in front of us, not the 80,000 shaking the stadium.”
kyanchulis@umdbk.com
