Gators entering hostile territory

GAINESVILLE — UF offensive line coach John Hevesy’s ears were ringing Tuesday evening.

Piping in crowd noise at practice to prepare for a trip to LSU’s Tiger Stadium can be hazardous to one’s health.

It also could be the key for the No. 7 Gators (6-0, 3-0 SEC) to walk out of Death Valley Saturday night with an upset win over the No. 5 Tigers (5-0, 1-0).

Communicating on offense, shaking off mistakes and dealing with momentum swings become increasingly difficult when most everyone in the stadium is cheering against you.

“It’s why I can’t hear right now,” Hevesy said. “My ears are … deaf right now from sitting in practice doing it. It’s definitely as loud as it can be out there. We got the speakers up as loud as we can.

“Big speakers, about 10 feet behind them, so I don’t know if they can hear anything, but they just have to start learning the cadence of everything we’ve got to be on

top of.”

Hevesy and the Gators witnessed the impact a crowd could have last weekend when a sold-out Swamp rattled freshman quarterback Bo Nix and the Auburn Tigers into their first loss.

Now it’s the unbeaten Gators’ turn to handle a hostile environment.

“For Auburn, [coach] Gus Malzahn said he’d never been here before to play a game — so you kind of hear what it’s like,” Hevesy said of the Gators.

Last weekend’s atmosphere can be a teaching tool for coaches and a learning experience for players.

“I actually got a headache in the third quarter,” UF defensive tackle Kyree Campbell said of the Auburn game. “Dead serious, caught a migraine, but just had to tough it out.”

While the Swamp lived up to its reputation as one of college football’s toughest environments, road games do not get much more daunting than a visit to Death Valley at night. More than 100,000 fans are expected to turn out in force following a week of buildup and a long day of tailgating.

Add to that the fact the UF-LSU rivalry has become as heated as any on either team’s schedule, going back to the Gators’ 19-7 upset of Nick Saban’s 2003 squad in Tiger Stadium led by Florida freshman quarterback Chris Leak.

UF’s 2006 win in the Swamp featuring Tim Tebow’s jump pass, a 28-24 Gators’ loss a year later when LSU coach Les Miles went for it five times on fourth down and a 35-28 Tigers home win in 2015 on a fake field goal by Miles — a.k.a. “The Mad Hatter” — were instant classics.

The past five meetings were decided by one possession.

No UF-LSU game, though, might have been as emotionally charged as the Gators’ last visit to Death Valley, a 16-10 win in 2016.

Hurricane Matthew forced the game’s postponement until November in Baton Rouge following tense negotiations between school officials. Some shoving between LSU star tailback Leonard Fournette and UF secondary coach Torrian Gray during pregame warm-ups and a Tigers personal foul on the opening kickoff set the tone for a wild day.

The Gators completed the longest pass play in Tiger Stadium history — a 98-yard touchdown catch by Tyrie Cleveland — and delivered a goal-line stand in the final seconds to stun the LSU crowd.

“Great feeling,” Florida senior linebacker David Reese recalled. “Looking forward to being able to silence the crowd like we did my freshman year.”

Much has changed for both programs since then.

UF is back in the top 10 in Year 2 under Dan Mullen while the Tigers similarly have seized the national spotlight under Ed Orgeron, the team’s interim head coach back in 2016.

The atmosphere at Tiger Stadium rarely has wavered.

The challenge awaiting the Gators begins before the two teams take the field.

Receiver Josh Hammond recalled this week about LSU fans throwing “food and stuff ” at UF’s team bus.

“It’s definitely hostile,” Hammond said. “It’s kind of hard to explain to people if they’ve never kind of been. Best thing I can try to tell guys is just try to block it out, focus on what we can control, focus on making plays, focus on practice this week.”

Hammond, Reese and Cleveland are among six current Gators who have played at Death Valley — Freddie Swain, Lamical Perine and Jabari Zuniga are the others.

Quarterback Kyle Trask was a wide-eyed freshman third-stringer that day, but he will be under center Saturday night for his first start on the road.

“I’ve been at Death Valley,” Trask said. “I’ve seen how crazy it can get. That’s just another thing that we really have to focus on this week, is really communication. Obviously it’s a lot tougher to communicate when there’s a bunch of people screaming at you.”

The Gators will have to get on the same page quickly. The game clock seems to run more quickly during SEC road games.

“You’re going to burn probably eight seconds off just trying to hear everything with the quarterback telling everyone the play, compared to just yelling it across the board once,” Hevesy said. “So we have to move the process of everything up on the line of scrimmage.”

Mullen knows the challenge awaiting his team. The Gators are two-touchdown underdogs for the first time during his six seasons with the program, including four (2005-08) as offensive coordinator.

During his time at Mississippi State and UF, Mullen is 1-5 at Tiger Stadium — five of them night games.

“That’s what makes this league so special — the environments you go into,” Mullen said. “I think homefield advantage in the SEC is a legitimate huge advantage. And not because you’re staying in your home hotel or you’re more used to the routine and your surroundings.

“I think it is the actual fans on game day. I know the LSU fans always do a tremendous job of giving them home-field advantage when you have to go play there on Saturday night.”