Last summer, popular college football voice and host Josh Pate put Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium in the top spot of his toughest stadiums in the sport list. The conversation stemmed from EA Sports leaving Tennessee off its Top 10 loudest stadiums list for the 2026 installment of the beloved college football video game.
Pate talked about the noise coming down like an “avalanche of orange” and the perpetual sound of Rocky Top coming from the band and the fans throughout the game as reasons for why he chose what he did.
So, with Pate revisiting the same topic this week thanks to a viewer submission, the question was whether or not Pate would stick by his pick that was made less than 12 months ago. It turns out that he did. Pate kept Tennessee atop his list of the toughest stadiums to play in across the college football landscape.
He gave his reasoning for it during Friday’s episode of Josh Pate’s College Football Show on YouTube:
“Number one, has been for a while for me. Neyland Stadium,” Pate said. “I’ve got Tennessee and Neyland Stadium as the toughest place to play in college football. At its best, I have never seen anything like it. Now, I have seen Neyland Stadium at its best. I would call the Georgia game last year and the ‘Bama game in ’22 and ’24 the best I’ve ever seen college football. Defeaning noise. The most hostile environment, especially for the 2022 Alabama game. Roman Coliseum, ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’ Bloodthirst type afternoon, that you really don’t get to witness anymore. When you hear your grandfather talk about how it used to be that way, no man. It’s been that way in the last four or five years in Neyland Stadium, when they took Alabama down after, what, 15 consecutive losses or something like that? There was just this overflow of emotion. It changed me. It shaped me. It is the spectacle, the game, the experience through which I judge all other stadium experiences.”
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Pate has Tennessee beating out:
- No. 2 Tiger Stadium (LSU)
- No. 3 Beaver Stadium (Penn State)
- No. 4 Autzen Stadium (Oregon)
- No. 5 Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (Florida)
- No. 6 Husky Stadium (Washington)
- No. 7 Jordan-Hare Stadium (Auburn)
- No. 8 Kyle Field (Texas A&M)
- No. 9 Bryant Denny Stadium (Alabama)
- No. 10 Sanford Stadium (Georgia)
As part of the new nine-game SEC schedule, Tennessee will have five conference games at home this season and will play seven games in Neyland Stadium overall. Tennessee’s non-conference home games include Furman and Kennesaw State in Weeks 1 and 3, with conference home games against Texas, Auburn, Alabama, Kentucky, and LSU throughout the fall.
ESPN’s Dave Wilson tagged the Texas game on Sept. 26 in Knoxville as the Vols’ way-too-early season-defining game for the upcoming season.
“For one, it’s the Vols’ SEC opener,” ESPN’s Dave Wilson writes. “Second, it’s Texas’ first-ever trip to Knoxville, and fans are going to be riled up for ‘The REAL UT’ debate. This is a classic ‘measuring stick’ game. The Vols are breaking in a new quarterback with Joey Aguilar’s legal attempts to gain another year being denied, and the much-maligned defense will get a makeover with longtime DC Jim Knowles taking over. Taking on Texas’ retooled offense around Arch Manning will show if the defense is ready to help Tennessee bounce back.”
Check out Josh Pate’s full Toughest CFB Stadiums rankings in the video below:
