Rattlers prepare for loud sounds of “The Horseshoe”

The FAMU football team went to great lengths to prepare for one crucial aspect of this weekend’s Ohio State football game.  The sports information and plant operations departments placed towering speakers on the sideline, resulting in a true emulation of the sound levels they will encounter this weekend in Ohio Stadium.

The stadium, known affectionately as "The Horseshoe" because of its shape, is known as one of the top five loudest stadiums in the country.  To prepare for the use of hand signals to call plays, Head Coach Earl Holmes requested the game sound to put the players through what they will face in the game.

"When it’s so loud you can’t hear yourself think, you’ve got to be solid in your visual communications.  Today, we got a good feel for what awaits us in Columbus," Holmes said.  "Looking at the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers game this weekend, you could see that Colin Kaepernick was struggling with communicating with his players.  We took this opportunity to prepare for the inevitable crowd in Ohio," Holmes added.

The speakers reached in excess of 120 decibels. They were closely monitored by Sports Information Director Vaughn Wilson, who took several measurements throughout the practice on a digital sound meter application. 

"It was pretty loud.  To think about having that level sustained for three hours is amazing.  The players seemed to adapt to it very quickly.  We played an actual recording of the ambient sound of a FAMU game and mixed in some recordings of the Ohio State band," Wilson said.