AJ McCarron does not believe Tennessee is telling the truth about the raucous crowd noise at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville. The former Alabama quarterback believes his school’s biggest rival, according to Nick Saban, uses artificial sound to boost its home-field advantage.
However, he got slapped with an ice cold community note on X because of the claims.
This entire discussion started on Saturday. Crimson Tide Sports Network play-by-play broadcaster Chris Stewart definitively stated that the Volunteers pipes in fake crowd noise through its speakers on top of the max capacity crowd of 101,915. He did so while live on the radio.
Multiple members of the Tennessee staff laughed at the claim. Athletic director Danny White said it is just “100K+ beautiful, booming, Big Orange voices!” The university’s athletic department also had a laugh at Stewart and Alabama’s expense.
they’ll say we pipe in flyover noise as well 🙄#AFFlyover pic.twitter.com/k85xRzO1cl
— Tennessee Athletics (@Vol_Sports) October 21, 2024
Even though the Volunteers have vehemently denied the use of any supplemental crowd noise, the folks in and around Tuscaloosa aren’t buying it. McCarron played at Neyland Stadium in 2010 and 2012. He completed 17-of-22 passes for 206 yards in a dominant win as the starter during his second trip.
The 34-year-old thinks Tennessee is lying and ‘100%’ amplifies its environment with fake crowd noise.
100% they do
— AJ McCarron (@10AJMcCarron) October 21, 2024
X, formerly known as Twitter, hit McCarron with a vicious community note in response to his post.
There is no evidence to prove that sound has been pumped into the stadium or redirected toward the field at Neyland Stadium in the 2024 college football season.
— Readers added context on X
However, the community note only cites what appears to be an off-brand, Wikipedia-like website. It does not include any sort of discussion about the crowd noise. Not even one single sentence.
Of course, that lack of proper citation further fuels the conspiracy. If the Vols aren’t pumping fake audio through the speakers at Neyland Stadium, why isn’t there a credible source to prove they don’t?
On the flip side, AJ McCarron has not offered any reasonable explanation for his belief. All he said was yes. He did not explain why he would think Tennessee uses fake crowd noise. So…