Albany heading to ‘a rock concert and a football game breaks out’

By Mark Singelais Albany Times Union

Fargo

The University at Albany football team hasn’t played in front of a crowd in 21 months since losing an NCAA playoff contest at Montana State on Dec. 7, 2019. All four games last spring were closed to the public because of COVID-19. The silence is about to be broken — in a deafening way. The Great Danes head west again to play at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at eight-time Football Championship

Subdivision champion North Dakota State in the Fargodome, which the Bison hail as “one of the loudest environments to play college football.”

How loud, exactly? One of my best explanations of what it’s like is the same one I tell a lot of recruits who have never been here before,” North Dakota State head coach Matt Entz said Monday. “It’s very similar to a rock concert and a football game breaks out as far as the volume and all that.”

Delaware head coach Danny Rocco, whose team is a Colonial Athletic Association rival of UAlbany, has twice lost games at the Fargodome.”

I coached in the Sugar Bowl when I was (an assistant) at Texas, we played Virginia Tech, and I always remembered that as being the loudest moment of my career as a coach,” Rocco said. “When we went up to Fargo, I’ll tell you what, I just felt that environment was plus-one when it came to the kind of noise, kind of energy they had in the

Fargodome. I’m assuming things are the same there.”

They should be back to normal now that the 18,700seat Fargodome has no seating capacity restrictions this fall. The capacity was limited to 50 percent during the pandemic last spring.

North Dakota State’s website says the decibel level routinely goes over 100 decibels. It reached 115 during a 2013 game, according to the school, the equivalent of a turbo-fan aircraft at close range.

That kind of noise could badly interfere with UAlbany quarterback Jeff Undercuffler’s ability to communicate with his offense, so the Great Danes have piped crowd noise into practice.

“We have a really nice sound system at Casey Stadium, so we’ve utilized that,” Great Danes coach Greg Gattuso said. “Some of the neighbors have been very patient with us in our early-morning practices. We’re doing everything we can to prepare. We have a couple of coaches who have coached in the (Fargo)dome and it’s always an advantage for a team to play at home, especially when they have a crazy, wild fan base.”

The crowd is only part of the reason the Bison had a 32-game home winning streak before it was snapped by South Dakota State last spring.

North Dakota State is also an exceptional program that has won eight of the past 10 national titles. The Bison had a down season, by their standards, with a 7-3 record in the spring and a loss to Sam Houston State in the NCAA quarterfinals.

The Bison had star quarterback Trey Lance for only one game last fall before he left the program to train for the NFL draft. He was taken third overall by the San Francisco 49ers, following in the footsteps of former North Dakota State quarterback Carson Wentz, the No. 2 overall pick to the Eagles in 2016.Entz has already named Virginia Tech transfer Quincy Patterson as his starter for Saturday against UAlbany.

The Great Danes are getting a $250,000 guarantee for traveling to Fargo, just two weeks before UAlbany faces Syracuse of the Atlantic Coast Conference in the Carrier Dome on Sept. 18.

“It’s a really difficult start to the season, but it’s just fun,” Gattuso said.

“It’s what we want to do. It’s why we scheduled Pitt (in 2018), Syracuse and people like that. It’s a great experience. There’s always that thing you want to compete against the best people out there and North Dakota State is obviously one of the top (FCS) programs in the country, if not the top program.”

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